The Quotidian

headed for the whitney

it's making me nostalgic to reread all of these posts from that heady 14 months of eavesdropping travel! now that we are headed for the 'chance encounter' performance this coming feb 13 at the whitney museum, i'm hoping some of you will check out the process - try clicking on some of my favorite posts, to the right, or just spelunk around in here - it was quite a process. meanwhile, hope to see some of you at the whitney - performance times are 6:50 and 8:05pm. whitney is at 75th and madison in nyc. 

here are a few pix from the premiere in seward park, for old times' sake. ah the september sun!

overheard at 'chance encounter'

the weather cleared for our two performances on friday, although it rained that morning and then began again shortly after we finished our last notes - and then a big rainbow came up over seward park!

the past week was an intensive one, with rehearsals - first in the brooklyn lyceum, where we were able to take over the whole building and move the two groups of musicians around so we could approximate the experience of playing outside, a half a block or so away from each other - and then our dress rehearsal on site in seward park on thursday, which was actually like a first performance of sorts, of course, because there were people there watching and listening. a couple of mounted policemen came by - one of them came to the show the next day and told me that the music calmed his horse down.

what an amazing experience to hear the piece finally, nestled in the city soundscape, which is its native home.

there will be photographs and stories here as i receive them - but there are already these wonderful overheard fragments, faithfully reported to me by friends who shared the experience at seward park with us on friday:

"why are they all leaving?"

"Where'd the musicians go? I went to look for them and couldn't find them anywhere. I even looked in the trees."

and this lovely testimony from another friend who was there:
"With the kids crying and the police cars you stop focusing only on the performance and took in your surroundings as a whole including the performance. very very cool. and the creepy yellow light of sun setting wow."

thanks everyone who came for helping usher this piece into its new public life! more to come......

first rehearsal

over the weekend we had the first rehearsal of 'chance encounter' - i was so relieved to hear people coming in just where they should have, which means that the complex cueing in the piece is adequately represented in the parts. this was one of the big challenges of scoring the piece: cueing the parts.

now we have a week before reconvening in rehearsal again, during which time the players and susan can continue their own work with a clearer picture in their heads of how it will all eventually sound & feel. it was quite interesting to discover that, as i suspected would be the case, there were sections that were harder to play with everyone together in one room than they will be with the two groups of musicians much further apart. each rehearsal now we will add in a new element - spatial distance, movement, outdoor run-through. this means a couple of rehearsals with walkie-talkies!

our email flyer....

what's the music like?

ok, enough of you have asked me this, and of course it is always hard to step outside of it when one has been living inside of it for so long. but here are a few thoughts, for those of you who are asking me this question, in your minds (or in real life!):

reverse cyrano

it's funny - i just relocated up to cambridge, where i will be spending my schoolyear as a radcliffe fellow. so now i have an apartment right near harvard square. but of course i am putting in long hours proofreading the parts for 'chance encounter' now, since our first rehearsal is in just over a week. it's a strange way to get to know the new neighborhood, because my apartment is on the first floor, with windows opening right out onto the courtyard, where people are moving in for the schoolyear. there's even a bench right outside my window, where people have been sitting having conversations about various things all day. because i have my shutters closed (otherwise people could see right into my apartment), nobody is aware that i can hear everything they say. suddenly i realized, i suppose because of my strange, almost irrepressible urge to suggest things to say to whomever is standing closest to my window (in a loud stage whisper, for example), that this surreptitious eavesdropping habit i have developed has an odd transposition in the figure of cyrano de bergerac. what is the relationship between saying things without one knowing i am saying them, and hearing things without one knowing i am hearing them?

road map

a series of meetings "in" (at?) (on?) the performance space the last week or so. susan and i decided exactly where each player will enter and leave seward park during the performance of 'chance encounter,' and which ones will emerge from taxis, which from the east side diner across the street, etc. then there was the meeting with the archivists - both photo and video - who spent much of their energies trying to find stake-outs either within the library or around the park from which they could capture the changing spatial landscape of the piece. now i am deep in parts preparation, making sure that each player's individual part gives only the information and instructions that she/he needs - no more no less. the entire spectacle will unfold somewhat like a rube goldberg design, or one of those huge domino concoctions i used to see on 'sesame street.' each instrumentalist, then, is like one domino at any given moment. their part must simply tell them "when domino behind you falls and hits you, fall down." of course, the process of creating and proofreading such parts makes my brain hurt, but in a good way...

and saul bellow

...who provided an interesting foil or at least a contrast to durrell:

"Jet engines would tear me from the ground at two thousand miles per hour but where was I going, and what for? The reasons for this terrific speed remained unclear."

"By means of music a man affirmed that the logically unanswerable was, in a different form, answerable. Sounds without determinate meaning became more and more pertinent, the greater the music."

this guy is the master of the pithy phrase. little gems like these by bellow sharpened my ear, helped me catch some of the most miniature overheard items:

"Certain flowers persist."

"I avenged myself by making progress."

and one of my favorite quotes ever:

"Naturally he died a Failure. What else can result from the capitalization of such nouns?"

epigraphs from lawrence durrell

switching gears now from composition to production, setting up rehearsal schedules, tackling such lofty questions as 'what kind of music stands are best to use outdoors?' and 'where will the players leave their cases?'

also enjoying archiving the drafts and sketches, and remembering the powerful influence i felt from various writers as we first began this project a year ago. here are some quotes i underlined in lawrence durrell's alexandria quartet, which i was reading when i starting writing 'chance encounter.' an additional excerpt is on the chance page, but there are so many others! his spirit - a tenderness for humanity that found its particular poetry in public, urban life; his radical relativism (a quality that i hope i might be accused of sharing), the pace and scope of his powers of observation - these things were so inspiring to me. i realize now that his spirit permeates the whole piece. here he is:

note from underground

wow that was a whole month! i was, in fact, in compositional lockdown, finishing the score to 'chance encounter.' a month ago i was working around 12 hours a day, taking a break early on to run a couple of miles. three weeks ago i was working 14 hours a day but still cooking food at home. two weeks ago i was working 16-17 hours a day, ordering indian food, not answering the phone, never leaving the apartment. my friend ellen saved me from myself for four days at the very end, hosting me in her beautiful pennsylvania home replete with food grown in the garden, and kindnesses of every sort from both her and her lovely husband nick. they made me feel totally comfortable taking over their living room and working all day all day all day. but there i could take a break and have nature! human company! beautiful food! thank you guys!!

so - the score is 75 pages long, a half-hour total, with four topical sections and instrumental solos in between. shall i share some of it here? let's start with the words. at certain points in the score things have been left open so newly-found text can be sung, but here are the ones that are etched in laser-ink. i'll post again soon - after a few forays into the real world, re-acquainting myself with the gym and the grocery store :)