DanielSonenberg.com

It's true dear friends and loyal readers, today marks the one year anniversary of this blog. And March 2007 is on pace to be the number 2 month of Argh-a-Blog in terms of web hits, behind the miraculous December 2006. I'm traveling and rushing and all that, but I thought I'd steer you towards some of my favorite posts over the last year - 18 to be exact. You can't go wrong with any of these. Don't see what you like? Well then vote for your favorites - I'm hoping year two will add some comments to the mix!

Chinatown musing
Munjoy delight
On the artistic life
First blog entry on running and me dad
Olive bar antics
A stop in New York City
NYC - Run with camera phone
Kite adventures with Ms. Alex
Two cuties
Summer in Maine
Flying to Rome
Playoffs in Portland
Farewell CBGB
October 31, 2006 - in memoriam
Joni Pilgrimage
The Oops fugue
Sundown
Yellow House?

Today, while my oil was being changed and tires rotated, I walked the windy distance from Marginal Way to the heart of town, where kids were playing hacky sack and the sun was blinding and even a touch warm. Portland can really and truly be radiant - and it seems to happen round this time each year (check this blog's entries from, um, a year ago!) before the clouds and rain roll in for about sixty days during what is lovingly called "spring" here. And I am radiating too, after what has just been a fabulous month for me. The long March started February 25, with a Da Capo performance of my "Maybe They're a Mouse!" (which I couldn't attend, sadly), and has been filled with little and even large bits of my opera, performed in various formats, in various states. I had a huge, loving turnout for my recital back on March 9, and a nice full house at the Manhattan School on March 18. I've accrued all sorts of video footage, and I'll even get a touch more this weekend, when AOP presents freshly edited (read as CUT) scenes from the opera one more time. And during the very same weekend Washington Musica Viva will be performing my Six Small Pieces for Clarinet and Piano (alas, without me there...) I haven't been resting on my laurels, though. Oh no - it's spring break, and I've been nailed to my little chair writing Golden Smash Hits, a fanfare for the USM Wind Ensemble in celebration of the School of Music's 50th Anniversary. I'll get to conduct the premiere on April 27, in Merrill Auditorium no less (Portland's principal concert hall, for those of you out-of-towners) - and I'm actually about twenty seconds of music away from being done with it (on schedule, miraculously). I'll finish it tomorrow, because I must, and it's exciting and loud and difficult and sounds like me and I'm just happy as can be. And when I'm writing some dreary blog entry in mid-April, moaning about God knows whatall, remind me of this moment of early vernal bliss, these slivers of warm and toasty satisfaction, and have me put a sock in it, okay?

Friday is the one year anniversary of Argh-a-Blog and I'll do my darndest to touch base. But pat me on the back huh? Most blogs fold after three months, I've heard. Ach - let the self lovefest come to an end NOW!

Omigod this album is absolutely incredible and it's available for FREE right here. Abigail Grush was one of the quirky oddball brilliant musicians I went to Bard College with - we were all wondering what to do with our musical selves. We all wrote pop tunes, but also majored in music and wrote orchestral pieces etc. Abby's sort of continued in the pop direction, but her music is pop from Pluto. Her musicianship is so deep, and so restless, that she's all over the place at once, with allusions to Kate Bush, Blondie, Kurt Weill, and others. The surface of the music is irresistibly pop-like, but the song structures are just completely untamable and art-like. I'm sure Abby's friends think she's as weird as my friends think I am, and it's gotten to the point where this album - the best you'll hear this year - had to be "self-released" by the artist. The sniveling, shallow-minded, artless, profiteers of the music industry, who have in the past taken a chance on Ms. Grush, just couldn't take the leap of faith on this one. Or something. I don't really know the backstory, but this is the kind of music that gives me hope - it's weird and wild and wonderful, and it's free. So what are you waiting for? (If you need convincing listen here first).

Hello there. I still am not managing to keep up with the blog as much as I'd like - especially shameful with the one year anniversary of Argh-a-blog just around the corner (It's March 30, but I know you knew that!). I spent a goodly portion of this afternoon trying to get a performance of my song "Midwest Albas," (given brilliantly on my concert by Ellen Chickering, soprano, and Annie Antonacos, piano) up on YouTube. For some reason I couldn't get the audio synced, so I had it up for about half an hour, and then shut it down. That was going to be my blog post - so now I find myself soundless and imageless. And I promised you some opera clips - they're coming. The editing requires multitudes of time - I'm stealing from other projects to do it though, really I am. Soon, soon. Isn't it funny how I imagine a world of eager, loyal fans, sitting on pins and needles awaiting the next YouTube video of my disturbing modern music? Ah well. It's a chat for a different day (how thoroughly most people I know think what I do is, well, crazy). For now I've got John Cage on the brain (tomorrow's seminar topic), and the Summer King. At the suggestion of my generous and talented conductor, Steve Osgood, I'm going to make some draconian (to use his word) cuts to the score of Act 1. All the really cool instrumental bits are subject to the ax - no moment of brilliance is safe. Why? Because opera is about SINGING, I've finally figured out. You want to write instrument music? Write an overture. I suppose the path to a great opera is filled with such violence. I'll find a home for those little clippings, they won't spend an ungracious eternity on the cutting room floor forgotten - I swear it. But now I'm going to float to bed for 6 solid hours (that's "sleeping in," these days).

Alex and I are running ourselves ragged. Here's a still from today's performance of scenes from the Summer King at the Manhattan School of Music. This is a clip from Act 1 Scene 2, which was not performed last week in Maine. From left to right, Jason McKinney is Josh Gibson, awaiting the pitch from Broadway Connie Rector, in the white shirt (his name - which I heard tonight for the first time - wasn't in the program). On the ladder, Robert Hoyt plays the radio announcer, who sings here through a makeshift bullhorn. Leon Browne is the Elder Barber, whose memory this whole scene represents - while in the background Steve Osgood and Charity Wicks play the four hand stride-style piano accompaniment. This scene was a big success. The first scene went well too, but it's tough to lose the orchestra on that one - at least we need a drum kit (which is essential in scene 1).

I've edited video from last week in Maine, and I'll try to convert to YouTube as soon as I can (even though each scene is too long to exist uninterrupted on YouTube.)

Interestingly, after just about everyone I know turned out for the Maine concert last week, almost no-one I knew (- almost, there were some notable exceptions) turned out for this one, and the house was still almost full. Alex likes the idea of my music happening in front of audiences that don't entirely consist of my close personal friends...go figure.

Anyway - if you're on the list of missing friends tonight, I hope you'll come for the March 30 or 31 shows. No staging for those (that ship has sailed), but fun all the same.

Bed time now - completely wrecked and exhausted.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Whistlesparks, from last Friday. Arielle, the harpist, has now officially played this piece from coast to coast (well, from North to South anyway), having now performed it in Florida, New York, and Maine. Lisa Lutton, on flute and piccolo, joined Arielle for the New York premiere and again in up here. And I'll say, they're really beginning to get the hang of it! (understatement)

So I got some seriously good press for my concert, including this really wonderful article in the Phoenix, which I suppose is Portland's (and Boston's, for that matter) answer to the Village Voice. I say it's wonderful not just because it's quite generous with me, which it is, but because its author, the new classical columnist for the Phoenix, Ben Meiklejohn, actually took the time to listen to some of my music and makes musically informed, sensitive commentary about the pieces. You would think such actions would not be a rarity for classical music critics, but amazingly, informed commentary about new art music seems to be a challenge to the critic community. Maybe that's why the head critic in town, over at Portland's big mainstream paper (a paper that was also very generous w/ me in the lead up to the performance), steers clear every time a USM faculty member mounts an entire evening of brand new music. I mean, why grapple with some fresh material that's not going to allow you to hold forth with pearls of wisdom on music that's been interpreted for literally hundreds of years? No bitterness here, of course. Just a sigh over this town that can be at once so enlightened, so arts-oriented, and so provincial. At least and at long last there's more than one solitary classical music critic in town (and there's one now with an open ear for new sounds).

Hi there everyone. I miss you out there in cyber space. The concert was yesterday, and it was a dream. A full house! A standing ovation! And so many wonderful performances from friends and colleagues old and new. Here I am with some of my newest friends, the wonderful cast of The Summer King from last night's concert. Left to right, you've got Jason McKinney (Sam Bankhead), Leon Browne (Elder Barber and Trash-Talking Player), yours truly, Lori-Kaye Miller (Elder Barber's Wife and Grace), and Anthony Turner (Younger Barber and Josh Gibson). What a terrific job these four singers did, under the brilliant baton of Steve Osgood. Anyway - many more performers to pay tribute to in this space. But time is short.

I have excellent documentation - look for audio and video VERY SOON!

Now here's a beautiful sight for you. Big beautiful drums and mallet instruments, and the greatest of people: percussionists! It's sometimes easy to take those folks at the back of the orchestra for granted, but not when you spend five hours with them in a sectional rehearsal for some seriously hard music. Percussionists need to be able to turn on a dime, switch mallets, keep counting as they run from the bass drum over to the vibes, or clank the marimba with two mallets in one hand while preparing a triangle beater in the other. Oh, and don’t forget retuning the timpani (what? a designated timpanist? uh uh…this is modern music!)

I’ve been promising myself a post on modern music, and I will do one soon. But right now in the excitement of the coming week, when I can hear snippets of my music ringing through all floors of Corthell Hall (sometimes I perk my ears up and say “wow, that sounds SO familiar. What IS it?&rdquo, how can I be anything but grateful. They’re coming – musicians from the south, coming to this cold but sunny (so far) little town that is treating me well. No complaints (except for lack of sleep). More soon, I promise.