a personal story

I recently received an email from an old college friend alerting me to a really unfortunate situation involving someone I care about. Her name is Hoa Nguyen and she is originally from Vietnam. I met her in the fall of 2000 when we were both students at Luther College and I still remember vividly her teaching me how to pronounce her last name with a huge grin on her face ("It's just like the wind, Josh. That's how you say it!"). She married a really great guy, Dan Hanson, a few years later and, frankly, he can say it better than I can:

“My wife, Hoa Nguyen, was detained by four U.S. Immigration officers on August 14th, 2009. Since returning from our wedding in Viet Nam in February, there have been some difficulties making sure we have been complying with U.S. Immigration law. Hoa missed a court date on the 13th of August, as she mistook he date to be the 23rd, and was subsequently ordered to be immediately deported. It came as a shock to us that such serious action should be taken for that mistake. Currently, she is being held at Sherburne County Jail and we are doing everything in our power to secure her release.

Hoa and I have known each other for 7 years. I met her at Luther College and we began dating a year and a half after graduation. Since that time, we have fallen in love, married and we are now anxious to live the early years of our marriage in continued happiness and calm.

Hoa has a wonderful disposition and shares her laughter, smile and wit with all that are around her. She is infectious, kind, an amazing cook and can connect with kids in an instant. Additionally, she has a master’s degree in French from the University of Minnesota. A family as well as a restaurant, a day care, or teaching are her ambitions. She deserves to be in the U.S. on her own merits. She is however, my wife and as a U.S. citizen she and I have the right to be together. I am disappointed that we have experienced this part of our system and regret that we did not seek professional help earlier. Be that as it may, we are in this position and have every intention of making it through this with our heads held high and our relationship stronger."

Those paragraphs from Dan (and the 2 pictures I included here) were taken from a website that Hoa's friends set up to alert people to the situation (http://www.hoadefense.org/). He gets all the details just right but you can sense a tremendous amount of reservation regarding his emotions about the situation...and I certainly can't say that I blame him. For my part, all I can tell you is that Hoa is truly an amazing person; a positive force for positive change with everyone she meets. You might say she's "one in a million" or some cliche like that which cannot even come close to summing up what she's given you with her gracious personality and gentle spirit. Another friend of ours likened her to the human incarnation of a butterfly. This is not far off.

The latest update on http://www.hoadefense.org/ is a letter from Hoa herself. In it she talks about the rigors of living in the jail--no windows, lock downs sometimes for 10 hours a day--but that, "I have started to have dreams again and have very deep sleep."

We've all met people like Hoa and Dan and it would be a shame not to speak up on their behalf in any way possible. I've contacted our three representatives in the Congress (as I would imagine they already have) and am looking to see if there is anything else I can do. These are tremendously good people with a deep sense of compassion, social justice and an obvious devotion to each other. If there's anything that anyone out there can do please do it.

big whiskey

I've been listening to the Dave Matthews Band's newest album, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, for the past couple of days. It was released back in April but I've only now just gotten around to listening to it. It's the last album that original band member LeRoi Moore laid any tracks down for before he died last August and he's never far from the spirit of the songs. In fact, the album cover is a drawing (by Dave Matthews himself, no less) of him in the guise of a Mardi Gras float.




















My hands down favorite is the fourth track, "Lying in the Hands of God." It's a 4/4 thing with a maestoso tempo and the awesome lyric, "Save your sermons for someone who's afraid to love." Some of Moore's sax licks drop in around 2'58" and add this floaty passion to the proceedings that you didn't know was missing until it was suddenly there.

Definitely worth a listen and a fitting tribute to one of the great sax players of all time.

yet another joshua shank

Remember last year when I found a bunch of other Joshuas Shank via Google alerts? Well, Google just let me in on the fact that I'm (presumably) back in high school (in Canada) and can now play rugby. Here's the picture from the St. Albert Gazette:

The tag line for the picture read:

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE

Joshua Shank of the Pirates tries to split the St. Albert defensive tandem of Taylor England (left) and Jarid Snidal in Wednesday’s U18 match at the Leading Edge Physiotherapy Field. A late try by Jordan Schapansky secured a 5-5 draw for St. Albert.

So, at the very least, I led the team to a draw, right? That's not a loss, people! And, frankly, it's kind of comforting to know that, somewhere out there, there's a Joshua Shank who is actually good at sports.

Mahalo.

and we're off! + choral awards

No more opera writing for a bit as it's time to start on work for the paying customers! First up is a set of three songs in French for soprano Jessica Hardy. The last French set I wrote, Chansons des la Vigne, was a whole lot of fun and I'm looking forward to some more good coffee with my French tutor. The instrumentation will be the interesting combination of piano and harp.

This time around I've chosen some great texts by one of my favorite poets ever, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926). The guy was German but wrote over 400 poems in French...which I read in their entirety over the summer (it took forever) along with reviewing some of the poems I flagged by Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine and Guillaume Apollinaire. Morten Lauridsen famously set a bunch of Rilke's French work in his Les Chanson des Roses and, having admired that work forever, I decided to try my hand at some Rilke.

His poetry always has such a beautiful, sinewy line to it that is incredibly difficult to try and honor with music. In fact, it's almost music in and of itself so the real challenge will be to reveal what's there already. I used an English translation of his poem, Herbst, for a choral piece I wrote in 2004 but this is my first time with his original words. It's going to be so much fun.

In other news, I just won a pair of choral awards from both coasts! First, the NYC-based Society for Universal Sacred Music chose Musica animam tangens as one of the winners for their Festival of Universal Sacred Music. There are also winners from Sweden, Italy and Switzerland alongside the other six from the U.S. so I'm incredibly honored that they chose my piece. They'll perform it next April at the gorgeous Kaufman Center in the Upper East Side.



















A Grass-Green Pillow (the fifth movement of Color Madrigals) also racked up its second award in as many years; this time from San Diego's newest choral ensemble, Sacra/Profana. Artistic Director Krishan Oberoi was very gracious in our initial correspondence and I'm incredibly grateful they chose my piece to represent themselves with.

However, what I'm really tickled at is that there's a picture on their website of their selection committee holding up copies of my piece. I remember when I judged The Singers' Choral Horizons program last year with Abbie, Jocelyn, Tim and Matt and the Sacra/Profana people look a fair shade better than we did after digging through dozens and dozens of scores for hours and hours (I would imagine that you always get way more submissions than you think you will for these things). They posted an email I sent on their website so, since one good turn deserves another, here's that awesome picture. Thanks, S/P! I can't wait to hear what you do with the work!

currently listening

So, Imogen Heap's new album, Ellipse, just came out today. Wow. It's just amazing. I'm still processing what I'm hearing because it is so singular. Once I get this one all listened to I'm going after Matisyahu's new album, Light, which also came out today.

My hands down favorites are "Bad Body Double" (it's a lesson in the percussiveness of rapid-fire words) and the track immediately after, "Aha!" (it reminds me of a good Danny Elfman score to a good Tim Burton film). Everyone should go out and get it today!

re-stringing day

It's Instrument Upkeep Day here at the Shank household! I spent the last few hours re-stringing both my 12-string and 6-string guitars. It's easy to forget both how long this takes (I'll never do both in one day again) as well as the finger grime that builds up on the fingerboards when these instruments are put to good use. It's a little gross but kind of cool--as far as gunk goes, that is--to think how hard you must've rocked to shred all that stuff off your fingers.

That being said, there are certainly worse ways to spend an afternoon other than watching a few Netflix episodes of Dark Angel (Remember that early 00s show, anyone? I've been on a sci-fi/cyberpunk kick lately.) and sipping on a cup of coffee while you endlessly crank the tuning pegs to remove, replace and tune 18 bronze strings. The payoff is obvious, though. They sound great.

currently listening + burgers + potatoes

I don't know why I've only just downloaded this song but I am really digging Prince's song, 7. If you don't remember exactly which one I'm talking about perhaps you'll remember the video where he had a microphone on the end of a gun and a police hat with chains down the front obscuring his face. Yeah, it's that Prince I'm talking about.





















He does this really cool pitch bend on the word "blasphemy" that makes the spine tingle every time. He's layered his voice vocoder-style (eat your heart out Immy) like 15 times and they all go in the same direction before snapping back to the "right" notes. It is so cool. A lesser artist would have populated the song with stuff like that but he seasons it just right...once is enough for His Royal Badness. Oh, and did I mention he's from Minneapolis?

Since I moved to Uptown and now live really close to the Wedge Community Co-op, I've decided to try and cook something really nice each week this year. I went down to Dubuque, Iowa last week to visit my brother's family and cooked some kickass black bean burgers and potato salad. I read John Mackey's amazing blog whenever I get the chance and he's been cooking up some Ina Garten recipes lately. So, as a knower of a good idea when I see one, I went with her French Potato Salad recipe. Pair that with the alfalfa-sprouts-and-fresh-guacamole-on-a-black-bean-burger combo that I love at my local organic restaurant, Tao Natural Cafe, and you've got a Combustible Edison. It was amazing.

I didn't go all out and make the black bean burgers myself (although this is an eventual goal). Morning Star Farms has some great vegetarian stuff that I love to use and, usually, I just throw the pattie in the microwave because it's fast. However, my sister-in-law taught me a new method to prepare these beauties: the toaster. You just pop them in on the highest setting a couple of times and it turns them crispy. I can't believe I never thought of that. Thanks, Beth!