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I heard Theo Bleckmann perform Duet For One at a Bar Mitzvah, his gift to the initiate. He is both performer and composer here; the music displays his extraordinary vocal range, not to mention stamina. Earlier today I played the Duet for Aleba Gartner, who remarked...
I was twenty-three and living in Cambridge, England. My new soprano friend Amanda Dean introduced me to the music of Judith Weir through a wonderful performance of her 1979 monodrama King Harald's Saga. "Harald" is described as a grand opera in three acts with an...
Okay, perhaps on another beautiful day in Berkshires I shouldn't wave goodbye so quickly to summer. Igor Severyanin's poem beholds daisies in perfect summer bloom, and Rachmaninoff doesn't hold back. I got to know the music when I was fourteen, first in the...
This week I am in the Berkshires, preparing for a performance at Tanglewood of my Variations on a Summer Day, songs which in part were previewed on the NYFOS Next series two years ago. Songs about summer, and about mountains, spring to mind. I am numbering these...