a thought on musicians and haircuts + Steven Bryant brings the thunder

My life has gone a little apeshit recently due to the fact that I have way too many things to do so my ability to write things here has taken a bit of a hit. That being said I've got a bunch of stuff I want to talk about (including a banner premiere in Seattle, the chance I got to see not one but two different moon rocks in one day and some incredible albums that just came out) but, since I've been inexplicably soaking up new pieces for the harpsichord, I'd like to make the following observation:

World-renowned harpsichordist Elisabeth Chojnacka looks like the Crazy Cat Lady from The Simpsons (but, admittedly, with more teeth).

But this lady can effin' play. Check out how she absolutely slaughters Górecki's Harpsichord Concerto because it makes me completely willing to forgive the outrageous haircut (skip to about 4'35" for the incredible second movement).

On a completely unrelated note, I heard the premiere of Steven Bryant's Concerto for Wind Ensemble by the UT Wind Ensemble tonight and, holy hell, this piece is brilliant. I would say that he proved why he's one of the most commissioned wind ensemble composers working right now but that would mean that he had to prove it. This piece kicked serious ass and I feel like I may have made a mild spectacle of myself in that I was moved into a quasi-headbang at some point ("spectacle" in terms of a stodgy classical audience, that is).

And a special commendation goes to SB for having what amounted to a trio between contrabass, contrabass clarinet and a contrabassoon. It was like being at a KISS concert and feeling the bass because your ribs are vibrating. So, so, so good.

Junkin and the UTWE are putting out a surround-sound album in the Blu-ray format with this piece on it (it had a large compliment of players surrounding the audience) and, although, I don't own a television and rarely watch any DVDs, I may just have to get myself a Blu-ray player to enjoy this piece and the other two on the album: John Mackey's Kingfishers Catch Fire (probably one of my top 10 pieces ever...right up there with Adams's El Niño) and Joel Puckett's The Shadow of Sirius (which they also played tonight). Both of those works also have instrumental compliments surrounding the audience so it should be an incredibly unique album.

Mahalo.