December 14 - Hey Man, Little Boxes!

Bought 12 more filing boxes (six yesterday), and promptly filled them with compositions to the tune of c. ten opus numbers per box, while listening to Bizet and more contemporary retellings (or was it both at once?) -- also re-organized scores on shelves, elevating many from the floor where they've been living for quite some time.....



Harriet, Tisha, and Clare at recitative rehearsal for SF Cabaret Opera's production of the W.A. Mozart Marriage of Figaro, while a bit more (page 11) of Samson and Delilah: XI. Dagon gets orchestrated on the homefront (amazing that Horst P. Horst -- photographer above -- was born in the same year as Samuel Beckett and Dmitri Shostakovich [1906], but outlived them both to pass away at the brink of the new century [1999]).

September 7 - Blow That Horn

Another amazing performance from the cast of Mice and Men (including Maria Mikheyenko [Lennie] and Suzanna Mizell [Curley's Wife], above), as well as impressive opera arias in the first half of the show, offered by the likes of Mike (at right -- very much looking forward to his participation as Haemon and The Messenger in Antigone this Novemeber),



taken in by an enthusiastic audience, featuring Diablo Valley College Theory students Desiree Abad, Daniel Ciurlizza, and Megan Mui, and a couple of their friends who are/will be attending the University of California at San Diego this semester (plus that old guy in the middle).



Leaving San Francisc Community Music Center, the fog is coming in to the south towards Bernal Heights and


north,



with the houses directly across the street cooling in the last light.



Home, beginning orchestration of IX. One Day Dinah from Israel in Trouble -- 6 pages, but since all piano, not much of a feat -- being based on the instrumental forces in Act III, Scene 3 (in the bar, with the out-of-tune-piano) in Alban Berg's Wozzeck.

July 25 - Errand of We'll See

Back to school to receive outstanding work from students, then dropping off Mice and Men excerpt piano-vocal scores to several cast members, past the Shakespeare Festival Hills,



over to San Francisco, up upper Market Street,



then north on the Great Highway, with views of Mt. Tamapais and Cliff House,



through Lincoln Park with more Tam



plus Golden Gate views,



past the opulence of Sea Cliff,



the residences precariously perched above Lobos Creek,



the Presidio's wonders (including a cockeyed bridge



and de-commissioned chapel),



to pastoral glimples of Marin (St. Vincent's Ranch)



and Sonoma (Sears Point Mountain), home to Act V Scene 2 F page 9 publication preparation.

May 18 - Princeton, Pedestrian, Church

Once more over the brink and into San Francisco,


past the new view-obstructing tower (but beautiful in its own right),



to St. Gregory's Church,


thence to Princeton, south of the Half Moon Bay Airport (as the fog is clearing north to reveal Montara Mountain),


for lunch at Mezza



Luna ("Half Moon" -- ah, yes!)


and a walk down the quirky main street



to the burg's harbor beach



with Pilar Point glowering to the west.



Reversing course past stately cypresses,



it's a rendezvous with Harriet at the local coffee shop, where arms-over-the-head poses in the sunshine become the norm,



then a further wander north on the Princeton Access Road,



with Montara Mountain always in sight,



past views of Half Moon Bay Airport



(Pilar Point shivering in the quick-paced fog),



and symmetrical signs and fences.



String parts produced for a different road -- Camino Real Block Four -- upon return.