Dreams of Wonders Undreamt

"...may your generation see wonders undreamt."
-Carl Sagan, The Pale Blue Dot

Dreams of Wonders Undreamt is another part of my dance project, To Begin the World Over Again, based on the writings of Thomas Paine. For this new piece, I set some words of Paine from Common Sense ("...the sun never shined on a cause of greater worth") in counterpoint to a passage from John Wintrop's City upon a Hill sermon from 1630 (the famous "we shall be as a City upon a Hill" that Ronald Reagan made famous) and Nicholas Black Elk's On the Battle at Wounded Knee from Black Elk Speaks ("Now that I can see it all as from a lonely hilltop...", describing the terrible massacre in 1890, this last major battle in the "Indian Wars").

Dreams of Wonders Undreamt takes its title from the dedication Carl Sagan wrote to his son at the beginning of his book The Pale Blue Dot. Where he envisions for his son a more global hope of future wonders, I have translated the phrase to a more local level: the wonders and potential that the promise of America presages, and of which, by implication, has not fulfill. This might seem a critique on the state of America, and in many ways it is. However, Dreams of Wonders Undreamt does not come from a place of political polemics, where any critique or questioning is an apostasy. Rather, my composition is a love song to the promise of America, to that unbound potential and ideal that Thomas Paine wrote and spoke about so eloquently and which I believe all Americans would like to see it be even more worthy to.

Numinous
Monday March 21, 2011 9 PM to 11 PM
$10 suggested donation
Tea Lounge
837 Union Street
Park Slope
Take the M, R Train to Union Street

 Check back as I'll post some more crib notes about the compositions we'll be performing.

POSTED BY NUMINOUS AT 11:19 AM 

FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2011
19 

“…we must fight for your life as though it were our own—which it is—and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.”
James Baldwin, from 
An Open Letter to My Sister, Miss Angela Davis

19 is inspired by two, seemly disparate sources: Arnold Schoenberg's Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke Op. 19 from 1911 and Angela Davis. The initial musical impetus was with the Schoenberg, specifically it was one of my "what if" questions, where I challenge myself with a compositional quandary. In this case, can I make Schoenberg funky? But the emotional timber of 19 is inspired by the activist Angela Davis, specifically her iconic status in Black culture of the 1970s. Particularly I was moved by James Baldwin's An Open Letter to My Sister, Miss Angela Davis from November 19, 1970, which while condemning the arrest of Angela Davis a few months before the letter, also goes on to describe, in biting and incisive commentary, the state of racial dynamics in the United States and paints Davis as a soldier in that on-going struggle for racial and social equality.

19 is one part of a larger, as of now untitled, mixed music composition that will be recorded next year.  

Numinous
Monday March 21, 2011 9 PM to 11 PM
$10 suggested donation
Tea Lounge
837 Union Street
Park Slope
Take the M, R Train to Union Street

 Check back as I'll post some more crib notes about the compositions we'll be performing.

POSTED BY NUMINOUS AT 9:07 AM 

Miserere

I first heard J.S. Bach's cantata Ich habe genug BWV 82 in the hauntingly beautiful version sung by mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson on her much praised 2003 Nonesuch recording. The German title, which translates as "I have enough," is a sublime spiritual expression about fulfillment and acceptance of the life waiting beyond the living. 

I first heard Donny Hathaway's "Someday We'll All Be Free" sung by Aretha Franklin on the end credits of the great Spike Lee movie Malcolm X and later found the original on Hathaway's last studio album, Extensions of a Man.  

Whereas the words and music of the Bach and Hathaway reflect a faith in salvation in the hereafter, my Miserere does not seek any kind of religious statement or connotations. While most Miserere's in music come as a setting of the 51st (or 50th) Psalm ("Miserere mei, Deus", translated as "Have mercy on me, O God"), I am using miserere in one of its other non-religious meanings: as a vocal lament. In ancient Greek drama and later in operas, the lament was a moment of focused expressive intensity in the overall formal structure of the drama or opera. 

Taking inspiration from the Bach, my original lyrics open with "I have had enough" and continue to expresses a weary frustration and doubt in the ability to solve or come to terms with the many struggles and problems facing us. Although like the Hathaway song, with its optimism that someday will come, I do convey a muted sense of earthly hope in the face of a seemingly increased hopelessness; and perhaps it is by that hope in hopelessness and doubt, that we will "emerge from all the suffering that still binds [us] to the world."

Miserere is one part of a larger, as of now untitled, mixed music composition that will be recorded next year. 

Numinous
Monday March 21, 2011 9 PM to 11 PM
$10 suggested donation
Tea Lounge
837 Union Street
Park Slope
Take the M, R Train to Union Street

 Check back as I'll post some more crib notes about the compositions we'll be performing.

POSTED BY NUMINOUS AT 11:10 AM 

Memory of Red Orange Laid Out in Still Waves

Memory of Red Orange Laid Out in Still Waves was originally commissioned last year by Dave Douglas and the 2010 Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT). It premiered featuring Lew Soloff and Taylor Ho Bynum as trumpet soloists. For the Numinous concert, I've recast the trumpets as alto saxophones as well as expanded the ensemble from the original version.

The title comes from a line in the opening of the sobering book by Edward P. Jones, The Known World which, while a work of fiction, was based upon the true incidents of African-Americans owning slaves during the 19th century. The book's subject, as well as the beautiful Kathelin Gray from the Ornette Coleman/Pat Metheny 1986 album Song X, are refracted and transmuted into an original composition that hopes to express the truism of James Baldwin's words about African-American culture (in An Open Letter to My Sister, Miss Angela Davis from 1970, which actually more directly inspired another composition for the 21st gig):
There is always, of course, more to any picture than can speedily be perceived and in all of this—groaning and moaning, watching, calculating, clowning, surviving, and outwitting, some tremendous strength was nevertheless being forged, which is part of our legacy today.
Memory of Red Orange Laid Out in Still Waves will also be one movement of a larger, as of now untitled, mixed music composition that will be recorded next year. 

Numinous
Monday March 21, 2011 9 PM to 11 PM
$10 suggested donation
Tea Lounge
837 Union Street
Park Slope
Take the M, R Train to Union Street

 Check back as I'll post some more crib notes about the compositions we'll be performing.

POSTED BY NUMINOUS AT 11:14 AM 

This Friday evening, March 18th at 7pm Simone Dinnerstein's Neighborhood Classics concert series returns with Simone playing piano with Grammy winning clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. As always the concert is at P.S. 321 in Brooklyn (180 7th Avenue, between 1st and 2nd Streets in Park Slope). The dynamic duo will be performing two pieces I love Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint (a work written for Stoltzman) and Johannes Brahms' Sonata for Clarinet and Piano in F minor, Op. 120. The program will be rounded out by a work of J.S. Bach Sonata for Viola da Gamba and Keyboard in D Major.

Tickets are no longer available online, but you are welcome to come by the school in the morning (8:30am to 9:00am) where they can be purchased in the lobby.

Neighborhood Classics, started by Simone last year, is a great series of concerts (previous concerts of the new season of the series featuring cellist Maya Beiser in October and harpist Bridget Kibbey in January). In addition to concerts at P.S. 321, the series has expanded to P.S. 142 on the lower East Side and ALL of the proceeds from each concert goes to each school (the musicians donate their time and services) and will help mitigate some of the effects the MAJOR budget cuts will inflict on all schools next school year. I teachkindergarten music and math at P.S. 321 and know firsthand how much the proceeds from the Neighborhood Classics has helped our school, even now. So beyond the great music, you'll be support the kids by coming out to theNeighborhood Classics.

POSTED BY NUMINOUS AT 9:45 AM 

Like many people I am thinking of Japan after the devastating earthquake, tsunami, and on-going nuclear danger. I am wishing the best not only for my friends, former students and their families, but for all of the people affected.

To Kyoto

Ando Hiroshige Station 48: Sakanoshita-juku, Mie PrefectureIn anticipation of the upcoming Numinous concert on March 21st, in the spirit of my Inside Vipassana series, I started a Numinous Crib Notes series to profile the compositions for the show. First up To Kyoto, a composition from our first CD and my homage of sorts to Steve Reich. I wrote the piece back in 2000 after my first trip to Japan, which did include a trip down from Tokyo to Kyoto. Here's my original program note for the piece:

Tokaido Road was feudal Japan’s most traveled route. From Edo (old Tokyo) to the ancient capital Kyoto, it was used by nobles and peasants alike. Tokaido Road’s scenic landscapes of distant mountain views, open sea, and quaint towns and villages along the route, inspired Ando Hiroshige’s (1797-1858) famous painting series, Views from the Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido. Today, the scenery is still inspiring, as seen from the Shinkansen (bullet train), which follows the old Tokaido route to Kyoto.

Numinous
Monday March 21, 2011 9 PM to 11 PM
$10 suggested donation
Tea Lounge
837 Union Street
Park Slope
Take the M, R Train to Union Street

 Check back as I'll post some more crib notes about the compositions we'll be performing.

POSTED BY NUMINOUS AT 10:14 AM 

Come help Numinous celebrate J.S. Bach's birthday at the Size Matters Large Ensemble Series at the Tea Lounge in Park Slope, Brooklyn (837 Union Street). It's a new instrumentation and new works, including: one piece partly inspired by papa Bach's great cantata Ich habe genug BWV 82; previews of two compositions from a new, larger multi-movement mixed music work (that will be recorded next year); a new composition as part of my Thomas Paine dance project, To Begin the World Over Again (I won't be dancing though); and a Numinous favorite. Hope you can come out next week, have a drink, some food and listen, feel, think, and know Numinous.

Numinous
Monday March 21, 2011 9 PM to 11 PM
$10 suggested donation
Tea Lounge
837 Union Street
Park Slope
Take the M, R Train to Union Street

Ben Kono, Rob Mosher (woodwinds), Amanda Monaco, Sebastian Noelle (guitars), Tom Beckham (vibraphone), Carmen Staaf, Mike Eckroth (keyboards), Jean Rohe, Sara Serpa (voices), Kiku Enomoto, Scott Tixier (violins), Nick Revel, Surai Nesrine Balbeisi (violas), Will Martina (violoncello), Evan Gregor (electric bass), Joseph C. Phillips Jr., (conductor, composer)

 Check back as I'll post some crib notes about the compositions we'll be performing.

POSTED BY NUMINOUS AT 12:06 PM