Following an incredibly stimulating and positive experience at the National Performing Arts Convention in June, the summer dealt me a couple of situations that rendered blogging among the lowest of priorities.

For starters, after 14 years living in San Francisco, we made a last-minute decision in June to move to Oakland, and it needed to happen by September.  All aspirations related to music (except one) were shut down at that time, and they’re only now beginning to resurface. It was a frenzy of house hunting and wondering whether we’d get it done in time. (We almost did.)

Why did we move? The East Bay had been beckoning us for several years.  As for why the rush, I’ll just invite you to peek at the madness of the San Francisco Public School lottery.

Despite its problems, which are highly publicized, Oakland is a lovely city of 400,000-or-so people.  In 14 years in the Bay Area, like most San Franciscans, I never took the time to get to know Oakland, although the Oakland East Bay Symphony has been kind to me on more than one occasion.  We found a neighborhood in what’s known as the “Lower Hills District” where the streets are tree-lined and the 1920′s-era Craftsman-style houses are charming and distinctive.  Life is easier here. There’s rarely a traffic jam, parking is plentiful.  I dare say people are nicer.  And, San Francisco is just over there if I need it.

From my living room window I can just

What else is going on?

So now, having more-or-less settled in, I can also announce that I’ve just joined the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory’s Preparatory Division, where I’m teaching musicianship, theory and composition, which has so far been nine kinds of inspiring.  I suspect that many future posts here will have to do with that.

A very promising large-scale project I’d been nurturing for a couple of years (and not discussing here on the blog at all) has stalled out completely now, owing to some legal issues that I can’t afford to untangle at the moment.  So, in the meantime, I’m tending to some unfinished things that were interrupted in the past, including a violin sonata that I set aside in 2005 when I got the commission for Letter To Hungary, which incidentally is also when I started this blog.

So, onward!  Del segno al coda…

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.

Later today I’m shlepping my family to Budapest for three weeks of fun, cake and eccentric conveyances. Someone recently asked if this trip has anything to do with my turning 40. I hadn’t made the connection, but since then my explanation as to why we’re going has been “mid-life crisis”. I can’t afford a motorcycle. And they scare me.

As of yesterday, a new draft of the libretto for Eros at Breakfast is complete. As lyricist, I’ve been the one holding it up. Contact me privately if you’re a theater person and would like to read it. It’s been interesting: I’ve discovered that one of the nice things about doing my own lyrics is that a big part of the composing takes place at the same time. I get rhythms in my head, and can sort of already hear the music in most cases. So I hope that will mean that the composing part will go quickly. (Yeah, right.)

The new CD containing my clarinet/piano piece American Standard has been out in the U.K. for a while and is inching toward release in the U.S. Amazon says it will by July 24th. Meanwhile, it’s now showing up (at a better price) for order direct from the distributor Qualiton. Also, I’m trying something new and have made the score and part of the piece available through the nifty distribution service from Subito Music.

Maybe I’ll do some blogging from Budapest. We’ll see.

Does this mean I have to get a haircut and a real job?

The driveway is covered up. Tomorrow, my studio gets a new floor, which will be nice, since the old one was slanted.

Otherwise, nothing to report.

I wonder what the great scientists would have done if they were monkeys — without canolli.

The blog started out as I was just rolling up my sleeves to work on Letter To Hungary, a commission I had recently received.  I thought it would be fun to write about the evolution of the piece. There was a bit of that, but eventually I found myself writing about all sorts of other things, including interesting friends, interesting music and my very interesting son.

As a one-year retrospective, I’m putting links to some of my more popular posts below in the “Related Posts” box (in reverse chronological order).

It’s been fun, and I plan to continue indefinitely. Thanks for reading!

• For some reason, I’ve been seeking out and enjoying all kinds of folk music, including what’s known as “folk rock”. I guess I’m craving purity. Something I never thought I’d say in a million years: I like Bob Dylan.
• I have been on a roller coaster ride surrounding the possibility of my working on a very exciting project. Details will appear in a future post if the outcome is positive.
• My ability to read Yiddish has improved, but it will now all go out the window, because suddenly I want to learn Finnish. (This is a 20-year-old pattern with me.)
• Don’t even get me started on foreign names for various rodents
• I have finished a small portion of a musical theater piece, which is the only way I can get permission to use this particular source material. As I lose hair, I gain humility.
• My recent piece Letter to Hungary has been programmed by the Mission Chamber Orchestra in San Jose for next January (details coming).
• Within a matter of a few days, all of the following items broke
  • Sunglasses
  • Shoes
  • Internet connection
  • VOIP phone service
  • Drip coffee maker. (I’m now one of those annoying, self-righteous presspot people.)
• I “failed to appear” for jury duty. (No contest; I just plain forgot.) And now I must go brave San Francisco’s miserable public transportation system and the even more miserable “Hall of Justice”, and make it right.