Dinner with Kate Millett and Myra Kovary: A Composer’s Journal December 16-20, 2005
Saturday, December 16 - January 16, 2006
12:05 a.m.
Met Kate and Myra at Simeons for dinner/dessert earlier tonight. A bitter cold night, with a bright moon above & slush to plow through on the ground. They are in Ithaca briefly. Kate was her charming self, quiet. We found out that M. and Kate were both Oxford scholars, and they had an interesting discussion about Oxford. Kate went to Saint Hilda’s, a women’s college at Oxford. Myra & I spoke about music. I had brought some Christmas crackers, & we all wore our paper hats & read our riddles. We also left a big tip because I sprinkled the bright, metallic confetti all over our table.
Kate and Myra spoke of future artistic plans for their life in New York City, which I am not allowed to divulge at this time. I also found out that Kate had created a sculpture of a piano with hands on the keyboard. Just hands. Just hands on the keyboard made sense to me - for a pianist, that is who we are: hands. The sculpture is still at The Farm, dismantled and stuck in a corner. I asked how big it was, thinking it was the size of a dinner plate. Kate said it is about the size of a baby grand piano.
It turns out that Kate & I are both very fond of KFC, and we made future plans to go there together. M. and Myra will go to the Thai restaurant in town, or some other exotic eatery. Those plans in place, we wished each other a final Happy Holidays & parted. I promised Myra something about Images, but now cannot remember what it was. She will undoubtedly remind me. Altogether, a festive and informative evening.
Tuesday, December 20
Went to the TV studio tonight, to work on Visions. Did my best to even out the sound levels from piece to piece. Made another VHS copy to watch at home. Also explored visual techniques on the digital machines, for future shows. I already have many ideas, & envision many wonderful possibilities there. Brought home a camera, to take some new footage. I don’t see how the existing audio track can be salvaged for the Visions TV show ... I had better ask for a miracle.
Friday, December 23
Was drifting off to sleep last night, & a piano piece began writing itself in my head. From my vantage point, in my mind, I was seated at the piano & composing, playing various motives & passages; the printed notes appeared as I played, in the distance, like a backdrop for a play or ballet. The notes were intricate & fast, almost dizzying, reminding me of Liszt or a Chopin Etude. I switched on the light when it was finished, & scribbled down some of the ideas on a blank sheet of paper; rough diagrams, geometries and short written instructions to myself, as a reminder of what I had seen & heard. Wonder if I will find the patience & fortitude to one day write it all down on paper, in notes. Thousands of notes ... On this physical planet, the ideas are so fast - & then to achieve them, concretize them, register them is so very laborious. Like those awful dreams where one is stuck in the mud & can barely move, yet in grave danger of being eaten by a monster ... Or the lightning speed of the angels - compared to a snail trying to surmount a leaf in its path ....
Monday, January 16
I haven’t written in A Composer’s Journal notebook for a month. This past Friday I received a letter in the mail announcing that I would again be included in Who’s Who in America, the 2006 edition. I also received an e-mail from Robert Spear, on the same day, saying that he had not received the grant he applied for, therefore the group would probably disband, at least temporarily. His beautiful octet of new stringed instruments. Two members, he wrote - have already left.
Now I wonder if I will ever hear the pieces I have been writing for his strings & choir. Instead of finishing that music, I could instead work on revising the Piano Quartet/Quintet for next year’s Cornell concert. Or I could go back & rescore the string/choir pieces for full orchestra, as I had originally heard them, conceived them; i.e. for full orchestra & choir. Or knowing that I will probably never hear the pieces performed, I could put the scores away, unfinished. Still trying to recover from all my injuries, I cannot restore lost musical contacts nor make new ones in other cities; nor can I travel.
This could be the end of A Composer’s Journal. No, the need to create & write music is too strong. It cannot be stopped, even if I wished to stop it.
Dinner with Kate Millett and Myra Kovary: A Composer's J
Moderator: figaro