Kyle Matthews Concert

Kyle Matthews performed at Chowan on Sunday night. I appreciated the theme of service that he emphasized in a more and more focused way as the concert went on. A song from his newest CD, "The Main Event," discusses the way that the most important happenings in the realm of God's Kingdom often seem unimportant and eclipsed by the passing acts of human pride, yet those quiet occurrences on the sidelines are often the real main events.

Kyle also mentioned that he had noticed that in the Gospels Jesus seems to have treated every person he met as an individual and never "processed people." Jesus met each one at their point of need. The point of need, both ours and others, is where we meet God.

This point about the way Jesus related to the people has important application for the way I do my job here at Chowan. As I see it, my basic job here is to educate pianists, and to do so, it makes sense to me to study works of Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and 20th/21st Century masters with my students. In addition to this core piano study, it is very good for students to be exposed to many different ways of making music. But our university's mission also suggests that students are getting some vocational training, so education and exposure are not enough. We need to think of the students' futures in music. This seems to call for a more personalized approach. Not every student is aspiring to be a classical pianist. Most have other goals, and those goals might be better suited to those students as well. Thus, I need to be open to the stylistic interests and experiments of my students and find ways to work with them on a case-by-case basis in those areas. For that matter, each student's psychological state, background, attitude towards education, etc., might call for very individualized approaches. Ultimately - and most exciting - we are making something new together as we create our own musical culture here at Chowan, in Murfreeboro, and in the surrounding area.

Back to Kyle, it was really fun having him in town. He was professional and flexible and was enthused to visit with children and students. His music admirably expresses his spiritual journey, and it invites those who hear to join in following the way of Jesus. In addition, he's a deep thinker about the relationship of music and faith.

Gala Recital

Chowan turned 160 years old yesterday. MacDowell Columns looked beautiful decked with yellow mums in the fall light.

Our faculty gala concert was part of the celebration. Playing in that concert provided many good reminders for me:

1. One needs to practice regularly to feel technically stable in performance.

2. One needs to keep performing on one's mind and must be very intentional to make sure the performing reflects one's beliefs about performing and one's best thinking.

3. Certain spaces and occasions call for specific repertoire. For instance, Turner Auditorium doesn't need very quiet music. Instead, a full-sonoritied romantic-styled work such as a Bach-Busoni transcription or a Brahms sonata would work very well there.


So far this semester it seems that I am blessed with some hard-working and very promising piano students. They've encouraged me and made me proud at every lesson. As I teach them, and as I think of my choir director friends, and I also reflect on my classroom teaching, I am struck by some contrasts. Choir directing and piano teaching are in large part about getting musicians to sound better - always moving them to a next level. Classroom teaching is not focused on music performance, so in this way, it's really a very different activity.

I find myself at a really different place personally teaching piano now than a few years ago at William and Mary. At that time I was looking to explore ideas with my students and to present some profound underpinning or proof for my interpretive suggestions. Today I'm mostly listening and responding. At the end of one line I think it needs a little more of the top voice, or I'd like a greater sense of resistance moving into a particular climax, and more often these days I simply say so. We'll see where this leads. It may be a passng thing. And I still do lots of exploring and explaining - I can't stop myself!

I also find myself wanting to tell students how to do certain things that I do, but I don't know how to verbalize those things. I'm working on it.

I've been thinking back to the early years of the Lasker Summer Music Festival and the types of exploration I was undertaking then in terms of seeking modes of performance that express Christian faith. In those early days when I was just starting to imagine and discover some things for myself, the thinking wasn't particularly limiting or dogmatic in any way, and maybe I should refresh my work by revisiting some of the approaches I considered at that time.

However, as my music and faith have become better integrated, maybe I am detecting concepts for myself that aren't so flexible or can't/shouldn't be ignored.

It may be that I need to set forth my basic ideas in writing so I can remind myself of them more systematically. I'd better leave that task for another day.

Spontaneity and a Task Completed

First, task completed:

Some of you know I've been writing a little cantata based on Chowan's quality enhancement plan. The plan was devised to address findings of SACS, which is the accrediting organization for our school. The cantata (or jingleata, as I'm calling it) is to be performed as part of a presentation explaining our plan. A jingleata, by the way, is a cantata made of jingles or a jingle-qualitied cantata. I made up the term, and perhaps the genre.

The scores are now in the hands of the performers and out mine! It was a fun project. It's always nice to have a composition assignment. But it's also really nice to be able to move on to something else.


Now about spontaneity:

On Sunday, after the sermon, Kathy pointed at her watch and gave me the signal to stretch the offertory meditation. It was only 11:45, and our service is scheduled to go to noon - and we're also on the radio until then. So I stretched.

I started by filling up at least a minute, maybe two, with introduction. Then I played a version of "There's a Sweet, Sweet Spirit in this Place" with lots of hesitations between phrases. I embellished that a bit, got a little blusey or soulful, then added a coda using a favorite effect of mine - sort of a random ring imitation on the piano.

Because of the extra time, I explored improvisational aspects that I wouldn't often use in church. I basically explored a variety of things I could do with the tune until it seemed like it gone on for long enough (musically speaking).

The surprising thing about all this is that I belive I had more positive comments about this offertory than any other thing I've played at the church in Ahoskie. I'm not sure if that's because of the different energy of more extended improvisation, because of what I improvised, or maybe it's because people really like the tune.

My friend, Charles Winstead, commented about the accumulation of layers as I improvised. I usually think of layers happening simultaneously, but in this case, they were happening one after the other, as in a theme and variations. I like that thought, because it explains something of the process of the cumulative impact of a theme and variations, and gives me food for thought as someone who makes up music sometimes!

Jacob and Rachmaninoff

Today's Old Testament reading dealt with Jacob's wrestling match with the angel. As a meditation on this passage, I played some of Rachmaninoff's B minor Prelude. After hearing the context of the scripture and the passage itself I could easily hear aspects of the story in the music:

at the beginning, Jacob already struggling in the womb,

at the end of the climactic section - the wounding of Jacob,

and on the final page, Jacob limping,


While this music and the story are full of struggle, I am also reminded of a theme that has surfaced several times during the commentary on the Olympics. I keep hearing that the best athletes actually relax as they get further into their tasks. Perhaps that is a good thing to bear in mind as performing musicians. While the music may picture a struggle, we need to be relaxed so as to be at our best to physically perform the music well. The desire to embody the emotions of the music sometimes leads to a very unrelaxed place.

HWGP

For prelude yesterday I played an arrangement of "Be Still and Know." It's a hard tune to know how to phrase. It keeps coming back to scale degree 5 and then it orbits around scale degrees 3 and 1, too. To add to the confusion about how best to inflect it, and with what mood to do so, is the fact that the text consists of words of spoken by God.

The solution, at least for yesterday, revealed itself in the course of the worship service. Right before the prelude was the chiming of the hour with a handbell playing G, which was scale degree 5. I started in the tempo of the bell and organized my phrasing around the repeated Gs in the tune.

The fact that the words of the song are the words of God made me wonder something I don't remember ever thinking about before:

How Would God Phrase?

To sum up my mulling over this probably odd-sounding question, people phrases are usually arches. That's about the best sort of basic shape we can manage. I think God's phrases would be more complete - circles or spheres.

An arch that returns to the same starting point might be as circular as we can get in a time-bound medium. Maybe the composer of this tune really struck on something profound.

Musician Pitfalls

For many years, I've subscribed to the idea that each calling and profession has its own particular ethical and spiritual pitfalls. On my recent trip, I visited good friends and returned to locations where I spent a lot of time years ago. In addition to reviewing the course of my life, I also had a quick survey of the lives of a lot of other musicians in a bunch of locations. Through these experiences, I was reminded of three pitfalls we musicians face.

1. sarcasm

Sarcasm seems an unhealthy but sort of natural bi-product of having a vision and being taught to be critical about one's own work. If it gets out of hand, it can rob you of a lot of joy.

2. not really engaging with one's church job as ministry or worship

Sometimes we take jobs because we need money, and that's probably okay. But I think we don't live up to our potential as believers if we don't go beyond that. We might also lose some joy that way.

3. worshiping people, experiences, and institutions

Respecting these should be alright, but worshiping them robs us of our freedom and I think it eventually leads to some imbalance and loss of energy.

Running

I had a nice run yesterday morning, and that reminded me that to be disciplined is to do just the right amount everyday.

Sometimes I over-practice or under-practice, and other times I miss the daily part.

Seeking and maintaining just the right balance involves one's sense of proportion, and that's part of beauty. In this way, one's living and way of working can be a work of art.

Peace

We visited St. Paul's Church which is across the street from where the World Trade Center stood. 14,000 volunteers traveled to St. Paul's to support the rescue workers in the months following 9/11. There were also 500 musicians who played in the church to minister to rescue workers as they tried to rest between shifts.

It seems that being the focal point for so much ministry following 9/11 revitalized the church's sense of mission.

Today the church is also a shrine for many who come to reflect on 9/11 and to remember lost loved ones.

In the church, one hears the inspiring story of volunteers from around the U.S. who reached across all sorts of boundaries in acts of love because of their common cause and their shared humanity. I think that outpouring was a beautiful beginning of healing.

I wonder if that healing movement could have grown into a spiritual revival that would have swept around the world.

But my intuition tells me that the healing and the revival were cut short as war ensued.

The phrase "cycle of violence" and humanity's need to break the cycle of violence really sunk in with me as I thought of that lost opportunity.

As I write that, I must also confess that it must be incredibly hard for politicians to seek peace in the wake of such an event.

And that brings me to another often-heard phrase - "give peace a chance." Frequently, what we learn about and call "peace" is a less-than-ideal agreement dictated by the victors after war has been given a chance.

While war is often presented as the only possible choice, I have heard very little about the times when peace has really been tested as an option.

It seems to me that the anger and indignance that are stirred up by even the most basic talk about peace indicate how unwilling our society might be to really considering peace as a way forward.

Just the Facts

We've just returned from a two-week trip up the east coast to Hawley, MA. On the way we visited friends in Richmond, New York, and Boston. I'll be blogging about some details of the journey over the next few days.

In New York we visited the Met Museum. I was interested in returning to see the great masterpieces there after many years. I wondered what the impact of being in the presence of great works by Rodin, Rothko, Seurat, and others would be on me today. I didn't find myself as personally overwhelmed as I was when I was younger, but I am still moved by the works and respect the genius that created them. In a way, these works have become solid great facts for me, but no longer the vital and immediate challenges and experiences they once were. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. Maybe it means I am free to be moved and to respect the works without worshiping them now.

We also visited Ground Zero. I had intentionally not visited once before when I could have. At that time I didn't feel ready. But this time I felt ready and I like I wanted to and should.

Ground Zero is a construction site now. From street level, no structures can be seen rising. There was little personal impact for me. Maybe I'm numb. But really I think it is that 9/11 has passed from the realm of felt reality to mere fact for me and for many of us who don't live with the personal memory of lost loved ones.

I thought the events of 9/11 would become the principal theme of artists of my generation. But all that has come to pass since that time has changed that.

Lasker and Independence Day

The first session of the Lasker Summer Music Festival was a fine time of deep fellowship and record crowds. Our composer-in-residence challenged us regarding many issues from our attitudes towards people whose beliefs are different from our own, our use of music, and who is included in our communities (musical and otherwise.)

Yesterday I attended several Fourth of July Events. At one we were provided flags made in China and a recording of the national anthem stopped a third of the way through. We went to Edenton to see the fireworks. I was struck by the many ages and visions of the world that were co-existing there: young love, middle-aged workers, elderly observers, etc.

Beethoven Fifth Symphony

Friday afternoon, I played the first movement of Beethoven Fifth Symphony in a two-piano transcription with my colleague Paula Pressnell. This was the final performance of Chowan's piano ensemble camp.

I was surprised by the emotion that performing this work stirred up in me. I hadn't played it before, and I was focused and involved with the energy of the piece and playing it. It's a powerful work and I suppose we all know it very well. Maybe those are the reasons I found it so moving.

It's nice to have mysterious, powerful, and unexpected experiences with music like this to remind us that it is bigger than we are and that great music has power.

Websites

Here are a few good websites on musical topics that I've used with classes at Chowan.

Chant

Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier

Beethoven and Napoleon

Wagner's Ring Cycle

Schoenberg's Paintings

Contrasts

Beauty in the garden inspite of the weather.























There's a big forest fire in three counties to our south. It was smokey most of yesterday morning here in Murfreesboro.

Apart form the fire - which changes the air quality significantly at times - it has become very hot here. Summer weather arrived three days ago in full force.

Our place is air conditioned, but I know at least one person whose isn't and have thought seriously about his situation the last couple of days.

I took a walk with Sophie (our dog) and we sat calmly in Squirrel Park on-campus. Us both being calm is a rarity. By that time of the day, although it was hot, a steady breeze was coming from the east, tempering the mood on the shaded swings hanging from our ancient trees. I realized I should be open to, and take advantage of, such moments of peace that spontaneously occur from time to time.

On Wednesday, the Mercer University Children's Choir performed in First Baptist Ahoskie. It was a lovely service of worship that was admirably presented after a ten hour bus ride. The children had great focus. They impressed us with their rhythmic abilities as well.

As I studied the program, I noted that the majority of the composers were women. Such a program is also a rarity. Maybe more children's choir music is by women since women might find themselves working children's choirs more often than men?

I also thought a bit about the purity for which children's voices are often praised. While the sound of children's voices might be considered pure, I think the way children phrase also contributes a lot to this impression of purity. There is a naive quality about the phrasing of children. And by that, I mean something very good. Their musical expression may be as deeply thought and felt as ours and executed with just as much concentration and intensity. But their type of intensity doesn't bring the same adult type of drive to each note passing to the next and ultimately to a climax and a conclusion. Their feelings about this progress are different and maybe more innocent. I still wonder if some of what we adults think of as passion or intensity might really be anger or fear - and that might be okay. Or maybe we should learn how to make music like children - with peace and joy.

American Liszt Society

I'm starting today feeling a little directionless, maybe because it was such a full weekend.

On Friday and Saturday I attended the national festival of the American Liszt Society in Washington, DC. I heard seventeen pianists perform at least five hours of Liszt's music, and there were more events that didn't attend. (It just struck me that 17 is also the number of dollars I paid to park!)

Some of the highlights for me were:

visiting the Library of Congress where the first day's concerts took place

making new musical friends

and hearing superb performances -

Gila Goldstein playing "Wohin?" was magical. The variety and type of tone, the pacing, and her technique that creates the illusion that she isn't playing made this a performance I'll remember for a long time.

Sean Duggan, Benedictine monk and master of the music of Bach, played several works from Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses. Unfortunately, I only saw and partly heard the last bit of "Benediction . . ." through the window. Even through the window, he conveyed a spirit of seriousness and sincerity that I found very moving.

Justin Kolb, who is very warm and outgoing in welcoming newcomers to the Liszt Society, played the "Apparitions" and gave a spellbinding rendering of the unsettling and occult mood of these seldom-heard pieces.

Elizabeth and Eugene Pridinoff gave one the best two-piano performances I'v heard. They played Les Preludes and Concerto Pathetique. I believe this second piece is essentially the same work as the Grosseskonzertsolo.

Louis Nagel payed the Don Giovanni paraphrase in a way that drew us all into what he was doing with great concentration, and the audience response - which was almost always enthusiastic - really indicated depth of appreciation for the musical quality of his performance.

In addition to those performance highlights, I also heard some of Liszt's violin pieces, one of which is the piano piece "Il Penseroso" twice with some contrasting material in-between.

A number of performers put collections of pieces together and asked the audience not to applaud until the end as they believed there were connections between the works. This happened with both halves of Michele Campanella's recital - first half, sacred works and the second half, Hungarian Rhapsodies, and also with the violin pieces.

A final reflection on hearing so much Liszt in a few hours - while I believe a great deal of Liszt's music is very strong, I don't think he expected anyone to ever hear so much of it at once. Any good composer would organize things in a very specific way if they knew that the works they were composing would be played back-to-back for hours on end.

Jefcoat and Galilee

We attended a fun Murfreesboro event - Porkfest:

20+ Eastern NC Barbecue caterers preparing their food in "Pork Alley"

A classic car show on our street

and admission to the Jefcoat Museum.

The Jefcoat is a treasure almost in our backyard!
From a musical standpoint, it houses a whole floor of square grands (including a Broadwood which was one of Beethoven's preferred brands,) pump organs, player pianos, music boxes, a cimbalom, a very ornate Erard harp, various bells, early phonographs and radios - many of which are still in working order. I anticipate a field trip for my Music History class.

In addition to the musical collection, there is a wealth of Americana - a kind of miniature Smithsonian (17,000 objects all on display at the Jefcoat vs. 136 million owned by the Smithsonian's museums - I looked this up because I was curious and because the numbers are amazing at both places.) At the Jefcoat there are all sorts of washing mashines, butter churns, ice cream mixers, a hunting room full of mounted animals, guns, and traps, etc. etc. etc.

After seeing all of this, I drove to Pasadena, MD to play a concert at Galilee Lutheran Church. The people there are always warm and Joel Borelli does a great job of enthusiastically promoting whatever he's presenting. It's a gift he has, and I appreciate it.

One thing I learned from the recital relates to Ravel Sonatine. I wasn't feeling that my performance had the type of clarity I like, but Joel commented positively on the clarity afterwards. While I didn't feel like my playing was as clear as I wanted, I was keeping most of the piece pretty quiet - which is how Ravel marked a lot of it anyway! It seems that keeping most of the dynamics pretty low helps with the clarity. (Note to self: Read and follow the score!)

Another thing that sunk in with me about the program I've been playing is that the works by Schumann and Prokofief (Papillons and movements from Romeo and Juliet) go together nicely and that seems to be the case because both works demonstrate their composer's mastery of musical characterization. To play them realy well, it might be a good idea to think more like an actor than a musician and seek to become each of the characters depicted.

Trinity Sunday

It's another beautiful morning here in Murfreesboro. The quiet, cool, early summer mormings have begun.

I note that this is my 100th blog post since starting this blog in March 2005. I've enjoyed doing this as a hobby and as a way of connecting with people. Thanks to Martin Tiller, my friend who started blogging and got me interested. Also, thanks to Jeff Prillaman who took up blogging around the same time.

While I'm thanking folks -
This summer I hope to get a lot of composing done. As I find myself getting more comfortable in my composer skin, I have been reflecting about the people who have helped with that transformation.

Stefan Waligur, a composer Kathy and I met a few years ago in D.C., shared a CD of his work with us. The work is clear, worshipful, and can incoroprate musicians of all levels. I found the style very moving and liberating to me as a composer. The first thing I wrote that I felt really good about was my Christmas cantata which was influenced by Stefan's work.

James M. Guthrie, my colleague here at Chowan, is the other influence I am deeply appreciating. Dr. Guthrie is a superb composer - gifted and highly skilled. His great gift to me has been simply recognizing me as a composer, which frees me to produce without becoming entangled in judging my own output.

Tomorrow night I have a concert. Yesterday I found myself not knowing quite where I was technically or musically with the music I'm playing. On the eve of Trinity Sunday, I am reminded that symbolic practice is very helpful in such a situation. By "symbolic practice" I mean structuring one's practice time using meaningful numbers (such as thre)e from the Christian tradition.

I've known the works I'm playing for some time, but some sections don't feel totally secure at the moment. Trusting that three (or seven or twelve {rarely twelve!}) focused repetitions of these passages will reconnect me with my history of work with this music is very useful in keeping my practice realistic and keeping me on a good plane emotionally!

This morning I also returned to another practice I gravitate to from time to time: praying through my repertoire. Here I ask what I want the audience to get from each portion of each work, and pray for that to come to pass. This approach teaches me a lot about the music, and it helps me to make music with a consciousness of God.

Music for Pentecost

Today I played a short organ prelude I composed based on the chant "Veni Creator Spiritus." It was organized into several layers moving at different rates. Between the pentatonic qualities of the chant and a few dotted notes I added, the overall feeling was vaguely early American!

For postlude I played the last movement of Ravel's Sonatine on piano. This piece sounds like a rushing wind, and the harmonies seem to suggest the supernatural in a traditional church context. After the service, it dawned on me that it's also a good piece to play when Pentecost and Mother's Day coincide as it has been suggested that falling fourths, such as those that permeate the melody of this work, symbolize Ravel's relationship with his mother.

Nice Weekend

Saturday was a very nice unplanned day here in Murfreesboro. I went to the Farmers Market for the first time, and we bought some very good tomatoes and strawberries and looked at some art by local artists. We took Sophie for a long walk, and in the evening, we went to the grand opening of our new Mexican restaurant, Los Amigos, where we ate outside under an umbrella in the cool evening weather.

That day we also learned the story of one of the handsome homes in town that was built by a family that owned a basket factory and helped their employees make it through the Great Depression.

It was also a very musical weekend. Saturday night we heard an excellent Viginia Symphony concert in Newport News that included a work by Schreker. Sunday we had brass and children's choir with Orff instruments at church, and in the afternoon, I attended Paula Pressnell's studio recital. It's always inspiring to hear the results of all the piano practice that young people are doing. In the evening, we celebrated Ascension Sunday with an Italian buffet accompanied by James M. Guthrie's work, Ascension, at our house.

Juxtaposition

Now that the school year has come to a close, there is a little time for blogging again.

Chowan ends the academic year with an interdisciplinary symposium that involves faculty from all disciplines in exploring a single topic. This year, that topic was the environment. In addition to this forum, there is also a symposium of student research and other special events. This gives the end of the year an exciting flavor and energy that are decidedly scholarly and informative.

The culminating event of this year's symposium (as well as the music department's year) was a performance of parts I and II of Haydn's Creation. This involved the student choir and neighborhood chorus, members of the Meherrin Chamber Orchestra and Virginia Symphony, and soloists Lori Parker (an excellent soprano who happens to be married to our conductor,) Walter Swan (a vibrant singer who taught here in past years,) and my good friend, tenor Jeff Prillaman. Kathy, my wife, was in the horn section. I played viola, and another good friend from Richmond, Jeremy McEntire, played flute.

I list all that information about these personal connections because the personal connectedness of this performance is part of what made it very special. Many people who have known each other, worked together, or taught and studied with each other, worked independently for awhile, then came together to create a rich tapestry of musical and spiritual energy.

Now for the juxtaposition part. During the intermission of this sublime work about the creation of the world, more details started to arrive about the tornadoes in nearby Suffolk, VA. One person onstage received a phone call with the number 200 in it, and it wasn't totally clear if that 200 referred to deaths or injuries. Fortunately, it only referred to injuries.



Here's a bit of musical trivia from my experience. Haydn sets words about the creation of insects with a little text painting from the violas. I almost didn't play the section as I thought the professionals next to me would do it very well and that I might mar their efforts. But I decided that it was such a quintessential viola moment that I should play it for experience's sake. I did, and I think it was okay. In fact, Jeff was impressed by this "swarm" for the first time in our performance.

CMS, CBF, AGO

It has been a busy few weeks.

Jeff Prillaman and I presented a lecture-performance on Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets at the College Music Society meeting in Gettysburg. Here are some of the ideas we shared:

Liszt resonated personally with Petrarch's struggle between the spirit and the flesh.

Liszt puts the performers in the appropriate dramatic moods through the technical demands of the music.

The sonnets are constructed of a series of styles ranging from art song to Bel Canto to Verismo. Such a demanding progression of vocal requirements is similar to the sequences of technical demands he puts on pianists in works like the Dante Sonata or Mephisto Waltz.


We heard many excellent presentations at the conference including presentations on piano music from China, Haiti, and works by the Russian jazz-influenced composer, Kapustin. A personal favorite of mine was on the strategic use of bands on the battlefields of the American Civil War.

On the way home, I played at Woodland Heights Baptist Church where Kathy and I worked in Richmond, and in the aternoon I played on a concert with friends from the Talent Developing Studio at Slash Christian Church. Slash is the oldest wooden church in Virginia.

Last night, Kathy and I drove to Raleigh for part of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina meeting. There I learned about the Winston Salem-based Institute for Dismantling Racism. I took part in a fascinating discussion of the use of arts in missions work led by Jonathan and Tina Bailey who are artistic missionaries in Indonesia. They discussed the complexities of creating new Christian expressions within traditional styles such as gamelan and shadow puppetry. I also attended a presentation on the history of Chowan University given by our president, Dr. White. I learned many interesting things there including some facts about the recent restoration of the MacDowell Columns building. The massive columns on the portico are made of cypress and had around 35 layers of paint on them before they were scraped and repainted.

Today I played a concert for the Northeastern North Carolina Chapter of the American Guild of Organists at Roanoke Bible College in Elizabeth City. I had not been on that campus before and was impressed by the facility in which I played. It housed a nice chapel with a good older Baldwin, a gym, and a library. The building is situated right next to the water where there are swings, geese, and ducks.

I've felt a little frustrated practicing lately, but I've pushed through it each time and kept practicing. I felt like it paid off today as the memorized works held together better than in the previous performances. Also, my frustration pushed me to connect on a deeper level with the Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet pieces I've been playing. I played them more personally today and with more focus on the various characters from the play as they are expressed in the music. I had been trying to do less with time and more with color, which is what my best Russian-trained friend tells me is most stylistically appropriate. I appreciated that and agree with that, but I allowed myself a little more rhythmic freedom today, and I believe the pieces really came to life in a way they hadn't before for me.

Maybe frustration in practice is sometimes a sign that the opportunity for better playing and a deeper personal connection is at hand if only we don't give up.

As an encore I played my recently composed Ragtime Etude. The piece is a little bitonal and I think the bitonality of the last page keeps any one pitch from sounding like a strong tonic. I think that may be a compositional problem I need to solve. As Dr. Benjamin often told us, most composing is editing!