There has been a lack of posting here due to a deadline for my Philadelphia Chamber Music Society commission. But this week I sent the last movement of my new violin and piano to my brilliant editor/computer notation wizard, and I am now catching up on various neglected tasks. I’ll write about the PCMS piece in another post, for now I’ll just say it is called Five Poems - it was originally going to be a Violin Sonata, but the movements feel more like character pieces than something “symphonic” in conception.

The soprano soloist for the New Juilliard Ensemble performance of my From a Book of Hours has been named: Alexandra Razskazoff. There is a brief bio of her here (scroll down) from a press release on a Juilliard performance of Le nozze di Figaro this past spring.

So many events worth your attention this weekend in Philly:

- Guthrie Ramsey’s Musiqology at Annenberg
- Network for New Music has a panel and a concert for the Persichetti centennial
- Bowerbird explores Julius Eastman
- The Crossing is at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian with encore performances of several pieces
- Kile Smith has a premiere on the first Mendelssohn Club concert under new artistic director Paul Rardin

And if you are in New York City this weekend, Mimi Stillman and Bart Feller will be doing my Badinerie Squared at a New York Flute Club program this coming Sunday.

Recent reading:

Bluets - Maggie Nelson
A Dance of Polar Opposites - George Rochberg

Music is undervalued in more ways than just through insufficient royalty payments for streaming audio - read this essay by Craig Havighurst.