In an extension of the Thanksgiving season, we had a wonderfully productive choir rehearsal last night, so that even with a rescheduling of next week's rehearsal to a different day of the week (which at this season, is bound to conflict with other events, so that attendance will perforce be down somewhat), we are reasonably well prepared for both this Sunday and the following, and are well on track with the actual Christmas anthem.
Checking the info for "The Quijote Project," I find that word of a decision does not come until the end of January . . . coinciding nicely with the brace of concerts we are cooking up astride the January/February divide.
For those two concerts, I have started a quartet for flute, clarinet, guitar and bass, Jazz for Nostalgic Squirrels; pleased with the start I've made, looking forward to further work this weekend.
The passacaglia in Plotting continues to expand. There was a stretch of two-three days in which it was allowed to 'cool', and my thinking while working away was, I might wind up shifting things around; but in reviewing The State of the Passacaglia last night, I was astonished to find just how pleased I was with it, as is. The scheme for this grand heart of the piece is three roughly equal sections: in the first, the theme remains in a 'home key' (a kind of c minor); in the second, the theme moves about, pitch-wise; in the third . . . I've been planning on another 8-10 variations, and my present work (continued at length this morning) has been devising the harmonic underpinning of 1) the continued moving-about, against 2) various contrapuntal applications of the theme. Probably I will wind up with 2-3 codetta-ish variations returning to the kind-of-c-minor.
Nor have I completely forgotten My Island Home . . . though I seem to be itching to whip up a Christmas-ish duet for clarinet and violin.
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