April 8 - Light in the Dark

Finish the orchestration of King David: XXIV. Rock and Strength and the composition of Psalm 18 before late pilgrimage to DVC, via Eden clouds, for dictation on Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms: II. Psalm 23 / Psalm 2,


then in the lab to record KD: XXIII. XXIII. Absalom, Absalom! (Absalon Fili Mi) (Sibelius) and XXIV. (Encore).


It's a Marin day, with benefits, beyond Mt. Tam, to Celia's paper grading,



then San Francisco for Lisa Scola Prosek soiree (music of Lisa, Loren Jones, + King David: O for the Wings of a Dove, The Witch of Endor, and Song in the Forest of Ephraim) and SF Composers Chamber Orchestra Board Meeting, where Moses Sedler joins us at the home of Erling Wold (above). Home finally, beginning instrumentation of KD: XXV. Census and Plague.

February 26 - Quiz Show

Test days are definitely the easy ones, even when the hours include another rehearsal with the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra. So, after Quiz 6 for the Theoreticians (with examples from music of Claudio Monteverdi, Carlo Gesualdo, Heinrich Schutz, Henry Purcell, Antonio Vivaldi, and Johann Sebastian Bach), there's even time to record Saul! Saul!: VII.-VII. Oh Beauty! - Is There a Man in the lab and beginning of IX. Symphony (Passacaglia) - Hide and Seek (Ye) (three more pages orchestrated previous to this), plus take a short stride from Olympic West Trailhead (with its views of Mt. Diablo)



up Reliez Station Road (with glimpses of Lafayette Ridge).



Then back in the car, past Shakespeare Hill



to rehearsal of the Orchestra, including Lisa Scola Prosek's Serenade for Trumpet



and Erling Wold's Two Orchestral Waltzes for Lynne,



the latter having close to the same instrumention as Sex and the Orchestra,



Michael Cooke's String Theory, David Graves and Clare Twohy's Fireproof Winds, and Loren Jones's February's Children (for more info on Saturday's concert -- sfcco.org).

February 2 - The Spirit Line Unfolding

The road goes ever on, until it doesn't, but today it leads back to St. Mary's College to drop off contract, followed by a brief visit with Marty Rokeach (checking out room and logistics, etc.), and a slightly-longer-than expected stroll on the Lafayette-Moraga Trail, heading from the latter to the former (i.e. north),


past the pure lines of Rheem Ridge,



complacent side valleys,



and the distant Las Trampas highlands, watching the light fade,



as it lamentably did for Lukas Foss, whose passing was announced in the NYT.



As for some of the quick, earlier in the day, the Theoreticians notate a bit of an even older forbearer (L.v. Beethoven, harmonized out-of-time in parallel fifths, although certainly not so ancient as what follows), sing a bit of supposed ancient Syrian transcription (now, that's getting back there, at least musically), and listen to a bit contemporary compositional inspiration from our talented classmates.



Even earlier (day-wise),while working on 21st-Century Music and the Music History text, discover that it is suddenly impossible to add further selections to the blogs, so, several phone calls with the angelic Erling (ever patient) and the ISP re music storage, and the problem is at last solved, not without eroding morning's worktime significantly, alas.



After Theory, a brief stint in the lab recording Babe Ruth: IV, then much later, return home briefly to Harriet and head out again to Davis, consulting the shade of a third past creator, that of G.F. Handel in Saul, for instrumental possiblilites in Saul! Saul!, Op. 67 -- the orchestration of which is just begun before the darkness of sleep intervenes.