My Weekend

No one is calmer

Than Palmer’s embalmer.

— Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

 

Things are not as they appear to be, nor are they otherwise.

Lankavatara Sutra 

On Saturday, my friend Paul Carlson created the public première of Petersburg Nocturne, Opus 11 № 5 in his Lowell loft, in his final concert before summer. Paul did a lovely job. It’s a piece I wrote some 30 years ago, and although I am no pianist it’s a piece pretty close to within my limited technical compass, so I had played it any number of times en famille. This was the first time I’ve heard the piece played upon a physical piano in decades, and Paul’s performance took me back to the apartment in Petersburg. There were nine in the audience (incl. yrs truly) and everybody received the piece well. The irregular meters at the relaxed tempo create a nice fluidity, I think. When I mentioned this at dinner after the concert, Paul remarked: but you still have to count.

Yesterday, I enjoyed the pleasure of the last Charles River Wind Ensemble concert of the season. The chief work on the program, a collaborative effort with the Andover Choral Society, Christopher Marshall’s Glimpses of Love, a fourteen-movement piece setting Rumi texts, commissioned by CRWE Music Director Matt Marsit. A gorgeous piece, though I wish I might have heard the choir better.

A year ago today was my last as Music Director at Holy Trinity United Methodist Church in Danvers.