November 20 - Spires Ascending

Hear from Marty Rokeach, who confirms that Lino Rivera and he are planning to have me teach Music and the Enlightment aat St. Mary's College in Moraga next Spring. This will dovetail nicely with responsibilities at Diablo Valley College, and may be part of new movement afoot if West Virginian mine shaft opens up, or any other acts of random unkindness in higher economics and government, where friends in reasonably high places are of no avail.



The Analysis Quiz (a week earlier than usual [it has often fallen on the day before Thanksgiving, and that back in the days of shorter MW(F!) classes], with examples from Philip Glass and Sting), more music by John Vietch (and an interesting excerpt -- for a change -- from Stephen Sondheim [his Stravinskian Fanfare-for-a-New-Theatre analogue overture to The Flies]), a provisional recording of Joshua Fought the Battle: II. Shall We Gather (almost orchestrated completely before heading out for the day), then heading over the Berkeley Hills (above from 8/25/08) the long way for a rendezvous at Philly Cheesesteaks (where a call to George is challenged by one-heck-of-a-loud tad).


San Francisco through the maze of avenues in the south Mission hollow to pick up a check at Lewis Campbell's for Harriet, a cruise back along the coast to the scene of the non-crime, check of the Marin box (yes, checks... looks like we're still vaguely in business), and home for high jinx.

October 5 - Berkeley Heroes Sandwich

,

The days are full, and this one will eventually lead to the University of California at Davis, where last Monday I caught up with the prospect of Bette's disability (via cellphone in the redwoods) and reviewed the score of Aaron Copland's Music for the Theatre for orchestrational advice.



Today begins finding the old transposition (beginning down a third on Bb from the original D) of Antigone: XII. The Pride of Oedipus for Micah (who has now joined our rehearsals as of today, above). Also, a new shifting -- m3 south -- for XX. I've Had Them Laid, plus email all the midi files to William Loney for choreography.


And, yes, the Berkeley Chamber Arts rehearsal, with our assembled forces for Antigone, including Meghan Dibble (Eurydice / Nurse), Eliza O'Malley (Antigone), Kimberley Anderman (Ismene),


directed by Harriet March Page, with Erin Lahm (Guard), Adam Broner (Chairman), Michael Desnoyers (Haemon / Guard / Messenger), Micah Epps (Creon), Terrence Bennan (Puppetmaster), Lisa McHenry (Page), and Alix Jerenic (Handmaid). Re-arriving next week are Maria Mikheyenko (Guard), Dalyte Kodzis (Handmaid), and William Loney (Guard). Perhaps I'll jump in as Guard at some point, too -- among one of our largest casts!


And Keisuke Nakagoshi at the piano, of course. John Bilata's Quantum Mechanic goes well, too, with both composer and librettist in attendance and a burgeoning subtext romance for Mrs. Schrodinger and the Mechanic. John takes the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra scores to Martha Stoddard after rehearsal, as she has agreed to conduct in my stead during this scheduling times of collisions with Opera Apocalypse performances.



Afterwards, another fine singer from San Francisco Conservatory auditions for us,


then Harriet's off to Melinda's while I head home, past the Claremont Hotel,


through the Caldecott Tunnel,



to the Orinda side,


aside the Shakespeare Festival Hills,



and eventually to Davis, again, to receive instrumentation advices from the Igor Stravinsky Threni (filling tank on way back [at the least expensive price in these times and places -- $4.46 / gal] by dark, derelict trucks),



for Amazing Joseph: VI. Why Don't You Do Something?, first page of which is orchestrated upon return.

September 24 - Windows Onto and Unto the Worlds

We all have our constructs, and music and nature seem to be as good for many. The theoreticians get J.S. Bach's Cantata 140 ("Wachet Auf") Chorale for dictation, harmonization, and keyboard-solfege, plus a little Fugue in G Minor ("Little") and more dynamic second compositions from Desiree (revisted from yesterday, as the piece featured a "one-note-changes-perceptions" issue), Clarissa (for sight-singing), and Danny (with an evocative pop-sensibility and a classical sense of contrast).


Beyond, it's a walk on the Old San Pablo Dam Trail from the East Bay Municipal Water District Headquarters -- past meadows, forests, and mountains -- with views of the


Reservoir and


the Sobrante Ridge,


to the Inspiration Trail's ascent up the east slope of the Berkeley Hills,



which takes on increasing stature



during the loop back on San Pablo Dam Road,



with grasslandic / chaparallic vistas again of Sobrante Ridge,



ending near downslope of a Berkeley Hills upland meadow of trimmed trees and power lines.


Then it's off to Marin to drop off the journal in San Rafael,


check the post box in San Anselmo, below Mt. Tamalpais and


Bald Hill (namesake?), and do the Celia's-paper-grading thing.


Oh, yes, upon returning home, finish the orchestration of The Passion According to St. Matthew: II. Where Will You Go and begin III. Truly, I Say to You (One of You Will Betray Me), the latter seemingly orchestrationally influenced by the Stravinsky Requiem Canticles: Tuba Mirum again plus Alban Berg's Wozzeck: Act II, Scene 5.

September 20 - From Sky to Sky to Sky

Off to Sky's house in Berkeley for an Ophelia Forever rehearsal, under lowering stratus,



clearing enough to allow a walk thereafter in the East Bay Municipal Water Districts lands from the Briones Trailhead to the EBMUD Office (conveniently closed on the weekends),


looping back on San Pablo Road, with views of the lower east slopes of the Berkeley Hills,



then home, towards Mt. Diablo,



past Poverty Hills,


Lagoon Valley,


and the North Lagoon Mountains, for more orchestration of Abraham and Isaac: XI. The Sacrifice (with an angelic voice in the heavens) -- to page 54.