Sibelius and Leopard

I hope this information will be obsolete within a few days, but having done the research, I’d like to help out any other Mac/Sibelius users out there.

If you’re upgrading to Leopard and still using Sibelius 4, you’ll need to get a compatibility patch from Sibelius. Unless, that is, you don’t need to be able to, uh, open and save files.

Maryland

Saw this on the wall in a corridor in a San Francisco elementary school and had to share. I grew up in Maryland (even though I usually tell people D.C.), so it caught my eye.

No diseases? The “free religion” part I get. That was big stuff in the 1630′s. But, no diseases?

Oh, and what was I doing in a San Francisco elementary school? Philo starts kindergarten next year, so it’s time to start the process of choosing which schools to put on our magic list of seven. The system here is absolutely bananas. I’ll tell you about it sometime.

Upcoming London Performance

My clarinet/piano piece American Standard will be performed in London next week…

Peter Furniss (clarinet) and David Leiher Jones (piano) will be holding a recital to celebrate the recent Clarinet Classics CD release, Time Pieces, 60 years of American music for clarinet and piano. The recital will take place on Wednesday, 24th October at 7:30pm. The Warehouse, 13 Theed Street, London, SE1 8ST.

Bay Area Announcement #2: S.F. Open Studios

Sculptor Georgianna Krieger (ahem, my wife) is among the many San Francisco artists presenting their work throughout October as part of ArtSpan’s annual San Francisco Open Studios. The city is divided into four sections and artists in each section are open over four weekends in October.

Georgianna’s work is on display this weekend, Saturday and Sunday 11am-6pm at Fort Mason Building C, room 375.

Here’s more information, including a downloadable map to artist exhibits.

Bay Area Announcement #1: D’Arc, Woman on Fire

It will be worth your while to see writer/performer Amanda Moody’s latest music theater piece D’Arc, Woman on Fire, music by Jay Cloidt, at Footloose & Shotwell Studios.

D’Arc offers a surreal inquiry into the costs of dreams, lived and unlived. Weaving the threads of the Dark Ages with our own dark times, D’Arc depicts a present-day intercession by Saint Joan of Arc. We meet Joanne. Home alone, she fixates on letters from her daughter who vanished while working abroad in a war-torn region. Raging against loss, Joanne begins to receive bizarre visions through the cold flame of her television set. It is Saint Joan, burning through the TV twilight to answer her grief. Relating tales of her own battles and trials, Joan teases and admonishes Joanne, disrupts her obsessions and challenges her to listen anew to the call of her own life.

Jay Cloidt’s haunting music drives this D’Arc night of the soul. Integrating Moody’s mercurial vocalizations with acoustic and processed cello, the composition features original songs, underscoring, and sound design. His composition spans 14th century hymns, post-Romanticism, aggressive electronic music and heart-thumping gospel to evoke the strange dream of Joanne and Joan’s collision-course.

I haven’t seen it yet, but I can vouch for Amanda as a really interesting dramatic writer, and a powerful performer.

The Sweeney Effect

It had been years since I’ve looked at it, but I’ve had the vocal score of Sweeney Todd out for the past couple of weeks, having just seen the revival currently on at American Conservatory Theatre (extended for still one more week).

Years ago I used to spend hours with this score, so it’s kind of like an old friend. Right now I don’t really have time to play with it, so it’s just sitting there staring at me all day. Funny thing though: since I’ve had it out, I’ve completed two Eros at Breakfast songs, and I’m now closing in on a third. Normally I’m a hopeless slowpoke. I think on some level I know the score is watching me, and I don’t want to let it down.

Let’s call it “The Sweeney Effect”

Revisiting the Trunk: “You Must Learn”

Throughout the year I’ve been occasionally posting recordings of songs from my earlier musical The Ghost of Wu. Today’s installment is the song “You Must Learn”, in which an ambitious mother lectures her naïve daughter, a concubine, in the ways of the Emperor’s court.

This song is probably the most Sondheim-derivative thing I’ve ever written. When I was a student, all of my music was completely derivative, and over the years I learned how to avoid that to some degree. This is a rare case where I was not only being openly derivative, but I actually knew what I was doing. If you know your Sondheim, you will surely recognize the influence.

The lyrics are mine too, by the way. You can follow them and the score if you’d like on this dedicated page.

By the way, there’s a running index of all the songs I’ve posted so far on this page.

A New Book on American Opera

Sometime last year I struck up an email correspondence via this blog with poet/librettist Karren Alenier, whose opera with composer William Banfield Gertrude Stein Invents a Jump Early On was premiered in 2005 in New York by Encompass New Opera Theatre. Karren has written a very entertaining book about what it takes to see an opera project through from concept to production.

Bartók Discussion on NPR

NPR has a great interview with conductor Marin Alsop and accompanying article about Bartók’s music, where she touches on folk influences and discusses The Miraculous Mandarin, Romanian Dances, Bluebeard’s Castle and more.

More Ringtone Fun

Alex Ross has announced that his current ringtone is John Adams’ Harmonielehre. Excellent choice.

As of a few days ago, mine is an old favorite: Steve Reich’s Music for a Large Ensemble. Before that, and I’ll probably go back soon, it was the announcement jingle heard constantly on Budapest trams and buses.

Check it out:

Now that I think about it… maybe Six Marimbas.