March 6 - 12

A complex, rich, intense week -

Friday: NACUSA national conference at Chowan

This involved many fascinating works and performances including

an airy trio by Harvey Stokes full of scales for all the instruments

my own "Chowan Etudes" played in one of the buildings they are about

Scott Brickman's "Sketches of Maine" which is a musical landscape that grows on me more and more

Andrew Cole's computer music piece "Staring at the Sun" that is a concerto for ping pong ball and also "Sound, Timbre, and Density III" in which the flute (played exquisitely by my friend Jeremy McEntire) wanders through a garden of textures and takes on new hues and moods in each new setting

Jim Guthrie's "Electro-Sonata No. 3" with a speech-derived first movement, bubbly second movement, and an uplifting finale

Joe Alexander's piece for tape and tuba "Infamy" that develops from Roosevlt's famous statement

A fascinating slur technique etude for guitar composed and played by my colleague, Christian Loebs

John Allemeier's "Quiet Music" in which Dillon Savage tamed a cantankerous instrument with the grace and dignity of a real musical gentleman

Jeff Prillaman bringing my new songs to life and making them really work

performing some songs with haunting motives - "A Child's Garden" by Benjamin Williams - with Jeff

and much more

Saturday:

department of music strategic planning retreat

followed by birthday party with non-music colleagues

Kathy fixed chilli and lime tarts for this.

Sunday:

a new sense of vocation as a church musician

and an organ recital by Chowan alumna, Faye Monroe. This was a great reminder of how good some tunes are like Bach's "Be Thou But Near" and "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring."

Then, revival services at Lasker on Sun, Mon, and Tues nights with Chowan students playing special music for the services.

During those days there were edifying and interesting theological views shared:

Lloyd Lee Wilson, a Quaker and our registrar, discussed a technique for learning to listen for God's voice - identify a voice that is not God and tune it out. Then, your life is quieter, and it's easier to discern the next voice that is not God, etc.

Another theologian I know also shared his view of Jesus and the disciples. For various reasons involving the historic and cultural context, he thinks the disciples may have been younger than we tend to picture them - as young as 8 to 10 years old even. These would have been considered young men apprenticing in their fathers' businesses and studying with the rabbi for their bar mitzvahs. It may be a hard idea to accept, but it could explain various misunderstandings and behaviors in the gospels.

Also thinking about practicing these days-

I once heard a mockingbird practicing, I think. Late at night, the bird was rehearsing its repertoire of songs. On each of several repetitions, each song sounded better inflected and more authentic to me. Maybe that's how we people should practice.

A lesson today on Bach E minor Toccata - Classical music is different from most of the music we hear in that it is long term music. It unfolds its ideas over a large span of time. Thus, to play it well, we need to follow the musical argument as it develops. The introduction to the toccata presents an idea which is lifted up and viewed from various angles, and then developed until it culminates in a new idea - the crux of the passage.

All this amidst students and friends struggling, and layoffs all around. It's a good time to pray for everybody.