return from Fresno

It was a long exhausting two weeks of composing mayhem, but I not only managed to refrain from melting in the heat, but also complete (more or less) two pieces that were premiered at the culmination concert. It was an awesome experience, it was great to work with the guest artists (some of which are in my own backyard, making working with them in the future highly likely) and even better to have some interaction with other composers. But since it's hard to write down all the greatness that happened (and who knew such greatness could come from Fresno?) I'll simply supply a list of the highlights:

Met Kronos, worked with Hank Dutt, the violist, and after a masterclass with David Harrington, the first violinist and founding member of Kronos, in which he related a story about his granddaughter, I wrote a song for her, which I then gave to him. Incredibly nerve-wracking, but still. Kronos has my music and information. Can't be bad.

Also worked with the other guest artists: Ann Moss (amazing singer, explained the voice in a way no one else ever has and it makes perfect sense), Stefan Poetzsch (violinist/composer who works with electronics. Finally, someone who uses electronics that isn't tape), Kurt Rohde (violist/composer, fantastic. amazing. and just won the Rome Prize. incredibly talented), Howard Frazin (composer, teaches at Longy, I think? great to work with, especially with the vocal stuff), Ken Froleich (composer, teaches at Fresno, teaching style much like Hdez, and he was great fun to hang out with too) and Guy Livingston (amazing pianist, and one of the funniest people I've ever met. And he was totally into the bowed piano thing).

Brought the greatness of bowed piano to fresno, which many people were interested in and will probably travel out to socal and ohio at least.

Learned that I can write fast, though it unfortunately involves writing a hell of a lot of crap and having deadlines.

Learned a lot of extended techniques for instruments that I'd never thought about using before. I always thought they were stupid cheap tricks, not interesting choices in color. I've been educated.

Saw an asshole clown, learned about dada, and saw a truly terrible film.

Made good friends, and got advice about grad school, after probably annoying everyone the first few days when we were all trying to get to know each other and I stated plain and simple my ambitions were to get into grad school. several times.

Also found that there are the same types in every group of composers: the good composers, the ones who are friendly but just not quite developed enough yet, the annoying ones whose music really isn't so bad, but their personalities makes it almost impossible to enjoy it, and the cocky ones whose music isn't nearly as good for as cocky as they are about it. Yup, that pretty much sums up most of the group, and really, most were in the first two catergories. Maybe that's really awful of me to catgorize everyone like that. oh well.

I had a fabulous time, much better than I had anticipated, and I've made lots of good connections from it. Now that I've somewhat recovered from the lack of sleep and copious amounts of caffine I was pouring into my system, I'm ready to keep up the composing, and get some pieces finished before grad apps.

And as much as I enjoyed my time in Fresno, it's good to be back home.