April 26 - Blast from the Past to the Future

Rehearsal for Opus 4 at Diablo Valley College -- a busy and fruitful one -- beginning with picking up Awesome violinist Laura and violist Chrisina Lesicko from Pleasant Hill Bart.  As the distribution of music begins at 6:30pm, several people appear at the Ensemble Room door, and it is evident that the space has been double-booked, the others being the Concord Blue Devils, who assist in moving all Opus Project Orchestra stands and chairs into the Choral Room, since they have a monstrous assemblage of mallet percussion intended for the main rehearsal area.  Fortunately, their brass is relocated to M127, so everyone has a place.  Unfortunately, however, this puts behind music distribution, and we run a bit late re rehearsal slots all night, but nevertheless make impressive efforts, with our largest ensemble to date (1.5 0 1.5 1, 1 1 1 .5, Gtr 4Pf, 1 1 2 3 .5, although some will join us tomorrow) re Bela Bartok's Orchestral Suite No. 2: II. Dance, Igor Stravinsky's Fireworks: Introduction, Alban Berg's Altenberg Lieder: I (sans Kate Bautch, who will join us tomorrow), Paul Hindemith's Funny Sinfonietta: I. The Gallows-Brothers - Fugato: The Big Lalula, Dmitri Shostakovich's Two Fables of Krylov: I. The Dragonfly and the Ant (with Sarita Cannon), Mark Alburger's Poems on Crane: II. The Wayfarer (Sarita + Harriet March Page), Rachel Condry's Brass Quintet,

Anton Webern's Five Songs on Texts of Stephan George: II (Feona Jones solo for now) and Sergei Prokofiev's Four Pieces for Piano: IV. Suggestion Diabolique,

Arnold Schoenberg's Transfigured Night: Introduction, Benjamin Britten's Simple Symphony: II. Playful Pizzicato,

Michael Stubblefield's Overworld (only two -- Jen Adler Mathers and Melissa Smith -- out of four players, with scheduled absence and a surprise mixup). and Darius Milhaud's The Lost Sheep: Act I, Scene I, Pierre (Melissa et moi).

Since it's a "farewell" type rehearsal, there's no one left for return of chairs and stands, and it is quite a task, given the overfull Ensemble Room.

The day starts with composing the beginning of Enneads: III, dealing with score and parts re the Britten + print-out of Webern and Prokofiev music,

then heading down

Diabloway to

produce bound scores of Bartok, Stravinsky, Berg, Alburger, etc. + plus setting up the room for rehearsal

(little do we know...).

April 25 - At the Speed

First rehearsal of San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra's Moving Day show (May 4, Lick Wilmerding Auditiorium), including Harry Bernstein's Sonata for Flute, Oboe, and Piano and Plan B,

John

Beeman's

Sprites,

Davide Verotta's  

Dances for Orchestra, Michael Kimbell's Time Does Not Move, Michael Cooke's Incomplete Thoughts: A Passacaglia, and

Martha

Stoddard's

Gait 

Changes.

Before

that,

sun-

into-

fog

commute to

Diablo,

Quiz 14 for the Theoreticians,

with musical examples from Philip Glass and Sting,

lunch at Carrows, correcting a few papers and pouring over Opus 4 and SFCCO scores,

and

the

transit

gloria

mundi

of

Franklin Canyon,

El Sobrante Ridge,

Albany Hill (literally El Cerrito),

San Francisco Bay,

the Mission District

(with errands),

and

on

to

Lick-Wilmerding for rehearsal (with intensive score-study in the several hours previous).  In late evening, catch up compositionally with Six Enneads, finishing the second movement (9 pages total), print out score (full and piano) and parts of Arnold Schoenberg's Transfigured Night, and email Opus 4 rehearsal schedule

April 24 - Onward

The last formal (perhaps) Dictation / Board Harmony for the Theoreticians, as Sting's King of Pain -- always definitely a theme song.

Before,

the morning commute on the sunny side of the fog to

Diablo Valley College;

after, impressive bon mots and wisdom from Dog,

followed by errands (beginning with a brief backtrack and voila!... a trombonist for Opus 4, in Zach Newbegin, seeing each other across a crowded DVC ensemble, he says yes as I ask, acknowledging that he'd heard about the project during substitute teaching for Monty),

lunch at Lee's Kitchen (formerly Peking / Tokyo),

 return

to

DVC to rehearse Opus 4 music with violist Christian Bumala,

and the rcapitulation to the home tonality (31st of summer, high 88), confirming with Bonnie Hughes that Berkeley Arts Festival is indeed open (it was closed last weekend, in want of a permit, which has now been obtained, but only for acoustic music, as the amplified license is c. 10 times more dear), composing page 8 second movement Six Enneads. and printin gout of score and parts for Poems on Crane: II. The Wayfarer.