Some­times when I’m listen­ing to the best music, I have the feeling that it is the only music that exists. I get that feeling listen­ing to a Mahler symphony; I had it last night, pounding through Pictures at an Exhi­bi­tion at my piano (badly); and on Wednes­day night, during Arcade Fire’s set at Madison Square Garden.

Here is how to keep yourself happy and cool all of a summer’s day: 

Buy a bag of lemons, oranges, grape­fruits, and a bunch of limes and squeeze them into a bowl. (Limes are 25 for a dollar at Pioneer! Get them while they’re hot) 

Combine the juice with a batch of simple syrup (2 cups sugar, 2 cups water, boiled); if you’re feeling fancy you can throw some inter­est­ing herbs into this. Once I used Holy Basil. 

Stir in a couple tray­fulls of iced cubes. 

If possible, serve in labo­ra­tory glassware.

Photo by Adi Shiderman.

Multi­me­dia evidence has been flooding in lately from my shows with Metrop­o­lis Ensemble, which you can view/hear over at their exem­plary website. I’ve also posted the MP3 for Para­phrase on Themes of Brian Eno for download. 

Happy Inde­pen­dence Day from Charlie Ives, everyone: 

I got my first bad review a few days ago, of Shy and Mighty. My reaction was initially one of outrage: “how could this guy I’ve never heard of not like my music?” To make matters worse, the one track he singled out as worth­while— Flir­ta­tion Avenue— is the one that‘s kind of purposely “bad”. (No account­ing for taste, I suppose.) After receiv­ing a few condo­lences from friends who’d seen the writeup, I began to see the issue more philo­soph­i­cally. In fact, why would I want entirely good reviews? If one’s music is a little bit polar­iz­ing, isn’t that a good thing? My god, I have friends who don’t even like Brahms, so what hope do I have?

Happy second-to-longest day of the year, everyone. Life’s entirely downhill from tomorrow on out. 

In the waxing crepus­cu­lar hours, you may as well peruse Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s new website for Project 440. Come then, look beyond the clip-arty logo, listen to five-minute musical excerpts from each of 60 nomi­nated composers, and leave friendly comments about your favorites (I think that was pretty subtle). 

Fig. 1: Top 10 Hottest Cartoon Char­ac­ters, no. 10.

Fans of The Books will no doubt recog­nize the lyric “I can’t find the books/ They must be in La Jolla”. I always assumed it was no more than a passing refer­ence to the group’s name, perhaps from an old movie or TV show. In the car yester­day on the way from New Haven to New York, I caught part of a This American Life program, rebroad­cast from 2002, that revealed the line to be so much more. Turns out it is excerpted from a “viral voice­mail” (people had to amuse them­selves somehow before YouTube) that was circu­lated around the Columbia campus during the early 1990’s (perhaps around the time Paul de Jong was working as an assis­tant to Otto Luening). All these little unex­pected connec­tions between things; the line now takes on a completely differ­ent meaning, which I think is just the kind of cultural archæol­ogy The Books love. I won’t spoil the episode by reveal­ing the content of said voice­mail, but you can listen to the entire episode, which is excel­lent, here.

Both of my Sunday concerts (at Yale and LPR) went swim­mingly; Wendy’s concert was a heart­warm­ing, family affair, which can happen when you come from a family of string players. I’ve already got a solid record­ing of Clamber Music up for you to hear (thanks, Fred Plaut Record­ing Studio!). LPR was also a pretty emotional scene, because it was the last Ensemble ACJW concert of the season, and lots of its members are “grad­u­at­ing”; scary, to be cast out into the open sea of New York Musi­cians with no nour­ish­ing mother to get you gigs and order you around.

Tangen­tially related: Why is Carnegie Hall‘s website so terrible? I feel like it’s 1998 and I’m loading it on my G3 Power­book in Internet Explorer 4. Half the thing doesn’t even show up on my iPhone/iPad. You’d think mobile devices would be one of their primary targets (imagine you‘re out and about and wonder what’s on tonight. Just try pulling up the site on your iPhone; the calendar won’t load. You could always go to the very user-friendly text only version). The design is a weird mishmash of fonts and colors jammed together into one hideous mosaic. To round it all out, there’s a huge, empty black footer. Carnegie Hall, you’re so wonder­ful in so many ways; your web presence is not one of them, and it doesn’t do you justice.

Fig. 1: The grandiose diva.

So proud of this woman I could prac­ti­cally burst: my grand­mother, Marian Seldes, is getting a “lifetime achieve­ment” Tony award tomorrow (which is not for her work on the Lifetime Channel).

Here is an article in this week’s New York Times Magazine about her; I recom­mend you read all the way to the end for a vivid descrip­tion of the smell of Le Poisson Rouge’s dressing room.

Off to New Haven right now to rehearse my new piece for Wendy Sharp and Tema Watstein, Clamber Music. The concert is this coming Sunday, the 13^th, at 2 o’ clock in Sprague Hall; post-concert I will jump back on Metro-North to catch Ensemble ACJW at Le Poisson Rouge playing their new collab­o­ra­tive dance suite, includ­ing my own contri­bu­tion, How to Pop and Lock in Thirteen Steps. It’s just a Metro-North kind of weekend.

What with the frenetic activ­i­ties of last month begin­ning to wind down (last night I submit­ted a new piece with minutes to spare, but only because I’m currently on Central time), it looks as if I may have time to post actual blog entries from time to time.

I’ve been thinking about the past couple of shows I was involved in (the Shy and Mighty release and the two Metrop­o­lis Ensemble concerts), and I have to say, they were some of the most artis­ti­cally and profes­sion­ally satis­fy­ing expe­ri­ences I’ve had in my life. I think this was partly because they were truly collaborative—composer, perform­ers, and presen­ters all with fresh and ambi­tious ideas about what we do.

That said, the follow­ing video of Metrop­o­lis Ensemble perform­ing at Trinity Wall St. is maybe not the most exciting thing to watch, but the perfor­mances them­selves are top-notch. This was our “trial run” before that evening’s show at Angel Orensanz. The music doesn‘t start until about five minutes in; there‘s some pontif­i­cat­ing (we’re talking about a giant cathe­dral, after all, pontif­i­ca­tion is the mandate). There­after, the program is my Para­phrase on Themes of Brian Eno; Andrew Norman’s Grand Turismo; Anna Clyne’s Within Her Arms; and finally Home Stretch.

Fig. 1: 8‑eyes.

Tomorrow (Monday, May 17) my co-pianist David Kaplan and I take to the stage at Le Poisson Rouge to cele­brate the release of Shy and Mighty on Nonesuch. We will also be releas­ing a live tiger; please bring hamburger meat.

Doors open at 6:30; we go on at 7:30. There will be plenty of CD’s there, as well as much merriment.

Also I was thrilled to see Dan Johnson’s lovely review in my old hometown rag, the New Haven Advocate. If you’re not reading him, you should be; he speaks truth. Happy Sunday everybody.