Make some music!
No posting- you’ll have to go to the site to see for yourself!
Elizabeth Kennedy Bayer
composer/blogger
Racter Songs
Last night Josh Hill (who needs to get a website!) presented a song cycle with text from The Policeman’s Beard is Half Constructed, a book of prose written by a computer program in the early 80s.
The following texts were presented:
More than iron, more than lead, more than gold I need electricity.
I need it more than I need lamb or pork or lettuce or cucumber.
I need it for my dreams.
He is quiet. He is Paul, the man I chant about, and he is
quiet because his pants are very long. His pants are long
and his vest is short. He sings at morning and at night,
Is this not comical and unfortunate? I fantasize that Paul
is both happy and unhappy, and I think that he sings because
his pants are long. And his vest indubitably is short.
And here are some of my favorites:
I gave a man a coat. I gave a woman a brassiere.
I gave myself and electric current. We all were
happy and full of delight. Take the coat from the
man and remove the brassiere from the woman and take
the electric current from me and we will be sad
and full of anguish.
Bills sings to Sarah. Sarah sings to Bill. Perhaps they
will do dangerous things together. They may eat lamb or stroke
each other. They may chant of their difficulties and their
happiness. They have love but they also have typewriters.
That is interesting.
I find the whole thing- and the song cycle- amazing.
Tags: Racter
Welcome back!
So it’s been a very, very, VERY long time since I posted last. And yes, it is 3:30 or so in the AM, but I fell asleep earlier and should be up and at ‘em for the organ masterclass tomorrow at 10:30 with composer Margaret Sandresky. I haven’t read anything about her yet- but Devon said it would be fun.
Anyway, I bought my first scotch yesterday. A Balvenie double wood 12 year- only drinking scotch one time before this, we are still getting to know each other. Anyway, it’s in celebration of a phone call I received yesterday. In May, I will have my first choral work (One Day When It’s Winter) performed in New York (state)!! More details to come!!
Right now, however, I am enjoying a Don Q and coke. It is quite delicious.
The thesis is slow-going, I still have a guitar miniature to write, one more summer program application to finish, comps March 27, I really need to officially quit my part-time job, buy plane tickets for things (more to come!!) and several other things that Don isn’t allowing me to remember at the moment.
Last note: everyone watch 3Sheets. It’s amazing.
Keep listening,
-e
Peanuts Gallery
I just discovered Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Peanuts Gallery for piano and orchestra. I have to share because it’s so ridiculously adorable. Each of the six movements comes in between 2 and 3 minutes making for a 15 minute piece. It begins with Schroeder’s Beethoven Fantasy, a bright, exuberant fanfare of course heavily quoting Beethoven and featuring the piano. Next is Lullaby for Linus, Snoopy does the Samba (can picture Snoopy and Animal from the Muppets side by side on this one), Charlie Brown’s Lament, Lucy Freaks Out and finally Peppermint Patty and Marcie Lead the Parade. The recording I am listening to right now was performed by the Florida State University Symphony (ETZ is currently their composer in residence). The piece was completed in 1997 and was featured on PBS in 2006. Like most of her work, it has been widely performed and has continued to gain popularity over the past several years.
Short, sweet and well worth a listen.
from the Theodore Presser Co. website:
Zwilich has been the subject of two cartoons in the late Charles Schulz’s celebrated Peanuts® series. The first cartoon, in which the Peanuts® characters attend the premiere of Ms. Zwilich’s Concerto for Flute, set off a chain of events which led eventually to the completion of Zwilich’s Peanuts® Gallery for piano and orchestra, which was also featured in Schulz’s comic strip. Peanuts® Gallery, which Ms. Zwilich wrote for a 1997 Carnegie Hall children’s concert, went on to become the basis of the second PBS documentary to feature her music (the first, “The Gardens: Birth of a Symphony”, featured Symphony No. 4 “The Gardens”). The acclaimed “Peanuts® Gallery” special has aired hundreds of times nationwide since its 2006 PBS debut, and will be rebroadcast during the 2007-2008 season.
A New Man
I’m very glad my office mate, Kurt of Kurticus.com, reminded me to stop by the Freshman Composition Seminar today. Composer Jonathan Newman is present today speaking about his chamber work, The Vinyl 6. He describes it as “…a Pierrot ensemble gone bad.”. But bad in a good way. The tune is lively, fun and interesting all the way through as Newman takes us on a stylistic journey through the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Look, Listen and Enjoy!
