WMV Music Web Log

The Kawai arrived! I helped the UPS guy get it up the stairs, and then emptied a huge pile of styrofoam peanuts on the floor to get the keyboard out of the box. Plugged it in - it works! Sounds like a piano, feels like a piano. I got a stand for it, and David is working on getting a hard case. Have Kawai, will travel.

Last night I played a dinner at the Embassy of the Czech Republic for Vaclav Havel and other champions of human rights from China, Burma, Cuba, and elsewhere. It was a real privilege to be there - this was no gathering of empty suits! Several of these men had spent many years in prisons. Three US Senators and half a dozen ambassadors were there as well. Jakub Skalnik of the Czech Embassy got President Havel to autograph the score of a Petr Eben work - one his "Small Portraits" entitled "Simple, Affectionate, Sentimental". Havel signed it with a little heart. I played a lot of Czech music, including Smetana, Dvorak, Martinu, Eben, and Novak, and even some of Ullmann, particularly appropriate as it was written in the concentration camp at Terezin. A Chinese couple asked me to play some Dvorak and Smetana into a pocket recorder.

Tomorrow John Stephens has assembled a small orchestra of which I am a part, to record a Gordon Cyr Symphony. I am very excited about this, as I have never really played as part of an orchestra (quite a different role from piano soloist in a concerto). I am most concerned about being able to follow the conductor's beat, a new skill for me, but one which every other musician present will have perfected over many years. I expect it to be fun, nevertheless.

Altogether over the last few weeks I will have played four concerts, a memorial service, a reception, and a recording session - not bad.

Last week I spoke with Scott Kenison at the Atlas Theater (13th and H NE). They will eventually have four (!) theaters in the complex. The two small theaters are completed - the 140 seat theater is perfect for us. I am very eager to perform there. Maybe we can repeat the July Ratner performance "downtown". I want to start a series based on the DC composer project.

We sent out two mailings this week - the postcard for the June 21 concert at the Ratner, and a spring fundraising mailing. Alice Sims and Richard Richina helped with the envelope stuffing, and it was done in no time. Fundraising appeals have taken on a whole new light: when the bank account dwindles there is no other source of supply.

We met with Sharon Caplan, who has volunteered to try to get us some media coverage - thank you, Sharon!