I have noted here before that I am a fairly notorious introvert. There are periods, such as the present, in which very little in the outer world catches my attention. However, I am not, in person, much given to talking about myself unless asked, and I do, for the record, feel some pangs of conscience when my blog ends up being mostly about myself. So, sorry to be so self-obsessed lately, but I might as well alert you to the fact that Jean Churchill, professor of dance at Bard College, has choreographed two of my Disklavier pieces for faculty dancer Maria Simpson, who will perform to them this weekend, December 8, 9, and 10 at the Fisher Center. Also, December 12 at 6:30, I will give a reading from my book Music Downtown, at Bard Hall on campus.
And while I’m at it, I might as well divulge the rest of my future plans. I have received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to complete my book Music After Minimalism, an analytical/philosophical study of postminimalist music, which means that I will indeed be able to extend my sabbatical an extra semester and be blissfully absent from Bard for the entire year of 2007. I also have the following commissions to work on:
– a piano concerto for pianist Geoffrey Madge and the Orkest de Volharding in Amsterdam, to be premiered next October 31;
– a solo cello piece for Frances-Marie Uitti, for her two-bow technique;
– a quartet for the Seattle Chamber Players to be premiered in January, 2008;
– three more movements of The Planets for Philadelphia’s Relache ensemble, which they will record in summer of 2008;
– an electric guitar quartet for Tim Brady’s “Voyages” festival in Montreal, for a February 2008 premiere;
Рa conventional cello work for Andr̩ Emilianoff of the Da Capo ensemble.
In January I am recording a new disc for New Albion; February 19 to March 11 I am composer-in-residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts; March 10 the Dessoff Choir will premiere my new work My father moved through dooms of love at Merkin Hall; and May 15-20 five of my Disklavier works will be choregraphed by Mark Morris at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. This is, at long last, my year of uninterrupted composing and writing, and bloody sick and tired of hearing about it you’ll soon enough be. But with luck, once the semester’s over I’ll have some disposable attention to turn to the outer world, and will also find something more fascinating to blog about than myself.