in the wings: December 2007

Wrapping the Year

This was a bittersweet year. I recognized more clearly where my musical passions and ambitions lie, and I endured a few melodramas along the way. Here's a year-end top-ten:

1. my first solo performance sans piano at The Field in April

2. hearing the roar of the motos in my studio apartment while watching Faster in May

3. playing Fauré artsongs at Notre Dame des Victoires in June

4. debuting The Children's Hour at the Chapel of the Chimes on June 21

5. the purr of Grenny's motor in July

6. every Sidecar performance June 21-August 24

7. accompanying Sven Olbash in concert at Old First Church in October

8. mixing video for the duration of Sidecar's set at Monkey Town in November

9. seeing Anne Carolyn (and dreamboat Bryn Terfel!) in The Marriage of Figaro at the Met in November

10. the silent music of an act so fast, furious, and perfectly designed: Felipe spinning his web on my porch in December

Church Gossip!

I got promoted! I'm now assistant to the conductor at Mission Dolores.

And, someone donated a harpsichord to Mission Dolores. It is beautiful. It makes me long for a patron, so that I might quit my life and tinker away on this instrument for a few months. Wouldn't it be amazing to give it a fair inaugural concert? I'll post pics as soon as I can!

Performing! (And Never Anxious)

In the next few weeks, I intend to make music:

perfectframe

as if driving on country backroads without a map
as if never wearing a watch
as if knitting without a pattern
as if jumping out of a swing, age 32

Looking to the New Season

The video projects and Ives songs are all folded and packed away after their travels, and life, especially my work on visual art, continues at a rather third-date pianissimo. It's the quiet time before everything changes. A season is soon to end. The duration of daylight shortens metrically now, like a bouncing ball, quickly, each day shorter and shorter and shorter. The rhythm will reverse, I muse, and situations, dynamics, will definitely change. But wait! Autumn has no intention of dribbling quietly away! The concert season is soon upon us! (How can I forget?) This year I am especially proud of VOCI's work on the Persichetti Winter Cantata (get out your gogo boots, oversized white plastic sunglasses, and favorite book of Japanese haiku--it's just so 1960s) and for the Basilica concert on the 16th I will give the recently donated harpsichord a test drive in Bach's Wachet auf. Please join us at one of these concerts!

VOCI Women's Vocal Ensemble presents--
Voices in Peace VII: Winter Stillness
Sunday Dec. 2, 7pm
Lake Merritt United Methodist Church
Oakland
Saturday Dec. 8, 8pm
St Mary Magdelen Parish
Berkeley

Saturday Dec. 15, 4pm
Old First Church
San Francisco

Mission Dolores Basilica Choir presents--
The 16th Annual Candlelight Christmas Concert
Saturday Dec. 8, 6pm
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church
Windsor, CA

Sunday Dec. 9, 4pm
St. Catherine of Siena Church
Burlingame, CA

Sunday Dec. 16, 5pm
Mission Dolores Basilica
San Francisco