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Borges Quotes

I'm just reading a book of interviews with Borges, from throughout his life and, as much to aid my own appaling memory as anything else, I'm going to write down some of the best quotes from this fascinating fellow. Make of them what you will.

"I don't believe that any writer should search for themes or choose them, it's convenient that the themes look for him and find him"

"If there's one moral defect that's usually obvious in a work, it is vanity...The reader ought never to feel that the writer is skillful. A writer ought to be skillful but in an unobtrusive way."

"I write for myself, and perhaps for half a dozen friends. And that should be enough. And that might improve the quality of my writing. But if I were writing for thousands of people, then I would write what might please them. And as I know nothing about them, and maybe I'd have rather a low opinion of them, I don't think that would do any good to my work."




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Little Tich

Here is a video of Little Tich, a musical hall clown whose movements apparently inspired the 2nd of Stravinsky's three pieces for String Quartet. I've just been reading about him in Richard Taruskin's fascinating if somewhat heavy-going Defining Russia Musically





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Muzsikas

For anyone who likes gypsy and klezmer, I just discovered a wonderful CD by the Hungarian folk group Muzsikas of the 'Lost Jewish Music of Transylvannia'

The CD features old-time violinist Gheorghe Covaci and cimbalom player Arprad Toni, gypsy musicians who had regularly played in Jewish groups before the war. According to Muzsikas these players are one of a very small number of surviving links to a whole Hungarian-Jewish tradition of playing that got decimated during the war. Together they attempt to recapture what that music would have sounded like.

Hungarian folk-music is normally my least favourite of all the Eastern European folk traditions (which means I still like it, but not as passionately as other regions), but probably because of the klezmer influence, this disc has some very special music, of both the hauntingly mournful and the foot-stomping varieties.



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Metropolis Ensemble at the Times Center

The Times Center, NY

Some of New York's best chamber players have been corralled by the energetic young conductor Andrew Cyr to form the Metropolis Ensemble. They've just announced their spring concert which will take place this April 10, in another great looking American venue - the Times Center, part of the New York Times building designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, and situated in the heart of the Times Square District adjacent to The New 42nd Street.

The concert will end with my arragement of Satie's Sports et Divertissements specially commissioned by the Ensemble. They are a wonderful set of pieces, and I think and hope the orchestration adds an extra layer to their wit and colour.

More info on the Metropolis Ensemble website.



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You wait ages for one and then...

2008 is already shaping up to be a busy year. Along with A Bird in your Ear which receives its premiere at BARD college in March, I was thrilled to get an email from Jeremy Geffen at Carnegie Hall, offering me a new commission to write for the clarinettist Todd Palmer and the St Lawrence String Quartet, who will give the premiere in Carnegie's Zankel Hall next October. I know these performers principally from their wonderful recording of Golijov's grammy-nominated Yiddishbbuk CD - it's hard to believe I'll be writing something for the same players.

A few days later I got a call from Andrew Lucas at the Lake District Summer Music Festival whom I met earlier in the year at the 4x4 Composer Residency. They've also kindly offered me a commission for next year's festival.

Finally, I understand that New York's up-and-coming Metropolis Ensemble are planning to do my Satie arrangements in a concert in the city next April.



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Berimbau premiere

Matthew Schellhorn

A huge thank you to Matthew Schellhorn and the wonderful people of Hertford who gave my piano piece Berimbau a great performance and reception at the premiere yesterday afternoon. Matthew also gave a scintillating performance of Messiaen's Petites esquisses d'oiseaux, along with Daquin's Le Coucou - food for thought for my 'Bird Opera'.

Not quite so much thanks go to the Hertford council whose multi-story car park closed down at 5pm leaving my car inside overnight!



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Free Piosenki Download Available Online

The Carnegie Hall website now has the complete recording of the world premiere performance of Piosenki available for free download.

It was a great performance, and the recording quality is stunning, so check it out!



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Bird Talk

The Richard B.Fisher Center

More on my BARD commission

On an insanely tight deadline, I've agreed to a new commission from BARD College, NY. The commission is for half an evening's opera (with soloists, choir and small orchestra), although the resulting (60 min) piece is going to be somewhere between an opera, a secular oratoria and a dramatic cantata. The performance is to be in March 08, the deadline the end of December, requiring an amount of music per day that I don't even want to think about. What's particularly exciting is that the first two performances are in BARD's spectacular Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center, the kind of place which makes any concert a big event before you've heard a note.

When Dawn Upshaw - who is on the vocal faculty at BARD, and with whom I worked on Piosenki - proposed the idea, my thoughts turned immediately to Alasdair Middleton, who did a great job at producing very set-able librettos in a matter of hours when we worked together on the Opera Group Selfridges project.

I gave Alasdair an old Russian folk tale called The Language of the Birds and true to form within about 10 days he had produced a fantastic libretto.

It's a tale of listening to nature, forgiveness, and much more, and it promises to be an extremely exciting project. Now, back to those notes...

Update

We have a new title for this project, which I think captures its mood nicely: A Bird in your Ear



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How to play the lagerphone

Here's a great video of Michael from the Groanboxboys stomping his lagerphone:
(follow this link for my own lagerphone page)
_




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Piosenki in New York

More info on the two NY performances of Piosenki coming up at the start of October: Tickets for the Carnegie performance. For the performance at Filene Recital Hall,Skidmore College on the 5th Oct please call the college's Department of Music at 518-580-5326.

More info about the Academy program here.

Update
Nice reviews of the concerts:
NY Times
Times Union
Feast of Music Blog

Update 2 - Pictures of the concert
with thanks to Feast of Music Blog


Me giving my Pre-performance talk


Baritone Kyle Ferrill in full flow on the lagerphone





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