A Word, 23 January 2018

I've been neglecting this space, in favor of my highly occasional newsletter, and more particularly in favor of playing a hell of a lot of piano since roughly September 2016. It turns out that when one can sight read, is polite and punctual, one's time becomes worth something. Being paid to play more has been rewarding, and not just financially. In composer-world one is generally asking everyone for favors all the time; it's nice to be doing musical work for others in service of their ideas for a change.

I find myself less and less in composer-world. Today it occurred to me, out of the blue, to remove the list of compositions from my website. Pen-and-paper notated composition work has been the heart of my creative effort for twenty years. Or, at least I thought it was the heart. Really it's been someplace else for almost ten of those years now. So, I didn't remove the workslist in preparation for a major change in direction; actually I believe the change happened long ago. I'm still writing formal compositions, when people ask me to, but when I get up in the morning and have an hour or two to work on personal projects, that's not where I go. So: I removed the workslist simply because it no longer contained the work of which I'm most proud. That would be the recorded music and the performances over the last several years. Those links are still up. Recordings of my formal compositions are still on my Soundcloud. And I'm still available for commissions. But if you're meeting me for the first time, that's not the music I most want you to hear. That would be the stuff on my Bandcamp, and on GWB's. And the stuff that's still coming.

I've been mixing the new GWB album, the one with Ross Gallagher from last summer, with local mastermind Drake Hardin. I can't wait to share this music. We dug deep, that week in August.

​I would tell you about Christmas, but I wrote a song about it, and I don't want to spoil the surprise.

There's more to talk about from the last year, and I hope I'll get to it soon. In the meantime, there's the present. Still walking. In the meantime: Bartók's Contrasts​. The Ravel Violin Sonata. A brand new opera. Long walks. PANCRACE.  John McPhee's structure diagrams. Appreciating the afternoons.