Thursday, April 14, 2011

the child

just a quick post...

today i worked most on entering my song-cycle into a notation software. it is taken infinitely more time to enter it into the computer than it did to recorchestrate it. anyway, that was the bulk of the day. i had a wonderful lunch with the young slovenian soprano kristina bitenc. she just sang my "la voix humaine", and there really isn't praise enough for her integrity and promise as an aritst. i'm completely confident in her future. in the near future she'll be singing blanche in "les dialogues" for me this summer, and "max" next year.

speaking of next year, i've been spending some time lately preparing my concept for "where the wild things are" and also "l'enfant et les sortileges". the former is a logical piece for me, difficult contemporary music with a clear hidden layer of adult meaning. the latter...well, i wasn't sure. i have what i think is a really beautiful concept, uniting the two together into one large piece, in which the two works meet face to face in the final moments. i can't really go too much into detail yet, but i encourage everyone that doesn't know this piece to give it a listen. it is music of terrible, devastating, humbling humanity. it is in no way a children's piece, but rather a tender poem my colette of great depth, expressing the inherent loss and nostalgia, sadness and redemption, of being a human being. so fantastically moving. i can't wait.

for now...its been a long day. tomorrow i'll start in on the fourth movement of "songs of the fisherman", a dance movement with lots of complicated notation issues. i'm aiming for one movement a day, and so far so good.

(incidentally, i'm on the jury for the entrance auditions to the dutch national opera academy. i got the packets today of what singers are offering...it is mind numbing how many singers there are, so similar, such tight competition. i'm just in awe of how brave this young people are. the odds are so tough, the reality so cold, and yet here they are. it is a large responsibility to have a hand in guiding them, i intend to give all the energy i have to the process and to being honest, fair, and sensitive)

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