6:00 p.m. Today’s meeting with the conductor and soloist is canceled, mainly because I’m apprehensive about driving to a West L.A. address by 5 p.m. in an expensive borrowed car. Especially after driving on the other side for over a decade. I still feel the instinct to left turn into the oncoming lane, and I…
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3:38 p.m. One thing a composer or writer should never be without is a notepad or sketchbook, or in the 21st century, a laptop. Thus my time sitting in the San Bernardino County Recorder’s Office isn’t wasted. The drive out here was uneventful. My borrowed car, a very up-to-date BMW with a nav system, is…
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It’s close to midnight at the end of my first full day in Southern California. I’m about to shut up shop mentally, but have to write a few words about coming back to my birthplace. It’s strange, but I’m feeling a lot circles closing with this performance – returning to places where ideas and thoughts…
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8:38 p.m. I’m sitting in the rehearsal room, typing this as unobtrusively as possible as the LA Doctor’s Symphony Orchestra works out on the Elgar Enigma Variations. The rehearsal for my piece is well finished by now, but I’m just waiting for the break so that a few players can talk to me about bits…
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6:30 A.M. The lights of Wellington glitter jewel-like in the velvety blackness outside, making a circle around the harbor. I’ve been up since ten past 6:00, which is average for me. As my career has gotten ever more focused on orchestration, I’ve found myself getting up earlier and earlier in the morning, sometimes as early…
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