Kansas City ain’t Wales, but it has its impressive features:
One of them is Luyben Music at 4318 Main Street, the kind of old-fashioned, full-of-obscure-scores-oh-my-god-look-at-this music store that I thought had ceased to exist. I bought scores to Milton Babbitt’s All Set, Elie Siegmeister’s Third Symphony, Max Reger’s Requiem, Martin Bresnick’s My Twentieth Century, Henry Brant’s Ice Field, a slew of Arvo Pärt choral music, John Becker’s Third, and Philip Glass’s Arioso No. 2 (one of his pre-minimalist pieces), all for whatever prices they were marked at the day the music entered the shop, lo these many decades ago. The owner, Annette, told me more details about the tragic demise of Patelson’s Music in New York than I had ever learned from anyone in New York. Then we stepped out the door, left the 1950s behind, and re-entered the sad 21st century.
The crew has begun to arrive – David McIntire (my co-director), Pwyll Ap Sion (director of the 2007 conference), Andy Lee (pianist and major help for this year), myself, and Tom Johnson:
