happy winter celebrative season!

This composer comes proudly from the great state of Iowa and, every few winter breaks, the majority of the Shank clan migrates south for a week or so to give/receive gifts and make merry. This year we gathered at my grandparents' Pasture Hill Farm in rural Muscatine and there were animals everywhere.

There were a gazillion birds out on the porch. Having grown up around stuff like this (but not living around it anymore) I forget sometimes what it's like to see these scenes.













This little guy thought we were having a conversation or something.













Later on, my uncle Kevin brought some Yorkshire Terrier/Miniature Pinscher puppies by. Apparently they were supposed to be purebred Yorkie pups but "the neighbor dog had other ideas."













After about 20 minutes of playing around, the four of them just fell asleep. It was almost like someone turned off a switch. They all went down. It was unbelievably cute.













Yin and Yang: The Puppy Version













At the exact same time we were playing with the puppies, a possum showed up on the porch. This thing was super tame and completely unafraid of us. Granted we were behind a sliding glass door but it got within a foot without even blinking. This is something I would never see where I live now.

A couple of days later my dad and I went and visited my great aunt Madeleine in Fairfield, Iowa. She is the de facto matriarch of my dad's half the family and the coolest 87-year-old woman I know. She is the keeper of all the funny stories about my aunts, uncles and father that I would never hear from anyone but her. To say she is the best would be selling her short completely.

Next stop: Burlington, Iowa. I lived here for five years as a teenager and it was good to take a trip down Memory Lane. I was in middle school when this huge, cable-stayed bridge was first put up and was (deservedly) the talk of the town. The immense "H Bridge" is now a city landmark.

Cobblestone Alley. This thing is unbelievably steep.

And, just for good measure, here's Gracie with hummus in her hair.

Best present this year: recording and libretto of John Adams' amazing (and controversial) opera, The Death of Klinghoffer.

Best moment visiting places I used to live: seeing the football field at my old high school has been named after my 8th grade Social Studies teacher. Way to go, Mr. Nelson!

banner weekend

The great thing about December is that it usually brings old friends back to the Twin Cities to visit. Because of this, I had a particularly awesome past few days that made this freezing, Minnesota composer feel like a highfalutin creator living in the center of the artistic universe.

The first visit was to Fuji-Ya:my new favorite place to get sushi. We started off with edamame (soy bean sprouts that have been roasted, salted and doused in soy sauce for the uninitiated...and that included me up until I took this picture). To my Midwestern meat-and-potatoes mind this didn't sound good at all, but I'm happy to report I was more than pleasantly surprised. This must be ridiculously easy to make.













I went with the Dynamite and Spicy Salmon rolls (and poorly-lit pictures). They were sooo good.













The next day it was off to the Walker Art Center to view, among other things, the Frida Kahlo exhibit. Here's a shot of the new 2005 addition (done by Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron) from the intersection of Lyndale and Hennepin. This was a huge deal when it first opened.













Here's a quasi-reverse-shot looking out from the Center onto Lyndale/Hennepin.













There were a few of these interesting chandeliers illuminating the Hennepin Lobby.

















...down the hall.













How about looking the other way? The guy in the picture looks like he just came from an all-encompassing lobster dinner and is arguing over ticket prices.













There was a creepy Wile-E.-Coyote-esque suit in one of the lobbies (the only place they let you take pictures). If you got close enough to it you started to feel like there was actually a guy inside just waiting to move and scare the bejeezus out of you.













If you are a committed-enough-contemporary-art-fan and make it far enough, there is a restaurant at the top of the Walker run by Wolfgang Puck. However, it's only open 11am–2pm and we totally didn't make it. Luckily, there is a purposefully-interesting window at a seam in the building that shows a few things...

The Basilica of St. Mary (this will come back later).













Here's an unimpressive shot of downtown Minneapolis. The park in the foreground is the proposed setting for my opera We, The Boys (but not during winter).













I like the juxtaposition of this picture: the Basilica fights for the northeastern horizon line. Saints and sinners. It's a sculpture on a grand scale.













Next stop: Bar Lurcat for some Kobe beef carpaccio seared with grapeseed oil in ponzu. This was unbelievably amazing. The last time I had Kobe Beef was (undocumented) in San Francisco, but this was a totally different story.













Bar Lurcat is an incredibly trendy place so, in order to fit in, I went with this awesome "Royal" martini which included a bunch of ingredients I don't remember. Luckily it made a decent picture and tasted really good.













There was a second amazing chandelier at the Lurcat.













After that it was off to the aforementioned Basilica of St. Mary for yet another amazing concert by the Rose Ensemble. I've sung there a number of times and it's always nice to remember what it's like to sit in the audience...and the fact that it was a Rose concert is even better. They are one of the best (if not the best) early music ensembles in the US.













(p.s. I know this isn't a great picture but, having previously shown the Basilica from far away in this entry, I thought it might be nice to see what the place looked like on the inside.)

opera listening

Opera mode is in full swing... I can't wait to stop researching and start actually writing notes. Here's a fraction of what I'm listening to.













It's my hope that this isn't a bad list for referencing what good English-language opera sounds like (and this is just what fit on the screen arranged by "Artist" name). I'm glad I know people who tell me what to listen to...

hannah's song

I was recently asked by a director to provide some music for an upcoming production of Courtney Baron's one-act play, Consumption. The script provides words but no music and, although it isn't the best thing I've ever written, it seemed incredibly blog-worthy to share the easy-ish song I wrote for the actress portraying Hannah.

A long time ago (in high school to be precise) I was asked to provide incidental music on the guitar for a different one-act play and, at the time, I mostly played some blues-ish stuff peppered with Dave Matthews Band riffs. Hannah's Song is a simple but marked improvement.

opera

It's been WAY too long since I actually wrote any music so I'm happy to say that I'm back at it. For the first time in almost 6 years I have a break in which there are no commissions scheduled and no deadlines to be met. Since last year was the busiest (and most stressful) season I've ever experienced I thought it might be nice to get to work on something that I've always wanted to do but never had the time to start work on: an opera.

So...that's what I've started actually doing. I've got 6-8 months to work on it before next season's choral commissions begin to intrude. The libretto is an original work by young playwright (and Joshua Shank fan) Kelly Lusk.

Kelly and I "worked" together last March (in the blog's second entry!) when I directed the Brownsburg High School Madrigal Singers through Autumn. Kelly had won a young playwright's competition for the second year in a row sponsored by the Indiana Repertory Theater and I had the chance to see the world premiere of his play We, The Boys. It was an amazing experience and the play is perfect for a first opera. He is unfailingly brilliant in his writing and it will be a challenge to treat it correctly.

It takes place in a park and deals with the breakdown of 2 relationships, the death of an old man and the disembodied voice of Leonardo da Vinci. Of course, the moment I distill it down like that to make it suitable for blog consumption it completely misses the point but...

Anyhow, I've read and reread the script dozens of times by now and it's completely marked up with notes about characterization, musical cues, etc. My most recent project was to post a copy of the entire thing on my wall and throw color at it.













I heard that John Corigliano uses this technique (or something like it) sometimes and, if it's good enough for a Pulitzer/Grammy/Oscar-winner, then it's good enough for me. I was actually surprised by how much it helped me focus my intent on a few of the pieces (14 "movements" in all). And, on top of that, I got to play with Crayolas for an hour.














Once I was done it ended up being a fairly interesting visual collage of colors. My next step is going to be making a "mix" CD with pieces by other composers that I think characterize what I want to say for each movement. I also ordered a bunch of recordings of modern operas to listen to and absorb. For the nerdy out there, that list consists of:

Strawberry Fields (Michael Torke)
Nixon in China (John Adams)
The Death of Klinghoffer (John Adams)
Peter Grimes (Benjamin Britten)
Vanessa (Samuel Barber)
Akhnaten (Philip Glass)
A Water Bird Talk (Dominick Argento)
Dead Man Walking (Jake Heggie)

I can think of at least a dozen others that I would like to own but I'll have to wait until after Christmas to get them. I hear Wozzeck is amazing.

my new favorite quote

Diaghilev's dictate "Astonish me!" may be fine marching orders for some, but I prefer the far less peremptory commands "Move me" or "Delight me."

-Dominick Argento

I read something similar about Stephen Paulus (one of Argento's students) once that said something like "He is a composer who is far less concerned with saying something new than he is with saying the right thing."

A good mantra to have, I think. This guy agrees (stare at it for a second...it's amazing).

white elephant gift

I went to a Christmas party last night where there was a white elephant gift exchange. I contributed my beer can hat from college (I can't believe I finally parted with that thing!) but, in return, I think I got something really good. Enjoy:

Out of curiosity, I looked up "white elephant gift" on Wikipedia. My favorite alternate title has to be "Dirty Santa." That does NOT sound like a gift exchange game.

theoretical analysis

Master's student (and friend) Keith Koehlmoos contacted me recently about using my band piece, Moonrise, for some analysis in his theory class at the University of Saint Thomas. Besides being a euphonium player par excellence (I'm going to write something for euphonium and SSAA choir someday for him) he found some interesting things in the piece that I didn't even know were there. Reading his paper brought me back to my 20th Century Theory courses in college but with the added perspective of the piece being analyzed having been written by me. Below are two of the more verbose parts from his paper that made me chuckle (thanks for letting me reprint them here, Keith!):

A passacaglia cements the B-section together with six complete statements of the passacaglia (P1-6 on the flow chart). P1 is a statement of only the passacaglia with the tuba/euphonium stating the first four-measure call, and the low woodwinds responding with the four-measure response. P2 introduces the “a2” melody in the horns. P3 continues the horn melody while focusing all attention on the “c” melody in the bassoon. P4 continues with the “a2” melody while adding a new layer, the “a3” melody in the woodwinds. P5 makes the “a2”’ more reverential with its statement by the trumpets. These all build to the climax at P6 which continues the “a2” and “a3” melodies in the extreme brass register while adding the “b” descending melody from the A-section on top. The music transitions from mm. 69-85, continuing the “b” melody back to the ending A’-section at m. 86. Here, a short statement of the “a” melody succumbs quickly to the final coda at m. 96.

And later on:
All signs imply a climax of the A-section at m. 19. However, the realization that occurs here is a timbral one: the full band crescendo does not reach its melodic and harmonic climax together; instead, the climax is essentially thwarted when the melodic pinnacle is performed by just the high-pitched, metal mallet percussion and flutes.

I love the use of the word "thwarted." We so rarely get an opportunity to use it in a sentence. It's an incredibly precise analysis of a piece that I wrote when I was 22 and, frankly, it was very interesting to see that there was some built-in structure to the whole thing even though I certainly didn't intend it at the time. I've tried to do it on purpose before but it never feels organic and I almost always end up scrapping what I write. It makes me wonder whether or not all composers stumble upon overall structure like I do sometimes. Hmm. I'll have to check on that.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that my building was getting re-sided. I assumed they were done and, as it turns out, I was totally wrong. A week or so after I posted that entry I came home to 2 guys hanging outside my third-story windows putting covering on them to keep paint off while they were repainting the siding. As I was sitting at my desk the guy by my big window started waving his arms frantically to balance himself as he was about to fall three stories off his ladder. Luckily his buddy was able to steady it and save his friend some broken bones. Needless to say, he was done for a while (I saw him sitting outside smoking a cigarette through shaky fingers a little later on).

Anyway, when they were done with that, all of my windows were covered like this:













They stayed like that for the better part of six days and cabin fever set in with a vengeance. No windows to the outside world. I paced a lot when I was on the phone, found any excuse to flee, etc. It was awful. I felt like a caged tiger.

Then my building shed it's skin and ended up with a drab, greenish hue to its siding which, although the color is very puke-like, is a marked improvement from what it was before.













What's really interesting is, if you go back to the previous entry, you can watch the seasons (and siding) change in the pictures.