Author: sohothedog

There’s, like, the Galleria


Guerrieri: Overchoice Rag (2011) (PDF, 4 pages, 153 Kb)

Ethan was giving me a deserved hard time for letting the rag-a-month project from a couple years ago drift off into a senescent fog after a mere four installments. The lesson: be careful what you wish for! This one is reasonably classically-proportioned, it just can’t decide what key it wants to be in. Equal temperament, you disorientingly large-inventoried emporium, you.

No MIDI, since my usual computer is in the shop, and I’ve been magically transported back in time to a golden age of slower, far less powerful operating systems. Instead, here’s me playing, wrong notes and all. Be careful what you wish for, &c., &c.

And if you’re good, I’ll search for wood

Reviewing the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Trio Mediaeval, and Mantra Percussion.
Boston Globe, November 14, 2011.

The headline is a little misleading—if I did my job, the main takeaway should be as much about how much BoaC veers from hardcore minimalism while still acknowledging it. But “Timber” really does hit the same happy place that, say, Music in Contrary Motion did when I first heard it. (And, especially in the Hub, when you see that many people walking out, a comparison to Four Organs has been duly earned.)

Hey, I’ve been really lax on linking to stuff, haven’t I?

Reviewing the Cantata Singers.
Boston Globe, November 7, 2011.

Reviewing the Discovery Ensemble.
Boston Globe, November 8, 2011.

Reviewing Mykola Suk.
Boston Globe, November 11, 2011.

My busy mind is burning to use what learning I’ve got


In honor of a minor milestone, a riff on the martini that I’ve come to rely on:

Manuscript Submission

2 oz. dry gin
¾ oz. apricot eau-de-vie (I like Blume Marillen)
½ oz. rosé vermouth (like Martini Rosato)
A couple good dashes of grapefruit bitters

Stir all ingredients with ice until really quite cold (I swirl it in a metal shaker until my fingers stick) and strain into something appropriately graceful.

The triumph song of Heav’n


Last week, the church that has provided me with much of my gainful employment for the past decade, The Presbyterian Church in Sudbury, celebrated its 50th anniversary, so I wrote an anthem for the occasion. Score below, where also, behind some ambient Presbyterian noise, you can hear the premiere (thanks to Doug Nicholls for the recording).

We Love the Place (2011), SATB chorus and organ (PDF, 170Kb)



The words are by William Bullock, Anglican missionary to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Numerous versions of Bullock’s poem were already floating around by the end of the 19th century; I mixed and matched stanzas I liked. Supposedly, when asked why there wasn’t a stanza of “We Love the Place” devoted to the church’s pulpit, Bullock replied that he would have been compelled to write:

We love thy pulpit Lord,
For there the word of man
Lulls the worshiper to sleep
As only sermons can.