Wow, what a month!
March was an absolutely crazy month! In the four full weekends in March, I attended conferences during 3 of them and turned 50 during the other!
March 5-7, I was at the International Festival of Music by Women. Two of my pieces were performed: Who Has Seen the Wind, an art song setting Christina Rosetti's poem of the same name and Three Short Pieces (originally written for saxophone but rearranged for clarinet.)
Rebecca Coberly beautifully sang and Jonathan Levin accompanied her. Dr. Soo Goh performed Three Short Pieces - and he was the one who requested that I rearrange it for clarinet!
March 13 was my birthday. Our youngest child was able to come for a visit, so we spent the afternoon in Black Mountain (such a cool town!). On Sunday, we had a nice celebration after church. I am grateful to John and the church for making me feel so special!
March 20-21 I was at the SCI Region IV Conference held at AppState. In addition to Dr. Goh performing Three Short Pieces again, I had the opportunity to perform a piece by my friend and fellow composer, Jane K. It was the 1st time I've ever performed in such a setting. I feel really good about my performance, and the best thing was I had almost NO performance anxiety! (Something I have struggled with performing solo.)
I have been listening to business podcasts for a while and have been doing a lot of work on mindset. That has really helped. I will write a blog about it someday. (Adding it to the list of blog ideas....)
March 25-28 I was at the TUTTI New Arts Festival at Denison University in Ohio. My piece Mountain Heartleaf was performed by the OH50 Woodwind Quintet.
One of the things I loved best about being at that conference was that it was very inter-disciplinary. In addition to concerts, there were workshops with writers, dance events, roundtable discussion and a "philosophy coffee." I enjoyed discussing artistic things with the composers, performers and other artists in attendance.
Visual art students were invited to pick one of the selected musical pieces and create a painting or animation inspired by the work. My piece was chosen by a painter AND an animator! You can see the painting below.
Above all, the best part of conferences is meeting people and making new friends! I met a contingent of performers from Northern Arizona University. At the SCI Conference, I met some people in person I have previously only known online. At the TUTTI festival, I met the contrabassoonist of the Charlotte Symphony!
It is so funny to me that we drove 6-1/2 hours to meet someone who lives less than 1-1/2 hours away! We have already been discussing ways to collaborate!
These are just a few examples of all the fun and wonderful people I met this past month!
My fall is taking shape. The details about the opera are still getting finalized, but it looks like that's a go. And I'm going to keep working at AppState. I was asked to teach Theory I, as well as Fundamentals. I couldn't say no to that vote of confidence!
More seriously, I did consider the schedule in great detail, and I think it is going to work out fine even with working on this giant project. I should be able to get ALL my school stuff done on the days I'm up in Boone, leaving me free on the other days to compose. Here's hoping, anyway!
The ground is always shifting. There are always other things that could potentially down the pipeline that are so tentative it's not worth discussing yet.
For now, things are quiet and I should be able to make good progress on my current comp projects in April. I am not traveling this month, which is a relief! I'm supposed to be a guest on a couple of podcasts. It's the homestretch of the semester.
Happy Easter if you celebrate!
