cadillacs for microphones: the I-75

Two weekends ago I had the wonderful opportunity to cancel classes to sit on a panel and give my composer/impresario expertise and have a couple of my pieces performed. Great weekend? Or greatest weekend?

Thursday

2:58 p.m.

Rafael de Acha, teacher/moderator at the University of Cincinnati Osher Lifelong Learning Institute asked me and James Slouffman (President of the Cincinnati Wagner Society) and Kathleen Doane (Arts Writer Lecturer at the University of Cincinnati's English Department) to participate on a panel entitled "Teaching the Arts." Are we building a future audience? Are we nurturing a future crop of artists? Is art education needed and how do we provide that in the current educational system?

I'm glad I had the opportunity to participate in this discussion. One of the questions Rafael asked me is how I can convince people to listen to new concert music. I said, "My first goal is to convince all of you that composers are living and breathing beings and that we exist among you and that we're real people too!"

(I try.)


Friday

9:20 a.m.

I may have overslept that morning, but eventually I pick up my rental and head toward BGSU.

12:15 p.m.

I had lunch at El Zarape with Liz Pearse and composers from the student composer club Praecepta. Noms.

2:30 p.m.

I gave my composer presentation to the student composers at BGSU.

Oops, I never showed this slide. Spoilers.

4:00 p.m. 

I needed to grade, I needed the internets, and I needed coffee. Cue Grounds for Thought.

7:45-ish p.m.

I spoke at a pre-concert talk along with Carter John Rice, whose opera WE'RE ON THE AIR! was being premiered.

Then I had to quickly go because the roads were bad.

8:30 p.m.

After a scary drive to Toledo, I arrived at the Gathered Gallery and Studios. I ran into these two…

Kurt Isaacson and Elise Roy

…and heard fantastic performances by Elise Roy and Matt Younglove. Also, Bifocals played a few times, especially toward the start of the event (7 p.m.), which means I missed listeners' initial reactions to my piece. Supposedly, instead of listeners frightfully jumping when hearing the sudden sound of a car crashing, they thought they were listening to someone breaking a sculpture in the glass gallery. Oops. (No, I wasn't trolling them…I am not a troll…)

Saturday

7:30 p.m.

More pre-concert talking, and this time I could actually see Liz's production of Krispy Kremes and Butter Queens!

And then we all started eating donuts.

With Richard Channell, Jr., Rebekah Kroesing, me, and LeTara Lee

I had a great time (minus driving back on the I-75 in scary weather, which shook me up and compounded my driving time back to Cincinnati). BGSU, I hope I return! (Or else I'm posting that future rejection letter on my blog…)

Now for the Composer Costs.

What?! Composer Costs? Yes, this year on my blog I'm going to keep track of how much I spend on necessary composer trips since I believe it's an important investment. This time I kept costs down by staying with composer/performer friends Jamie and Andrew, who are the nicest composer people since not only did they provide a place for me to stay but they also fed me and unintentionally provided a cat companion.

The future trip to Texas will not be so cheap.