Concertimento

 My own private Ives, Charles that is!I have deep sympathy for composer Charles Ives, especially the pseudo-tragic part about keeping a day job (profoundly profitable one too!) and composing, raising a family, dealing with the stresses of the city. So holiday time can often be composing time, a faint break in an otherwise hectic routine. This work "Memorial Day" from Summer 2005. Before my son Felix was born I begin writing in a wholly new, obsessively far-reaching type of way. As composers we are creators of sound and that summer I was getting to the very root of my own creativity - pro-creation! So I wrote my own private Ives, perhaps it was 'method composing" and some if it was certainly "in order to survive" composing. And part of it was surely outsider compulsion of following the mythical path of enlightenment. So, this new recording, featuring pianist/composer Mick Rossi, who also produced these recordings, is giving your ears and eyes a sample of my

Another postcard score to FREAK YOUR MIND!!!!! Its a loop piece!

Feldmusic - music for out-of-doors -very different then indoor concert music. I have been listening to the birds - I awoke at 4 am Sunday to a choir of birds singing in the rain! I have mentioned before in this blog my love of NYC parks especially the small, forgotten corner parks and tribute squares. These places are an oasis of sound and I'm trying to map that tonal geography! This new work for quartet - 'GREEN DOME LIBERATION SUITE' is dedicated to my second son Avery. I intended for this music to be played in the Green Dome Park which somehow is NEVER open - we need to tear down the gates with tone - music is the power, it can liberated your mind! Scored for flute, clarinet,/bass clarinet, violin, cello - in 8 movements - this is the 'waters motion music' - someday we will play this in the garden itself and I can answer the question "Daddy, why is the park closed?"

While digging through my paper archives, preparing the "Quilt Concerto" books I found this scrap entitled "Blood Blossom" - a rare Japanese flower. It comes from a poem (lost?) by poet Steven Dalachinsky. It is also the title of a collection of piano pieces of mine - this must be the title track! I made a special arrangment for horn quartet - marked Adagio, can't wait to hear it again for the first time!

This score was published in a book of poetry I wrote in 1990-91 entitled "Paprika Poems". This is the only score in the book of poems and dream journals, but it seems quite profound personally now - twenty years later! I had no concept to ever have this piece performed - I wouldn't have known how to play it. But now I think I understand. Will perform the World Premiere of "Matrix Improvisation, Solo #1" (1991) written in nestled high along Hippie Hill near the "Old Stone House" in Boone, NC - Dedicated to the Kudzu Bohemians everywhere..