May 29 - Happy Creative Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Crystal!, who turns 21 today -- so... A toast! A toast! -- and who has, in the last couple of months, been on an incredible pilgrimage (superbly chronicled at crystal-uganda-2008.blogspot.com)



to Uganda



specifically, Kampala, with side trips north-east to



Mbale,



Sipi Falls,



Soroti,



Lira; and west to



Mbarara



Bushenyi,



Queen Elizabeth National Park



in the Great Rift Valley



up against the Ruwenzori Mountains



whose foothills include Semuliki National Park,



home to some of the Batwa people.... before coming back to her own home -- today! --



in San Rafael! So, as well, Happy Homecoming!



Meanwhile, two rehearsals this evening, first getting the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra going at Potrero Hill Neighborhood House Theater. As John Kendell Bailey is welcomely conducting the first half of the program, am able to head several blocks downhill (both venues being along De Haro Street on Potrero Hill in SF) to



St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church for the first rehearsal, beyond excellent works of others in the ensemble, of Blake House: 1. To the Muses with Sanford Dole and sons and daughters of the choir -- just a quick double reading from 7:30-7:40pm -- and a good start, though challenging, somewhat due to meter, but more particularly in light of the second strain's accidentals: 5/8 alternating with 7/8, octatonic melody harmonized such that the mode is

E: Do Re Me Fi Sol Le La Te Do... Dorian-Lydian-Minor, one supposes!




From here, a race back up to the Nabe for Camino Real: Block Four and Variations on Americana, as part of The Sousa Variations collaboration, to be given 8pm, Staruday, June 7, at Old First Church (Van Ness and Sacramento Streets, SF, with co-collaborators contributing movements to the latter as follows

Harry Bernstein - Stars and Stripes Quodlibet
Alexis Alrich - MinSu
David Graves - Sousa Variant
Mark Alburger - Variations on Americana
Erling Wold - On the Death of David Blakely
Michael Cooke - Stripes and Stars
Loren Jones - Stars and Stripes for Desert

with more info at markalburgerevents.blogspot.com.



Returning home, cannot resist doing an instrumental recording of the choral To the Muses, so here it is...

May 28 - Muse History from Far Ago and Away

Make the choral setting of Op. 108 Blake House: 1. To the Muses -- pretty close to original piano- vocal: Basses get bass line, Tenors the piano right-hand figuration, Sopranos melody (at a bit of clarification for each, re rhythms vs text underlay in upper part and articulation for all).



Alto line is melody down an octave, honoring strictly the rhythm of the original First Delphic Hymn (c. 138 BC) from whence the piece is derived, but tying repeated notes together within phrases.

All three lower parts in vocalise (phoneme left indeterminate) with Andante as tempo marking -- an indefinite designation no doubt more relaxed than p-v version.

This, along with parts and score to Op. 110 Camino Real: Block 4, printed up at the not-quite-local Kinko's late, where I learn that it, too, is moving from these days not-quite-24-hours-a-day to much-less-than-not-quite.

Suffice it to say that it was a very dark day when Fed Ex bought Kinko's.... One longs for the previous founding admin....



Oh, yes, also posted a bit on various older European musics at markalburgermusichistory.blogspot.com, including on music of Ancient Greece, so the serendipity is palpable. Or something like that.