It is 12:36 AM, and now April 21st. This means that I've been in Massachusetts for 18 days. My plan was to leave shortly after the NEC Wind Ensemble played Donald Miller Piece on the 16th, but when the two bombs went off in Copley Square on Marathon Monday, I felt the urge to suspend any travel plans, and spend more time with my family. I am currently in my hometown, in the house we moved into when I was ten years old. I don't intend to stay here very long before going back to my Nana & Granddad's house, and I can't shake the need to be writing about this stuff right now. Shortly before I left Boston, I went around the perimeter of the barricade surrounding Copley, and it's really strange. I hope the area can return to some sort of normal state soon. I usually spend a decent amount of time there (it's close to NEC, but just far enough away to be away).
Boylston Street at the Barricade on April 17th (photo by Matt Gilbert)
All of this weeks events (the Marathon bombings, as well as my premiers) coincide with my getting deeper into the pages of Haruki Murakami's 1Q84, and I can't help but note the kind of insight that this book has given me. It's a strange thing, and as I had told my best friend this past week, "Words fail me sometimes, as you know." Since I began reading 1Q84, I have been noting certain passages that stuck out for one reason or another. Like in Donald Miller Piece, it seems like at any given point this month, there have been six or seven things happening simultaniously, and various fragments from Murakami's book have spoke to several of them. That's the best I can do with my words, and below are some of his:
"What did it mean for a person to be free? ...Even if you managed
to escape one cage, you were just in another, larger one."
"This marks a borderline... From now on, I will no longer be the person I was"
"It's nothing I could talk about to anyone. No, I can't go to a doctor. I have to solve this on my own."
"Do not get abandoned in the Cat Town."
"What happens from here on out is unknown territory for anybody. There's no map. We don't find out what's waiting for us around the next corner until we turn it. I have no idea."
- Haruki Murakami (1Q84)
I don't know now when I'll be leaving MA, but I do know that I need a few more days to decompress. The bombing aside, this month has retained a fast pace, and I'm glad I have some time to chill out, reading about the Town of Cats.
Where did March go (I'm freaking serious...)?...? ???
I really meant to write about a couple things sooner, one being the two weeks I spent in Boston this past month. I may have said a few things before I went, but the last week has been crazy up here, and at the moment, my mind is racing (possibly, from the two cups of coffee I consumed before playing with the Balagan tonight). In some cases, a racing mind isn't the best thing, but this is a rather pleasant bout of thoughts.
Let's start with the most recent thing. This week, the Balagan decided that we were going to crash an April Fools Art Auction in which an "item" of ours (basically, a surprise Balagan performance/flashmob at the event of your choosing) was being auctioned off to benifit a local arts fund. It was very low key, and everyone showed up right before we started to play - no time for warming up or anything. I think we took some people by surprise, but I'm sure some had caught on to what we were doing. The auction was held at 242 Main Street, a mid-sized Blackbox type of space. I think there were somewhere between 20-26 people there in all, and it felt really neat to just come on and off. It reminded me a little bit of The Stone in NYC, how compact it was, and the way people were seated. I think Ben Aleshire won our item. I don't know him personally, but I've heard he's a neat Burlington artist/writer, who wrote an equally neat article about the Old North End, where a good number of Burlington's art/music people live.
I slept in this morning until about 11:30, recovering from a barrage of Easter weekend musical activities, which included a Good Friday service, a non-related Samba gig (with some members of the Balagan), and an Easter service. Since I got back (less than 2 weeks ago), I've been able to keep pretty busy with various gigs, rehearsals, shows, and new pieces I've been asked to write, at a rather quick pace. Two of the newbies are getting played in Boston next week, and they've really taken shape up here:
excerpt from _5 Chilcot_ __. for solo bass (4/10 premiere - Andrew Chilcote's recital @ NEC)
Excerpt from _8b _yde (b) for solo percussionist (4//1 premiere - Eliza Kinney's recital @ NEC)
There are two other new-ish pieces being played on 4/12 and 4/16. The 4/12 performance is at the Advent Library in Downtown Boston. Other than a solo flute piece that I wrote over the summer (from the same series as the two above), I have no idea what I'm going to do. Allison Poh is going to play the hell out of it, though. Come out!
Excerpt from _11 Summer _23 for solo flute (4/12 premiere - Advent Library in Downtown Boston)
We read the Wind Ensemble piece last year (around this time), and I thought the session came out well enough to ask Charles Peltz (NEC director of Wind Ensemble activities) if we could have a second reading, or perform it. I was only slightly surprised by a quick and enthusiastic response to my proposal. After the reading, I remember Mr. Peltz telling me "I live to make composers happy." I seriously believe this, and I hope to find more conductors out there who think the same way.
Back to Burlington: After getting stuck in Boston due to Icy conditions, I returned on 3/21. Probably the first thing to really happen (ther than alot of serious reading and napping) was that the Balagan played at a memorial service for Brian Perkins' Mother-in-Law. Brian is one of the more proactive organizers in the Balagan, particularly when it comes to keeping rehearsals flowing, and we had a really great quorum of people for that performance. We all drove out to Middlebury, and played outside while people were entering the church, and added a few more tunes indoors before the service began. I can't express how much I love playing at community-oriented things like this. There's a part of it that's indescribable for me, but above all, there's an element of communication between band members and our audience that isn't met in some other settings.
Four nights later, we were playing at the Bean - opening for a really incredible band called the Underscore Orkestra. Most of them are from Portland OR, but the have toured all over, and have a strong network of musicians all over the continent. They just came back from a tour in Australia, and I was more than surprised and delighted to see Enrico Solano (percussion) in their Burlington lineup. We spent a year in the CI program at NEC, and he's now living in NYC. What's great is that he met the band about 8 years ago in Mexico City when they were touring. These are the kind of chance meetings and lasting connections that musicians like us are really searching for.
My last week in Boston was particularly eventful. I played with the Boston College wind ensemble on St. Patrick's day at the Natick High School, in a concert shared by their concert band, and the Metropolitan Wind Symphony. Before the concert, I ran into Dan Lasdow, who was my first music teacher - ever. He retired as the music director of my hometown school system when I was 13, but he's still playing, and sounds as good as ever. It was great to run into him, and I'll be going back to my hometown to play in an alumni band under his direction in May.
Also notable from that same week is the 2 hours of music that Elan Asch and I recorded in NEC's Organ classroom, with another friend of ours, Ian Headley behind microphone placement and mixing. Not all of it is up yet (these are big files), but here's the first one, and a picture. Below the picture is a field recording that Ian made when he was in Venice, and happened upon a fisherman's protest of new regulations. As he pointed out, they share some sonic characteristics.
R
recording with Elan Asch
There's one more thing I need to clack about before I tie up this post. My good friend Ben Wu has left Boston for his native Michigan. We did our master's at the same time, and ended up doing alot of playing together. He's currently deciding on where to do his DMA (he has two offers), and I hope we get to play again sometime soon. A day or two before I left, we did some duo playing at the BU CFA, and had dinner at a Korean place in Allston. We also watched a Don Hertzfeld movie, and went exploring in Harvard Square, where we found a new Insomnia Cookies (open til 3AM, and completely new to Boston. Can you imagine who their clientele must be at that hour?!).
All of this ties into what is Ben's world, and I've been fortunate to have a pretty strong association with him over the last two years in particular. As soon as I get the recording of our last session, I'll be posting it for sure!
