October 22, 2015
Returns, as in:
Returning/mirroring cloud and land (cloud formations returned as rock formations–where does one end and the other begin?); return to solitude in vast space, separation from trappings (except for the rental car, which of course must be returned); day and night, different/transformed each time they return; rock rabbit wood bird wind sun scattering, scampering, disappearing, returning; the Santa Fe railroad keeps on returning with more trains, more cargo; in badlands on foot in the morning, my return to silence, texture, distance; returning on the same path, not realizing I’d “been there;” had enough, can’t take it, so at the desk again, returning to books, manuscript paper, directed thoughts, (ok, laptop), processing the overstimulation from looking, being, moving and that’s the whole thing; in the music, ideas returning, not really leaving; a return “home(?)” to integrate/understand, if possible (6:15 am departure; leave the place as you found it)…[21-22.10.15; program note for “Returns, Op. 569b,” for solo cello; composed in Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona for cellist and artist-in-residence Rhonda Rider]
October 16, 2015
Everything is only something most of the time [i.e. don’t try to put “everything” in one piece].
Wei identity page-response. (Cleveland; black classical musicians; New England); core body—how is it dressed from day to day, intention to intention?
October 13, 2015
Get lost; stay lost. If we know too much, become too sure of ourselves, is not the point then…lost?
October 12, 2015
If you have fewer notes, do you pick them more carefully?
October 11, 2015
When dry, look back.
October 10, 2015
If you find an outlet for it and let it out enough times, will it go away?
October 8, 2015
Poem: Why My 2 Remaining Brain Cells Are Tired
Too many years
Of premieres
October 7, 2015
“Running”—as in despotic control—is uncomfortably close to “ruining.” The composer may do well to learn the right time to relinquish control.
October 6, 2015
When composers “go deep,” they must re-emerge to express the depth as shared experience.