your lunchtime muppet

I dare you not to lose your sh*t watching this. Maybe my three favorite muppets ever.

choral documentary

I'm a little behind on this entry but better late than never, I suppose. There's a new documentary coming out next week from the Twin Cities' local PBS station called Never Stop Singing and, last Thursday, they held a special screening for a lot of the musicians involved in the project. It was a who's who of choral singing in Minnesota and the United States as a whole (Dominick Argento was totally there but I wussed out on going up to talk to him and drank another glass of complimentary sauvignon blanc instead) and somehow I got myself invited.

It helps that the film uses a small sample of my piece, Blue! 'Tis the Life of Heaven from my color madrigals cycle so it wasn't like I crashed or anything. The Singers performed it beautifully way back in January 2008 (appropriately for a concert honoring Minnesota's 150th anniversary) with Peter Myers and his film crew present.

Watching this documentary leaves an indelible impression about how important choral singing is to the people in this area of the country. To underscore this they included the results of a Chorus America study from a few years back that--among other things--showed that around 28.5 million people nationwide sing in some type of choir (youth, school, college, community, professional, etc.) and, out of that total, 450,000 of them are Minnesotans. How cool is that?

It was a moving experience to sit and watch this with the people that were essentially the subjects of the documentary and, frankly, I don't think there will ever be a screening quite like this again. The audience whooped and hollered and clapped for what seemed like an entire hour (admittedly, there were some pretty funny pictures of the "old guard" from the 1970s and 80s). We laughed and cried together and had a generally great time before, after and during the time the film was on. The "Land of 10,000 Choirs" is a pretty cool thing to be a part of and I'm eternally grateful to Peter Myers, Matt Culloton and The Singers for giving me the chance to play a small role in this incredible film.

There is a very comprehensive site set up for anyone to take a look at and it will be expanding more as the film begins to air. Check out the preview if you're game. My piece is the last thing you'll hear before the title banner comes up.

Check your local listings if you're from MN and, hopefully, it will be out to a broader market very soon. That's the plan!

I didn't take any pictures because I didn't want to scare anybody off but, on the way out, Abbie and I found this giant Big Bird plastering one of the walls. Who can resist? Not Betinis.

nice review & some fun juxtaposition

This is a totally gratuitous blog (to distract me from packing up my apartment) but, remember that Son Lux/Nico Muhly concert I just blogged about a few days ago? The Star Tribune just put out a great review. Read it here. (They also kicked out an article a few days prior to the concert that I never read for some reason or another so here it is.)

One of the things I love (and I mean love) about the internets is that the accoutrement which sometimes crowd the pages will give them a little ironic, web-style seasoning. For instance, directly to the southeast of a picture of Muhly was another one of a hardcore NorthStar Roller Girls match. (For the uninitiated, the NSRG is the Twin Cities' own kickass roller derby league.)

The caption read: "Sister Shotgun, of the Banger Sisters, lays out her own version of justice on Tin Lizzy, jammer for the Kilmore Girls in NorthStar Roller Girls action at the Mpls Convention Center."

That's not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of going to see a show by Nico Muhly but, next time I go to a roller derby match, I might just bring my iPod to see how his music holds up in that environment.

nico muhly and son lux at the southern

It was 93 degrees in the Twin Cities yesterday (that's crazy for this time of year) and being outside wasn't a great option. Luckily, the Southern Theater gave a great excuse to stay inside: a double bill of Nico Muhly and Son Lux.
















This was truly an amazing concert. I've been listening to Nico's music for a while now but was completely unfamiliar with Son Lux (that second word is actually pronounced "lucks" but, to anyone with even a passing familiarity with Latin, the reference is obvious). I'm really glad I had an excuse to dig a little deeper because his debut album, At War With Walls and Mazes, is absolutely fantastic. It completely defies any sort of genre and it vacillates from trip hop to solo piano music (sometimes within a single song) with astonishing depth and has a synergy between styles that's hard to find. It's totally fearless and completely honest music. Here's a fantastic video for the song "Break":


Son Lux's part of the concert also included visuals by artist Joshua Ott and some of the most visceral choreography I've ever seen by Jennifer Lott and a troupe of 3 dancers. It was such a cool and moving way to spend 60 minutes.

Then there's Nico. He appeared with violist Nadia Sirota and, not being a fan of that particular instrument, I'm now a total convert. There was no program to tell you what they were doing (although he started off with my favorite, favorite piece of his ever, the virtuostic "Skip Town") so Nico "called the plays" from the piano bench. It's no stretch to understand why, at the age of 27, he's currently writing an opera for the Met. Newsweek just did a feature on him as well.

I thought about constructing a play-by-play review of this entire concert but decided that it just wasn't worth it in the end because the music spoke for itself. These two guys (Son Lux is the nom de plume of composer Ryan Lott) are a finger snap away from being mega stars within their respective fields and to see them in such an intimate setting was truly a gift. I can't wait to see and hear more.

dallas trip

I'm back from Dallas and the incredible premiere of Naalah (Cry of Grief) at Flower Mound High School. I had a great time hanging at the school listening to some great music as well as tooling around the Metroplex on a pre-show museum tour.

The school commissioned me a few years ago to write when god decided to invent and, although their performance was amazing, I was only their for just over 24 hours (their conductor called it my composer "smash and grab" trip). This time around they were kind enough to get me a rental car for the 4 days I was in Dallas-Fort Worth so I could experience a bit more of Texas.















How cute is this? I haven't roller skated since I was like 10 years old so this was a lot of fun. The car was that small. Believe it or not, this actually made it more fun to drive.

Once my flight got in I had a few hours to get a run in and head to supper. The guy at the front desk suggested that, if I wanted some good Tex Mex food, I eat at a place called Esparza's in Grapevine. I had these amazing seafood tostadas.
















The next day it was off to Flower Mound High School to hear the Jaguar Chorale on their commissioned work, Naalah (Cry of Grief), as well as my older piece, The Divine Image. There are seriously no words to describe how amazing these singers were. If you've ever gone to the national ACDA convention and heard a high school choir that makes you go,"Holy shit, what do they put in the water there?" then you've heard an ensemble like this one. Unbelievable.















They asked a bunch of great questions that, in some cases, flabbergasted me and made me really think about how I actually write music. I manufactured some nonsense about techno music, Britney Spears, poetry, Mozart and AC/DC and I'm sure I did some irreparable damage to their understanding of music but I had a blast.

Then they turned me loose on all the other choirs to answer questions (even though none of them were performing a piece of mine). The younger girls' choir was particularly funny. Apparently they've been teasing their director, Ms. Adela "T-Nez" Martinez, that she and I were going to get married or something. They even made a sign.















After a while they started trying to one-up each other with ridiculous-and-funny questions: "Have you ever been in prison?" Teenagers are funny.

The next day I got up early and headed into town to see the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The building was designed by Tadao Ando and, when I told my architect mother I was visiting Dallas-Forth Worth, she suggested I go here and take pictures for her. It was rainy that day but the museum's reflecting pool is still pretty cool.

This piece was interesting. At first glance it looks like it's floating off the ground.

Then there's Felix Gonzalez-Torres' Untitled (L.A.), 1991. Can you tell what it's made of?















Green candies wrapped in cellophane. This is cool and everything but I was really curious about the logistics of the entire thing. Are they the same candies from 1991? If so, would the 18-year-old candies still be edible? Are they attached at all or are they just arranged?

Here's Martin Puryear's Ladder for Booker T. Washington. This thing was about 20 feet tall and appeared to disappear into the sky.

After the Modern I went across the street to the other famous art repository in town, the Kimbell Art Museum. It was designed by Louis Kahn and is renowned for it's use of natural light in these barrel vaults where all the galleries are. What the architect is renowned for is having two other secret families in edition to his legit one. Watch the movie. It's pretty good.

When I walked upstairs I stumbled on an ad hoc group of musicians preparing to perform something for a tour of the museum. I sat down with the tabla player for a minute or two to talk about the "syllables" of the instrument (it's a drum but the Indian musical tradition treats it melodically). The piece they performed incorporated a ton of singing bowls as well as the "Ode to Joy."

I have absolutely no idea who these people were or why they were there but they made my visit to the Kimbell extra special. I can't believe how lucky I was to stumble upon them.

Then it was off to the performance for the night (where I promptly forgot my camera). They did great on my pieces (as well as a great new work by Chris Winston called As a Tender Plant) but my favorite was their reading of Haydn's Little Organ Mass. Professional singers perform works like this because it's fun as an exercise and, with the exception of a few runs here and there, we can read them down on sight. When I hear high school singers do something at this caliber it's obvious that they love this music because of the thrill of discovery. That came through in their performance and it was totally exhilarating (as nerdy as that sounds).

After the concert I had supper Texas style with Adela, their accompanist (the aforementioned Chris Winston) and his wife to Babe's Chicken Dinner House. Not only is it B.Y.O.B. but the place is a family style restaurant where they keep the food comin' until you wave them off. At the beginning of the meal they simply ask you which meat you want. Luckily they have fried catfish and holy crap is it good.

They include in the meal some of the best creamed corn I've ever had (and it should be noted that I am not a fan of that particular dish at all) as well as some crazy good biscuits. They also have some fun signs posted all over.

And I flew home the next morning.

I can't thank Dr. Mark "Doc" Rohwer enough for commissioning the piece last summer. He is incredibly good at his job and didn't flinch when I suggested I write a piece with a weird scale completely sung in the Pakistani language of Urdu. The FMHS choral program is amazing and I'm glad I got to be a part of it for an extended weekend. Go Jaguars!

california trip

I flew to Orange County last weekend to hear the premiere of Chansons des la Vigne ("Songs from the Vine") by the Chapman University Singers. It was a lot of fun and the choir sounded great.

This was the first time I've ever flown into John Wayne Airport (that's right...it's named after The Duke) and I was caught totally off guard by the 15-foot-tall statue of the man himself in the luggage area. There he was with his spurs, hat and 6-shooter. Apparently, the county renamed it in 1979 because he had just died and used to live in the area. If that's the gold standard for airport naming then be on the lookout for the Prince International Airport or the Garrison Keillor Terminal popping up here in the Twin Cities.




















We hit Renata's in downtown Orange for lunch before rehearsal. I had this awesome seafood salada.
















Then it was off to the conservatory for rehearsal. Here's maestro Joe Modica and the students talking something out. Dr. Hye-Young Kim is at the piano and...seriously...she played the final two movements (the only 2 with piano) with a touch I still couldn't have if I practiced for the next 20 years.














It was great to hear this music again (for the first time). I finished it back in January so I hadn't really thought about it a whole lot other than on the plane ride over. They did an amazing job.

I stayed at a B & B right next to campus called Ruta's Old Town Inn.




































I headed across the street to The Ugly Mug for my morning coffee and online news. There were a couple of bugs up to some dirty business on the ledge next to me.

For supper that night we packed about 15 people in to Roy's for some Hawaiian fusion cuisine. The lighting was really low so I don't have any pictures of the awesome sushi I had. However, there was a chocolate soufflé at the close of the meal that made me rethink why I don't eat a lot of sweets. The fact that this pic

ture isn't all that great pales in comparison to the fact that my tongue exploded. Holy sh*t this was good.

I had most of the next day to myself so I walked around downtown Orange for a bit until I found a Metrolink train up to LA. I was there a few years back for the national ACDA convention but I didn't get to see much. I hit Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood Walk of Public Estim

ation and, although these sites are generally unimpressive (I have absolutely no desire to see if my foot is the same size as Jack Nicholson's), I'm glad I got to check something as iconic as this off my non-existent list.

I took only two pictures of stars on the Walk of Great Renown. First up: Kenny G. (It should be noted right away that I am not a fan.)

Then, as evidence of how ridiculous something like this is, about 20 paces later there was a star for George & Ira Gershwin. Maybe this is just my musical taste, but should the writers of some of the most lasting music of the 20th century be in the same

company with the guy that overdubbed himself with Louis Armstrong's iconic recording of "What a Wonderful World"?

Wanna get rid of your body thetan?

But enough complaining. I took the red line up to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. They had an awesome exhibit on Dan Graham which I wasn't allowed to take pictures of so here's a blurry "museum picture" of Jackson Pollock's Number 1, 1949.

I took this with my camera placed on a bench. Because the guy in the photo was moving it actually looks like he's stepping into some kind of portal. Click it for a bit more detail.

A lonely bench.

Here's the massive sculpture in the courtyard. The museum isn't that big but, for $10, it's completely worth it.

I snapped a few shots of Disney Hall on the way back to the subway. I like the way the colors balanced out on this one in particular.

Once I got back to Orange I had time to get a run in (I forgot my running shoes so I was forced to pound the Californian pavement in my Chuck Taylors...they did it that way in the 50s, right?) before the concert. I didn't get any pictures of the awesome meal I had at Rutabegorz but it was so awesome that I'm glad I'll be back next year.

The CU Singers and Joe Modica did an incredible job on my pieces. On top of that they put together a meaty program of Massenet, Lauridsen's Madrigali (holy crap, I love those pieces) and a Mechem cycle to boot. The commission (my first from a "philanthropist") has me back to the university next year for a solo song set for soprano and piano. How cool is that?

Some of the singers and I made it to the Lazy Dog Cafe afterwards for some drinks and camaraderie. Hopefully I was able to thank them as profusely as I wanted. If not, I'll be back with gift baskets!

Some palm trees for parting. (It's still weird to see these...not many 'round these parts).

your daily kids in the hall

great performance

Maine Euphony just posted some videos of 2 of my pieces on their YouTube page. Their reading of "Serpents in Red Roses Hissing" (from Color Madrigals) is, by far, one of my favorites.


p.s. Their version of Autumn isn't bad at all. There's even a cute "baby incident" near the beginning.