Annunciation II
And the Times has just alerted me to the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s announcement of the New York première of my new piece for Thomas Hampson and the sparkling Jupiter String Quartet, scheduled for April 2013. (We’d hoped for this date, but it wasn’t confirmed until now.) Mr. Hampson is, simply, nonpareil, and it’s a tremendous thrill to be asked to compose a piece for him in mind; and the cycle (about which more anon) will not only mark my CMSLC début, but also the first chamber-scaled score of mine heard in New York.
Annunciation
The company had announced its plan to commission the piece three years ago, but it was only this month that San Francisco Opera confirmed casting and dates for The Gospel of Magdalene: as you’ll read, the artists engaged are sterling. The opera seems to have something in it to, shall we say, startle almost everyone; if the spirited discussions we’ve had so far are any indication, we’re in for quite the flight! Please make sure your seatbelts are securely fastened low and tight across your hips: we’re scheduled for takeoff on June 19, 2013.
Emerging, Blinking
And now the piano-vocal of Act Two is completed. (One emerges, blinking, from the studio to realize New York is still here. Concerts! Restaurants! Other people!) So, after J’s piece with the Philharmonic and the the nonpareil Stephanie Blythe, it’s off to The MacDowell Colony for the month of October to orchestrate: then back to the city in November for the new session of ALT.
The Sun Didn’t Set
Back from Russia: J was serving on the violin jury of the Tchaikovsky Competition (maybe one day he’ll tell you that story) in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and, having finished my first act, I felt entitled to join him for ten white nights. Highlights; I got to meet (and J to reconnect with) enchanting Renata Scotto, who might have sung the first Marie Antoinette in The Ghosts of Versailles had the stars aligned, and Anne-Sophie Mutter, to celebrate her birthday, invited us all on the boat she took on the Neva, so we saw the glittering bridges yawn open at 2:00 in the morning, which is the thing one does in St. Petersburg in June. Somehow, I endured. Now, back to Act Two.