October 2 - Biding Time Palindromically

Help Harriet a bit in the morning with press shots for Antigone (Maria Mikheyenko and Erin Lahm as Guards above), then



Quiz 7 for the Theoreticians, with examples drawn from J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, W.A. Mozart, Franz Gruber, and Frederic Chopin; and recording Amazing Joseph: II. Meanwhile, Judah in the lab thereafter.



Watch the Biden-Palin debate with Harriet, while catching up with the newspapers and beginning the orchestration of AJ: III. Now the Ishmaelites (Potiphar's Wife), which is finished late (17 pages, cruising in the second half, since the piece is palindromic [!] -- inspired by Igor Stravinsky's mirror deluge in The Flood)

September 14 - I Just Like To Pet Soft Things

LENNIE: I just like to pet soft things.

CURLEY'S WIFE: Well, who don't? Ever'body like that....

Final performance of our triumphant Mice and Men mini-run (above tag was the cast's incantation before going on stage), and a good time was had by all, with our largest audience, biggest box office, most champagne drunk and cake eaten, etc., and how nice to see Erin Lahm and Maria Mikheyenko return to their lovely femininity after pants-role turns as Slim/Whit and Lennie respectively -- looking forward to their being guards (but let's make them female this time!) in November's Antigone!



Brief stop at Doug and Miriam's while Harriet checks with M re costume designs for A, Orphelia Forever, and The Quantum Mechanic -- while I continue to attempt to organize photos from last August's southern California walking trip, on the floor with the computer in a position that Miriam finds amusing.... (O.K., guess it is...)...



Home at last, and the four pages of orchestration that are Abraham and Isaac: IX. The Deception (an easy feat, since the instrumentation and music -- but not the tempo and words -- are identical to the second strain of II. The Separation). Also post half the recordings...

IV. Fly Away
VI. You Shouldn't Work for Nothing
VII. How to Depart
VIII. On His Way
IX. One Day Dinah

...of Israel in Trouble at markalburgerworks.blogspot.com.

September 12 - Vaseline? What the Hell For?

Another successful Mice and Men tonight (above with Wayne Wong [George], Maria Mikheyenko [Lennie], and Alix Jerenic [Candy]), with the biggest turnout yet -- the cast has developed a tradition before going into the house that involves standing in a circle, with outstretched arms to the center, shouting a favorite line. Tonight it was "Vaseline? What the hell for?"



[Suzanna Mizell (Curley's Wife), Alex Katsman (Piano), Wong, Mikheynko, Jerenic]

As in...

CANDY: You see that glove on Curley's left hand? Well that glove is full of vaseline.

GEORGE: Vaseline? What the hell for?



Slip-sliding our way through the evening (here's many of the cast in the Act II Prelude Worksong -- Erin Lahm [Slim/Whit), Megan Cullen [Boss/Carlson], Alix, Adam Broner [Crooks], Suzanna),



it's Megan Cullen's 25th birthday (above with Wayne and Maria), so there's cake and ice cream, along with the requisite champagne reception.



Earlier, finish orchestrating the twisted ragtimic Abraham and Isaac: II. The Separation (four final pages for a total of 21) and begin conceiving the orchestration of III. The Rescue.

September 6 - It Is Finished, and Begun

Opera Arias and Duets and Mark Alburger's Mice Suites opens at San Francisco Community Music Center tonight, and a good time, apparently, is had by all, with fabulous singing in both halves of the show and many familiar faces from Diablo Valley College.



Before, record all the rest of Wayne Wong (George) and Erin Lahm (Slim/Whit, with Maria Mikheyenko as Lennie, above) in this short version of Mice and Men, up in the same classroom at SFCMC, with the weather not quite as hot (for SF) as yesterday.



Before this and after all, climb up the sunshine mountains of orchestration, finishing VIII. On His Way, from Israel in Trouble, Op. 54, with a cliffhanger, clawhammer conclusion, and beginning to conceive the instrumentation of the comedic/parody-rape/mass-murder penultimate movement of same (i.e. talk about objectionable settings and stories -- the defoliation of Jacob's only daughter Dinah, in the sexual kitchen with uncircumcised Canaanites, who are revenge-vendetta x'd by her brothers while recovering from ritual surgery...): musically based on Act III, Scene 3 (the out-of-tune piano bar scene) of Alban Berg's Wozzeck, via a consciousness including The Piano Lesson from Meredith Willson's The Music Man, J.S. Bach's Fugue in C Major from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, and a hint of the American folk song I've Been Workin' on the Railroad.

August 31 - Dressed for Success

Mice and Men rehearsal with costumes (Wayne Wong, as George, dreaming of "Getting the jack together") at Chamber Arts today,



and pianist Alex Katsman (with Erin Lahm, as Slim, in Worksong).



Record Worksong with Marilyn Pratt,


and Tartsong I adding Alix Jerinic and Wayne (the latter and former [Candy] above, with Suzanna Mizell [Curley's Wife] and Maria Mikheyenko [Lennie] behind).


Rehearsal of arias and duets (including Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata: Act I, Sempre Libre, with Ross Halper and Eliza O'Malley), quicky meeting with Eliza and Lars thereafter,


followed by local pub with Harriet and home for 19 more pages of Israel in Trouble (VII. How to Depart from You) orchestration -- with aspects of Camille Saint-Saens's Carnival of the Animals: Finale, Alban Berg's Wozzeck: Act III conclusion, and Michael Nyman's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.