sounds like now

SLN is on the road. Expect posting to slow as we concentrate on larger projects and using our time wisely to practice for a few upcoming events—one of which is eponymous. Updates as inspiration strikes.

Marathon day approaching rapidly. Tomorrow, as it will unfold in a perfect world:

+ Rehearsal in the morning.
+ Quick, get back to Baltimore to catch Acela to NYC.
+ Arrive NYP @ 2:45pm.
+ E train to 5th Ave / 53rd St.
+ Enter Yamaha Piano Salon.
+ Take out saxophones.
+ Run through music and hope everything works.
+ Eat.
+ Play concert of music by Miyuki Ito, Kumiko Omura, and Lyudmila German.
+ Exhale.
+ Enjoy.

I’m in Roanoke, VA this weekend performing with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra. In honor of Valentine’s Day, our program is titled Dance and Romance and features its fair share of saxophone. (Because what instrument’s more romantic than saxophone? Really?) Truth be told, it’s the most playing I’ve ever done on a single orchestra gig. Two by Bernstein—perennial favorite Symphonic Dances from West Side Story coupled with hidden gem On the Town—along with the amorous Bolero by Ravel, in which I play both the tenor and soprano parts. I normally don’t have a problem with nerves on any concert I play, but having only 5 beats rest to put down the tenor and pick up the soprano and play both lines equally beautifully is seriously challenging my nervousness-free performance record. Not to mention having to have the perfect reed for three horns at the same time—actually, check that, because I need to have all four horns (add baritone) ready to go because of an upcoming concert in NYC. More on that later. I need to deflate.

I’m off to NYC to catch the final performance of Robert Ashley’s new opera tonight at La MaMa E.T.C. Report to follow.

“Invok[ing] the soul-killing anonymity of chain hotels, the rooms’ terrible transient sameness: the ubiquitous floral design of the bedspreads, the multiple low-watt lamps, the pallid artwork bolted to the wall, the schizoid whisper of ventilation, the sad shag carpet, the smell of alien cleansers, the Kleenex dispensed from the wall, the automated wake-up call, the lightproof curtains, the windows that do not open—ever. The same TV with the same cable with the same voice saying “Welcome to _________” on its menu channel’s eight-second loop. The sense that everything in the room’s been touched by a thousand hands before. The sounds of others’ plumbing.”

David Foster Wallace, “Up Simba” from Consider the Lobster and Other Essays

N.B. …

Late yesterday afternoon after my clinic, I hopped on the T over to JP and made some noise with Tim. Microtones, microtones, microtones. Bob’s piece is called Ajax is all about attack and, much to Tim’s credit, is in fact related to the famous Ajax Amsterdam football team—a stimulus that Bob found in a short story by Jim Shepard. In the 1960s, Ajax became famous for a concept called “total football,” which did away the distinctions between defenders, midfielders, and attackers and divided the work evenly between all the players. During a match, players were expected to participate in all aspects of the game, thereby making their style of play very fluid and changeable. One imagines that executing this strategy required an extremely close-knit team structure and a sense of communication that I think would have to border on telepathy.

Bob’s piece doesn’t explicitly evoke the Ajax football team, but rather uses the idea of “total football” to create an interesting musical result. High register soprano saxophone lines float over a continuous patina of sound (mostly) improvised on a minimal percussion setup of bass drum, bongos, and tambourine. Several times throughout the work, the saxophone and percussion come together to play broken 6s and 7s, sometimes initiated by the saxophone, sometimes by the percussion, and sometimes forming together from a sixth sense.

When I was busy weighing modes of transportation from Boston back to Baltimore, I neglected to consider how I would get back to Boston in the first place. Although I was just in Boston, the tour continues and I’m currently stranded in Danbury, CT for two days, the second of which ends with a concert at Yale in New Haven. Aha! New Haven is on the Amtrak Regional line so I’ll just grab a train up to Boston after the concert on Saturday. Yes, of course! Last train out of New Haven: 8:38pm. Concert start time: 8pm. Ok, that’s not an option. The closest train station to Danbury is no less than 20 miles away, which would be a bit of a drag since I’d have to be on an early train and have someone drive me to the station . . . Solution: I decided to rent a car from the friendly Enterprise people about a 10-min walk down the street from Tim’s place. And with a weekend special rate of $16/day, I think I made out pretty good.

Although I don’t need to make travel arrangements to Boston for NZ’s triumphant return since I’ll already be in the vicinity, I do need to find a way back to Baltimore. In the past, flights to and from Boston have been outrageously priced, so I began by checking out the Amtrak site. $105 for a regional. Not bad, I thought. So just for kicks, I went to Expedia to see what a one-way plane ticket would cost. $92. Unbelievable. And there was more than one carrier offering that price! It’s a 7-hour train ride v. a 1-hour and 40-min flight. Even with the slightly lower cost and immensely lower travel time, I think I’m leaning towards the rails rather than the sky. A train ride just seems more convenient—don’t need a ride to the airport (a T to South Station is much easier and quicker than a T to the airport), no fussing with long security lines, checking baggage, picking bags up at BWI (which always seems to take forever), and no need to find a ride from BWI to my flat in Bolton Hill—and more romantic. I did a lot of train-riding last year and excpet for that one time, relished the time to myself and relaxation I felt while gliding smoothly across the rails. Even though I travel often, I still have an insatiable wanderlust and for whatever reason, a train ride seems to quench that thirst more than any other mode of transportation. Ok, train it is.

I’m back from South Korea. Photos to follow.