Music

Let the Tweaking Begin!

Now that I've declared my piece, Transitions, "finished", I am solidly in the tweaking phase. I brought each section as audio files into...

Climbing the Walls in San Jose

The Opera San Jose production of Carmen was so wonderful, that I decided to see it a second time. The first time I attended a matinee,...

Seeing the Beauty of Music

Since March 2020, I've been to very few concerts of live music. There is nothing like sitting in an audience and knowing that the...

And So It Begins...Again

One of the things that characterized 2020 was the cancellation of musical performances and events. At first, most of us thought...

It's Time to Draw the Double-Bar Line

In November 2019, I was a panelist at King’s College London, for an event about the conductor Constantin Silvestri. I showed a few...

The Remains of a Feast

We spent Christmas Eve at Treehouse Tavern listening to music and eating an assortment of hors d’oeuvres. Treehouse Tavern is a 180...

Christmas: Arranged and Orchestrated

Last year, a friend suggested that I join ASMAC, the American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers. I was hesitant. Although I...

Winter’s Gifts: Stars

I can’t remember the last time that I attended a choral concert. All of the chorus works I’ve heard in recent years have been part of an...

Walking to Tacoma

I've taken 1,693,819 steps since March 16. That's an average of more then 12,000 steps per day, every day, seven -->

The Nose at the Met

Dmitri Shostakovich’s first opera, The Nose, is a satirical tale of a St. Petersburg official who wakes up without a nose—just a -->

From Bayreuth to New York: Tannhäuser

I purchased a ticket to watch the Bayreuth (Germany) production of Tannhäuser, but the streaming link never arrived. Glen and I were -->

The Bayreuth Festival: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

These are the days of reverse travel. I had planned to be in Germany this month for the Bayreuth Festival. Instead, the -->