One Date Pinned Down, at Last

 No, I’m not willing to boil in the chowder, for I am an innocent clam.

— From an (abandoned) early draught of a Billy Joel song.

Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

She batted all o’ them big eyes at you, and you fell for it like a — an egg from a tall chicken.

— Jas Coburn in Stanley Donan’s Charade

The Henning Ensemble will perform again at the Woburn Public Library on Pleasant Street at 3PM Friday, 8 August 2025.

Separately, from the past: I got asked “Why don’t you write like {name}?” The only answer to that is, I wouldn’t be writing like me. I have a certain voice that is my own.
In much the same way, at times the conductor of an ensemble, having done me the courtesy of looking through a score of mine, replies regretfully, “Your music is not like [composer N.], whose work we like.” Now, composer N., I expect, writes perfectly good music. But where do you get the idea that, for my music to be excellent, it must be similar to music you already know? Some imagination here, people! (19 June 2016)

Pictured is the Libella Quartet at the WGBH studios where they sang a program 15 years ago today, a program with included the setting of Poe’s “Annabel Lee” which they had commissioned of me.