Le Retour
It’s certainly been quite a while since I posted anything, so I’d better explain the long absence! My rule of blogging is, if you don’t have anything to post, don’t post anything. We certainly have enough blogs out there whose authors write about nothing at all, and I’d prefer not to be one of them. Anyway, a few things have happened in the meantime, so here goes:
1. I was privileged last month to have a composition lesson with Richard Danielpour! He agreed to give me a two-hour lesson at his studio on Broadway, and I thoroughly enjoyed it all. Danielpour is a bit of a rarity; many composers make lousy teachers, and vice versa, but Danielpour is a virtuoso at both. I certainly learned a lot even in that short time; he was certainly an inspiration and encouragement, and I feel that he broadened my horizons a good deal.
2. I’m pleased to announce that I’m a recipient of the 2009 ASCAPLUS Awards! This awards program, while not a competition, grants recognition to composers whose works have been performed and/or recorded to some degree of frequency. I applied for the award last year not at all expecting to win, but apparently the judges deemed that my pieces were done enough to merit an award. Psalm 126:3 comes to mind. 
3. And finally, an update on the composing side of things: I finished the 5-part song cycle on Rukeyser texts for Kara Halleck; if all goes well, she’ll premiere it this February. The song cycle on Renaissance English song texts for John Warren’s February recital in Chicago is coming along nicely too. I’m also making some good progress on my second string quartet, which will be premiered on my recital this March. It’s always difficult starting a new work, especially when it’s in a medium for which you don’t write every day. Any feelings of inadequacy were compounded when Danielpour told me that his first string quartet took him a whole year to complete!! (he’s certainly come a long way; his most recent, the sixth, a commission for the Ling Quartet, took all of two weeks.) But I’ve been plugging away at this thing, and it seems to be getting ‘there.’ Composing is always like trying to solve some difficult puzzle; maybe a jigsaw puzzle where you don’t know exactly what the final picture looks like. It’s always sort of that ‘aha!’ moment when you realize just how a certain movement will end, how all your themes will tie together, how the form will play out. One such moment took place late last night, and I’m beginning to feel all the pieces coming together. The quartet will be in three movements, ‘Aria’, ‘Toccata’, and ‘Chorale’, not necessarily in that order.
I think I’ve made up for the dearth of posting by writing a pretty lengthy post! But at least I’ll never be accused of blogging about nothing…