The rest of the gang arrived in New York this morning. Seeing them as they shuffled into the hotel lobby after an all night flight, I now realized how thrashed I’d been yesterday morning. My morning as a last bit of quick sight seeing before rehearsals began. I started with a walk down Fifth Avenue to Bouchon Bakery at Rockerfeller Center. It was good. I then walked back down 6th to my favorite little Italian espresso joint, Zibetto Espresso Bar on W 56th and Sixth. It’s a long and skinny store, maybe 10 fee wide by 40 feet deep, with marble ledges built into the wall opposite the counter where you can set your coffee, phone, and book. It is definitely in the model of a real Italian espresso bar – you walk in, order your drink, down it pretty quickly, pay and leave. I suspect the average stay at the premises must be about 3 – 5 minutes.
My next stop was the Museum of Modern Art, or MoMA. I hadn’t been here for at least 18 years, way before the big new addition was built. It was great to see some of my old friends – Rousseau, Van Gogh, Picasso, Seurat, Rothko, Johns, and Pollock. I also grabbed a quick lunch in the MoMA sculpture garden, which has to be one of the most wonderful urban spaces around. You feel at once separate and intimately connected with this great city.
I’m constantly finding myself turned around every time I go around a corner. I lose track of which was is uptown, which is downtown. Crosstown is likewise always an issue. Slowly, landmarks are beginning to make themselves known, if I can spot them. What I am impressed by, more than other visits here, is how easy it is to get around the city, even if it happens not to be so quick. Generally, the subways are well marked, and people are willing to help out if you’re willing to ask.
We finally got into the same room with one of our composers today! LJ White, whose work “Wilder Shores” was commissioned by Third Angle New Music for this performance. Also present for the first time were the poet twin brothers Michael and Matthew Dickman, who will be narrating their poetry in the performance, along with violinist Ron Blessinger and cellist Marilyn De Oliveira.
After much discussion and fine-tuning of that piece, violinist Greg Ewer and I joined our quartet mates and worked on “Quartz”, a two movement piece for string quartet and electronic soundtrack, by Australian composer Julian Day. Each of the two movements is based upon the chord progressions of 10 second sections of two incomplete string quartets – the Op. 108 of Haydn, and the Quartettsatz of Schubert. It’s really quite a compelling piece, and it’s quite a thrill for the ensemble to be presenting two world premieres at the BOAC Marathon, which evidently is fairly unusual for the festival.
Well, that just about wraps it up for Friday – later today we have a reception at the home of Executive Director Lisa Volle’s mother on the Upper East Side, and then Greg and I will be zooming over to Brooklyn to take in a concert of three young composers (Daniel Ott, Alex Freeman, and Mathew Fuerst) on the BargeMusic Here and Now series. Should be fun – and exhausting!