August 20 - Lines of Communication

Quiz 1 for the Theoreticians (Treble Clef, C Major Scale Solfege, Mason Mary Had a Little Lamb Scale Degrees), Marin paper-grading (all 35 students get A's) and post box, returning via the wine country of Southern Sonoma,



milking



the experience



for all it's worth.



Back in more local environs,



working on second-page orchestration of John and Salome: I. Turn, and the computer suddenly shuts off. Google info and it looks like RSS -- Random Shutdown Syndrome -- although it's looking like not exactly arbitrary: both times occurring while using Encore, a program which usually seems cause the fan to particularly object... but now the cooler is quiet, which makes one further suspicious. Make appointment at Sacramento Apple Store (since Pleasanton is gong to be closed for renovations and Walnut Creek still seems not an option) -- so we shall see...



Laptop still limping along, however, and am able to finish above orchestrational disposition, continue assisting Harriet with Goat Hall / San Francisco Cabaret Opera 2009-2010 Season X brochure, and make calls for


San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra Haunted House Science Fiction Quiz Show.

August 9 - Cross Purposes

Video afternoon with Harriet, George, Bette, and Sorrel -- including Crystal's graduation, a Maris Grove tour, portraits of Chambers Memorial Presbyterian pastors, Diocletian, and



Antigone. We bid adieu to the Eastern folks, finishing the orchestration of Job: VII. "Empty Words" in late hours.

April 26 - Trucking on to a Finale

We rent a van in anticipation of taking all the costumes, props, and set pieces out of Noh Space after tonight's final Dioclesian/Diocletian, and the elevated cab provides a heightened consciousness for views of the English Hills,


backed by the Vaca Mountains,


while crusing down Monte Vista.



Picking up Alix Jerinic at Chamber Arts, there's flying over the Bay towards



San Francisco with



the Golden Gate, Marin Headland, and slopes of Mt. Tam in attendance.



The concluding performances (again with Maria invoicenito) are quite fine, with a rapt audience including Theoreticians Cody Green, Tyler Layne, and Julian Lesson, and Historian Stephanie Stensvold. Thereafter, we make a beeline to near Divisadero, for cast party at Adam and Indre's, with Harriet, Maria, Annemarie,


Kim, Robin, Alison and her husband.



Home again, we're too tired to unload the van but not to begin the orchestration of Solomon: XI. Because You Have Turned, mapped over the John Lennon / Paul McCartney Birthday in collison with Igor Stravinsky's The Flood: The Catalogue of the Animals.

April 24 - Flight to the Finnish

Begin the orchestration of Solomon: XI. I Come to You (The Queen of Sheba), serendipitously finding Peter Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker (needed briefly for this process) online -- mahvelous!


Then, with the fog coming in,



to San Francisco's Noh Space,



warming up for another stellar performance of Purcell's Diocletian and Alburger's Diocletian -- perhaps our best of the run.

April 19 - In the Heat of the Day and Night

Another fine performance of Dioclesian/Diocletian for a hot matinee at Noh Space, so head to the coast thereafter, crossing the Golden Gate and



cresting Puerto Suello Hill with views north to the Big Rock Ridge in Marin at eventide. Finish the orchestration of Solomon: VIII. You Know (The Building of the Temple and Palace), but continue by putting in the text underlay, which somehow was never placed in score (it had looked more balletic and akin to its troping source -- Igor Stravinsky's The Flood: The Building of the Ark -- which has been "white-noted" and given swing rhythms in mixed 6/8, 9/9, and 12/8).

April 18 - Reflections on a Bright Day

Can't complain on any day that features a fine first rehearsal (of Sex and Delilah, with Kristin Brown, Nanette McGuiness, and Alan Crossman), a walk on a warm day (around Oakland's Lake Merritt,


with views of the newly-completed Cathedral of Christ the Light),



a drive to the coast (Pacifica with Harriet -- the fog disperses inland for views of Montara Mountain),



and great performances -- of Henry Purcell's Dioclesian and Mark Alburger's Diocletian (the cast and director Harriet March Page above at the call) with many friendly folks in attendance, including Joel and Patti Deuter, Michael McDonagh, Brian Rosen (who declares he has a new favorite Alburger piece in Happy Funeral Music), and Suzannah Mizell (comparing this presentation with the premiere of the 2000 work at College of Marin several years back, and intriguingly drawing parallels between Henry Miller in Brooklyn: June's Song [Fi Mi Ti Sol Re Do] and D: What Shall I Do [Me Do Sol Re], which share a down-up-down intial contour and an ascending perfect 5th).

April 17 - Dioclesian / Diocletian

We open, with excellent performances from all, in both Henry Purcell's Dioclesian and below, with electric harpsichordist Skye Atman and director Harriet March Page in the former.



DIOCLETIAN: A PAGAN OPERA (libretto after Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) (2000), is a trope of Henry Purcell's Dioclesian distorted by atonality, ragtime, minimalism, children's songs, rock'n'roll, and Peter Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5.

MARK ALBURGER is an award-winning ASCAP composer of postminimal, postpopular, and postcomedic sensibilities, published by New Music. He is Music Director of San Francisco Cabaret Opera and San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, Instructor in Music Theory and Literature at Diablo Valley College and St. Mary's College, Editor-Publisher of 21st-Century Music Journal, oboist, pianist, vocalist, recording artist, musicologist, author, and music critic. He began playing the oboe and composing in association with Dorothy and James Freeman, George Crumb, and Richard Wernick; and studied with Karl Kohn at Pomona College, Joan Panetti and Gerald Levinson at Swarthmore College (B.A.), Jules Langert at Dominican University (M.A.), Roland Jackson at Claremont Graduate University (Ph.D.), and Terry Riley. Among his 174 opus numbers are 12 concertos, 11 chamber ensemble pieces, 4 masses, 20 operas, 2 piano suites, 11 song cycles, 9 symphonies, and a five-hour work-in-progress opera-oratorio (The Bible). Sex and Delila, in preparation for next Spring's Sex and the Bible, will receive its premiere this May during SF Cabaret Opera's Fresh Voices IX Festival.


Mark Alburger - DIOCLETIAN, Op. 90 (2000)

I. FIRST PARAGRAPH MUSIC
"Diocletian . . . abject and obscure . . . was successively promoted . . .in the . . . war."

II. Aria (Mezzo-Soprano) & Chorus, E-I-E-I-O THUNDER
"[P]erfect form of government"

III. Aria (Soprano) & Chorus, HAPPY FUNERAL MUSIC
"[T]he nation was gradually reduced to a state of servitude; compelled to perpetual labour"

IV. Aria (Soprano), WHAT SHALL I DO?
"Christianity introduced stricter notions"

V. Aria (Bass) & Chorus, SPEAK, FLAME
"[S]ubdued"

VI. COUNTRY DANCE
"[F]or a while fortune [graced his retirement]"


CHARACTERS

Edward Gibbon

Maria Mikheyenko


Diocletian

Alexandra Jerinic


Drusilla

Kimberly Anderman


Pagans and Christians

Annemarie Ballinger, Alison Collins, Kat Cornelius,
Robin Costa, Erin Lahm, Indre Viskontis



Mark Alburger - DIOCLETIAN
(after Edward Gibbon's The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire,
and Henry Purcell's Dioclesian)


I. FIRST PARAGRAPH MUSIC

Edward Gibbon:

Abject and obscure,
successfully promoted,

declared the most worthy of the
imperial throne,

Diocletian may be viewed as
founder of Byzantium.

Ostentation was the first principal of the
new system.

II. E-I-E-I-O THUNDER

(The stately magnificence [in the spirit of] the court of Persia.
Sumptuous interior with slaves, officers, eunuchs, [etc.])

Diocletian:

Great Diocletian
a bore has become.
Oh me oh my
What heart is heretofore
stirred.

Chorus:

E-I-E-I-O
All praise the thundering Jove

Old Mars and Venus
mutually inspire
all of life's passions.


III. HAPPY FUNERAL MUSIC

(Drusilla, wife of Diocletian, a Christian, among Christians)

Drusilla:

Sing in suppression,
affliction,
derision.

Oh sing in
our oppression and injury,
servitude, labor, confinement and pain.

Sing yet
while servile.
Oh sing still

(Christians -- clergy and common people -- murmuring.
Soldiers, armed with rustic weapons, suppress the people, murmuring fades.)

Chorus: Happy


IV. WHAT SHALL I DO?

(Drusilla is led to prison, Diocletian's voice fades in and out at every usage of "her," "man," "she")

Drusilla:

What shall I do?
What shall I do to show how much I love her?

I will love more.
I will love more, than man ever loved before me.

To show how much I love her? What shall I do? What shall I do?
How many millions of sighs can suffice? How many millions of sighs can suffice?

Than man ever loved before me? I will love more. I will love more.
Till for her own sake she will implore me. Till for her own sake she will implore me.


V. SPEAK, FLAME

(Drusilla, brought before Diocletian and the people, as a religious traitor to be burned)

Diocletian:

Speak flame,
Brazen flame.

Stand in the center of the universe
Call the listening world.

Joy can be yours
With well-chosen words

Great Diocletian waits

Chorus:

Great Diocletian
The Great Persecutor

Sound his renown

O! O sacred flame
Embalm his name
With honor here
and glory after death


VI. COUNTRY DANCE

(The people fade away, Drusilla and Diocletian remain frozen in place)

Edward Gibbon:

21st year of his reign Diocletian executed
his memorable resolution abdicating empire --

action not naturally expected from a prince who never practiced
lessons of philosophy either in attainment or the use of power

Notwithstanding severity of a rainy cold winter
Diocletian left soon after the ceremony -- pale, wan --

retiring immediately to a villa in Luciana where it was
impossible to find any lasting tranquility or peace.

April 16 - Play of Shadows

Proceeding apace, in the fore and aft of the day, orchestrating Solomon: VIII. You Know (The Building of the Temple and Palace), then flying through space,



past the still lifes of the Sulfur Springs Mountains and


St. John Mine Hill Ranch.



to Dioclesian/Diocletian final dress rehearsal, with Alison and Kim at home resting, Alix's ankle on the verge of full recovery, Maria marking by the end of the evening, and Indre standing in as Drusilla for



the latter work's



I. First Paragraph Music,



II. E-I-E-I-O Thunder ("Great Diocletian



a bore has become /



Old Mars and Venus



mutually inspire all of life's passions"),



III. Happy Funeral Music



("Happy Happy Happy Happy Happy Happy...")



IV. What Shall I Do,



V. Speak, Flame



("Joy Can Be Yours /



Great Diocletian,



The Great Persecutor"), and



VI. Country Dance



("Diocletian executed



his memorable resolution abdicating authority /



Retiring immediately to a villa in Luciana



where he was unable to find any lasting tranquility or



peace").