New Music added to website

I added a computer-rendition of my Clarinet Sonata to my web page today. Also, a dance for flute and piano that I wrote for my wife's birthday last year. The link to that site is in the title here.

I will be performing the clarinet sonata on the 31st of May at 12:00 at Godspeed Hall on the University of Chicago Campus, for any interested.

A Pre-Show Obstacle Course

So the GSB’s year end extravaganza “Follies” was last week. I played piano for my friend Kathryn who was singing homage to Milton Freidman set to the tune of “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman”. The performance was a lot of fun. I got to reconnect with some classmates who I hadn’t seen in a while. At any rate, I feel that most people didn’t fully appreciate what was involved in preparing for the act. I don’t mean 25 years of piano study or hours of practice. I mean getting the piano onto the frikkin’ stage.

So the piano at Mandel hall is this gorgeous concert grand. Unfortunately, despite the wheeled undercarriage, this beast doesn’t exactly turn on a dime. Indeed, it floats into place with all the grace and elegance of a slow-motion Hippopotamus on ice skates. We didn’t have any sort of stage crew for Follies, so I had to recruit whomever was standing nearby before our act to help move the thing into place. So the challenge, which recalls a LEAD Outdoor Experience exercise from o-week, is to maneuver the piano from its shaded hiding spot backstage through to its appointed spot stage left. Standing in the way of this are:

• a 12’ hanging video projection screen which is being watched by the audience, so that everyone would notice if you hit it by accident.
  
• a row of 4 chairs from the “Oompa Loompa” skit (don’t ask) placed directly between the piano and the stage
  
• a thick backstage curtain, draped over an orchestral percussion set (yes, really)
  
• the main stage curtain
  
• a motley assortment of audio and lighting cables
  
• a special floor that is apparently traction-free for shoes while being quite resistant to pianos
  

You have exactly 45 seconds to move the piano into position before the spotlight turns on. Ready, Set, Go!

Who’s paw prints are these?

As some of you may now, we’re right now in the process of selling our condo. We’ll be living in a museum for the next few weeks as open houses begin. Of course, the kitchen appliances are always spotless, the spices always organized alphabetically and the hallway mirrors always windexed, so there wasn’t much work involved there. However, our new bedroom door needed to be repainted.

Fortunately, we still had the original paint cans from the move-in period. This sidestepped the entire debate over the precise “eggshell” finish we needed, and enabled us to cut right to the chase, the actual painting. I was in the middle of putting a second coat on the back of the door, and the paint lid was on the floor face up next to me.

Suddenly, in a bounding blur of grey fur one of our two cats came prancing through the doorway. I did a quick double take as the white paw prints starting trailing from the doorway to our bed. My effort to leap after the cat only encouraged her to jump onto the bed. There were four white kitty prints on our brown sheets by the time I caught her. Cici (the cat) wasn’t amused with the “get the white acrylic paint out of my back paws” process which ensued.