Albuquerque, Summer of 2016

We are talking now of summer evenings in Albuquerque, New Mexico 

in the time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.

 It was a little bit mixed sort of block, fairly solidly regular audience members,

with one or two juts apiece on either side of that.

The houses corresponded: middlesized gracefully constructed adobe houses built in the past hundred years,

with small front and side and more spacious back yards, and trees in the yards.

(with a little help from James Agee).

Impromptu

No one writes better 

neapolitan chords 

than Franz Schubert, 

and these days, 

between the delicious 

fantasy

in f minor 

for four hands 

on one piano,

or thinking

on lieder 

of

Goethe

and 

Mayrhofer 

(to take place in later summer),

I would rather have 

an

impromptu

meeting

with no one else. 

 

(June 16, 2015)

 

 

Moveable Sol

One of my lifelong dreams as a musician is to cultivate small "groups" which are conduits to live, intimate performance in unconventional spaces. (This is nothing new on the classical music scene.) in fact, the idea of doing "opera on tap" (in bars), on-site in different places (my good friend and colleague from undergraduate has started On-site Opera (http://osopera.org) bringing people into wax museums and palaces to experience this medium live. 

Joel Becktell, cellist, friend, and entrepreneur (http://joelbecktell.com) had approached me back in January, while we were preparing the Schnittke Cello Sonata no. 1, about ... starting a house-concert series in Albuquerque. There are two salon-house-concert series which I know intimately from the East Coast - Rob Tannen's "Salon 33" and Andrea Clearfield's "Salon." (Princeton and Philadelphia, respectively). 

Joel's suggestion was to combine forces with his neighbor, a wonderful pianist, fellow creative, writer, teacher, and Albuquerque native Amy Greer (http://tenthousandstars.net). The suggestion was brilliant. 

After many emails going back-and-forth between us, we came up with a name. 

Moveable Sol. 

... many people thought is was "sun," others thought it was a play on moveable "do." (Drumroll please, for a musical pun). Others thought the sol had a "u" in it. The answer is, it's all of those things. 

We catered it. We shared our invitations with a mailing list. 

We sold out! 

One of the things that was most moving to me was hearing Amy and Joel perform a piece by Gjeljo, and also to hear Amy alone in some theme-and-variations on "O Sacred Head" (the latter by jazz pianist Fred Hersch). Since it was a house concert, and seating was fairly at a premium, I sat close to the crook of the piano. It had been forever since I've stood or sat there. It was a reminder about what my singers and instrumentalists deal with so frequently. 

I was reminded of the sheer power of music. 

The next performances are in June, with a location disclosed with reservation. 

PHOTOS: from the performance! One of these speaks so wonderfully to the name of the series.