2/2013 continued

FULL CIRCLE TIME MACHINE  @ Weirdo Records

Last Saturday, I took the bus down to Boston for what turned out to be another slightly extended (but eventful) trip. Unlike the past couple of times I've gone, I took a late morning bus. This got me to town around 3pm. Though I was staying in JP, I went directly to the Conservatory to drop off some of my stuff. I ended up sticking to that area until 7:30 or so. This gave me time to have lunch and do a bit of playing. The week before was a busy one in terms of performances, so the horn stayed in its case for a few days.

Later, I met up with Mark and our friend Daniel Pencer - a great reed player who I'm writing a tenor saxophone piece for. We drove out to Union Square in Somerville to hear this concert on the open sound series.  We were all feeling pretty hungry, so we skipped out on the last set, but what we heard, I really liked. The first 3 sets were: Orlando Cela playing contemporary flute solos (one of which was Cassandra's Dream Song by Brian Ferneyhough), a pianist (name forgotten) who played a movement from a Michael Finnissy piece, and a Banjo Duo from the Berkshires playing a medley of very well-disguised and deconstructed pop hits! The Finnissy that was played is represented in the video below, with the score:

I lived about 7 minutes from Union Square in September, but I didn't really explore it that much. After the concert, Mark took us to this really great Indian restaurant next door. It was a bit pricy, but totally worth it. If I move back to Boston, Somerville would be a great place to live. It's fairly removed from the rest of the metro area, and it's price is comparable to VT as well.

The next morning, I woke up having some epileptic issues, and ended up catching a few extra hours of sleep. I took it real easy that entire day, but I felt great on the day of the show at Weirdo. Andrew (who played on the 1/9/13 trio in VT) opened with two new songs, then played duo with Andy Allen. I'd been thinking about doing a melodica solo, so I worked up Nonaah by Roscoe Mitchell, and FCTM closed. Tara and I really seem to thrive after long breaks, but I do hope we can play more often. Our next scheduled performance is with the NEC Wind Ensemble on 4/16 (tax day!). Angela (the owner of Weirdo) took video of everyone's set, which you can see below. There were a good number of people there, including a few that nobody knew. I love playing for new folks, and I thought the whole thing was great:



The next day, all the offices at NEC had opened and I got the parts for the 4/16 performance to the ensemble library. I had originally planned to get out of Boston on Wednesday, but changed my ticket to Thursday so I could see a few more people, and relax a bit. I had lunch with Joe Morris, and the Contemporary Improvisation department had a retrospective concert Tuesday night. Alot of my friends were involved in this, and I'm really glad I didn't have to get up so early the next morning. Before the concert, they had a panel with Ran Blake, Tanya Kalmanovich, Allan Chase, Hankus Netsky, and Gunther Schuller, during which I was sucked into doing a quick copy job (one of the big band people lost their saxophone part). I got paid, but it would have been nice to just sit and listen. They had some pretty interesting stories!



My last full day in town began at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum with Clare. When I worked there for the Earle Brown Symposium last month, they gave me a couple of free passes. I'd been there a couple of times before for concerts, but never really for more than an hour. When you walk through it, there only a few maps and little blurbs. For the most part, everything is unlabeled. This makes it feel more like the house it was, I'm sure. I love that place, and I definitely want to go back again soon.

      The rest of the day involved going up to Weirdo again to retrieve a sweater I left there, and getting some new music. I ended up with No Doughnut in Hand, an album of vocal improvisations by Phil Minton. I listened to it on the bus home yesterday, and am still speechless. What a strange, awesome musician he is.

I met up with a few people when I got back to the NEC area, including Allison Poh, a flutist who's digging into a piece of mine. We met for about an hour, and whenever she plays it for an audience, it's going to be really sweet.

I'm going back in less than two weeks for a performance of another piece in the same series. My friend Matt Ebisuzaki asked me to write it for his recital on March 9th. It's the only piece in the series that's not a solo (there's going to be a cellist), and it utilizes a transparent sheet of blank staff paper. I'm looking forward to hearing the result.

  

The Month of February

It's been one hell of a week here in Burlington, and this shows no sign of letting up soon (I'm headed to Boston on Saturday to play at Weirdo Records again!)

On Monday, I played my first show with the Brass Balagan. This has to be the most fun I've had playing music in a long time. We were playing in a fundraiser for the Spielpalast Cabaret at Muddy Waters (a cabin-like coffee shop on Main Street), and there had to have been at least 70 people there - probably more. They were all dancing, and the band was fairly mobile as well. When I started playing with the Balagan, I recognized some of their tunes from an ensemble I took at NEC. That ensemble was directed by Dave Harris, who told us "It's much better to play for 100 people dancing." I fully understand now that he was right.

Yesterday, I slept in, and finished a whole bunch of copywork. I wanted to practice for my solo set at the Radiobean, but decided that it would be better to practice mentally rather than go in with set ideas. I think I made the right choice. I'm still feeling pretty lucid from the two sets I played (one solo, and the other with Arthur Brooks and Anthony Santor), and I'm glad I went in there without any physical preparation for my solo set. I definitely did alot of pre-planning, and listening, but my goal for the next solo set I do is to play with absolutely no pre-conception. I recently have found that the things I didn't plan in a solo performance are always the things that sound and feel the best. I'd like to try this with that fact being a goal.

Also, my theory of repetition is proving to be a winner. I always find that the cycles I get into (within an improvised performance) are really interesting, but they never go on long enough. This is something that has improved in the last couple of months, but still needs work. The next time I plan a 30-minute solo set, it will have 2 or 3 ideas that I'll really stick to - you can hold me to that! For now, here's what we did tonight. I'm really liking it, and as always, I'm looking forward to doing more:

Tomorrow, Balagan is playing for a march protesting violence against women. For this occasion, the point person asked me to do an arrangement of the pop hit You Don't Own Me by Lesley Gore. The band is playing it really well, and I'm looking forward to doing it in a performance situation. The Brass Balagan is definitely a physical band, I love the energy that goes into their performances.

The Balagan - pre 2013

That ought to be a great time. In other news I went to a flea market with a fellow Balaganer named Bob Belcher (no relation) and found a perk coffee maker for $2. In addition to braking my "no coffee in VT" rule, this brought back serious memories of camping trips, and life in general back in the day, helping remind me that I'm New England as all hell!

Here's to more adventure :)

The Bailey-Howe Library, the Internet, and Simple(r) Living

The entrance to UVM's Library, behind the Royall Tyler Theatre

I've realized in the last several weeks that one of my patterns is to spend time on the UVM campus to get work done, particularly in their main library. on an average of three or four days a week, you'll find me there.

This is outside of practicing for performances and (now bi-monthly) church jobs. Had I not passed through the entire UVM campus to get to my workplace, I don't think I'd spend as much time there now. It's become a second home, in a way. This is in no small part due to the expanse and open nature of both the library, and the entire campus. And, despite this openness, being in the library and looking out the window is reminiscent of being surrounded by a huge skyline. This is still something I often think about and miss. Indeed, there is a UVM skyline from this view. Doing my work in the Bailey-Howe library is great. There's a built-in cafe where I can access the web with an ethernet cable, and eat when I need to. I usually bring a sandwich, trail mix, and tea. Even when the cafe is closed, people can go behind the counter and fill containers with hot water. I've yet to pull an all-nighter, but that area is open 24/7.

The UVM skyline

More recently, I've been taking advantage of their book collection. I can't check books out, but I can read whatever I want when I'm there. This being a university, what I'm about to say might sound silly, but a great epiphany of mine was to look around and realize, "Wow. I could read about almost anything from the books they have here."

Another realization I had, though quite a long time ago, is that I don't have alot of stuff. Aside from the two plastic drawers I own and two small-ish tubs of clothing, I'm looking around my room, and can count 4 small to mid-sized moving boxes. Most of them haven't been unpacked, and they contain only books, CD's, and sheet music. I now own only two brass instruments, and a small chord organ. The organ lives in a suitcase, which also contains most of my handwritten scores. From 2011 until recently, most of my music was handwritten. I put some things into finale during that time, but only when I found it difficult to read when handwritten (vocal music mostly), or if it was for a large group of people (the one wind ensemble piece I've written in recent history).

I work as a music copyist and arranger, and in January I bought a second laptop to better facilitate this work. The laptop was owned by a friend, and had all of the software I needed to do my work. With that  computer came a whole lot of extra GB's of storage. Because of that storage, I'm currently transferring my CD collection to this laptop and backing it up. When this process is complete, I'll be able to let most of my CD's go. There are a few that I want to hang on to, but most of them will go. That's one less box I'll have to deal with.

I'll hang onto a lot of my books, and of course any personal letters that I've received, but I'm sure I can find a way to get rid of some of that mass, or at least fit them into a more efficient box. The content of the plastic drawers is mostly paper. Some of this paper is important, but I imagine I can thin out a good bit. This gets easier every year, and now that I'm not in school, I'm not constantly bringing home tests, packets, or other things that get stored away like this...

The two tubs of clothing have come in handy, but I imagine that they will be replaced rather than expanded over time. The lack of wooden chests is something that continues to make my life easier. The only reason I had to rent a U-Haul trailer to get up here was the size of my mattress, and I'll add that I'm thinking of downsizing to a twin bed (when it's time to leave this town).

My main source for reading has become the library. Anything else, I can dig out of my two boxes of books, or find on the internet. I've still been watching TED talks like a crazy person, and the one below is a good example of something I'm maybe trying to get at (though I know getting rid of what little I have won't solve all of my money issues).

While I'm not trying to be an evangelist for simplification, I'm definitely finding the idea of it beneficial to my state of mind, physical health, and day-to-day dealings. I also think that this will translate to my future. A few years ago I told a roommate that If I had to move tomorrow and start life in a new place, I could. This still rings true, perhaps now with greater volume than ever.