string quartet festival
day three
Mivos Quartet, Bronx Community College Online Concert Series, 11/30/20: Michaela Catranis, Luminous Animal (2020); Linda Caitlin Smith, String Quartet No. 6 (2013); George Lewis, String Quartet 2.5: “Playing with Seeds” (2017)
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
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reading table
Old age is
a flight of small
cheeping birds
skimming
bare trees
above a snow glaze.—William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), from “To Waken an Old Lady”
Want to go somewhere you’ve never been before?
Linda Catlin Smith (1957-), String Quartet No. 6 (2013); Mivos Quartet (Olivia De Prato, violin; Maya Bennardo, violin; Victor Lowrie Tafoya, viola; Tyler J. Borden, cello), live, New York, 2019
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, outside Chicago
Need a jolt?
Felipe Lara (1979-), Corde Vocale (2006)
Mivos Quartet, live (studio performance), New York, 2013
This I listened to for the first time yesterday. Then I listened again. And again.
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lagniappe
radio
Tuesday is the centennial of Billie Holiday’s birth and WKCR (Columbia University) is celebrating in the best possible way, featuring her music all day tomorrow and, because twenty-four hours just aren’t enough, the next day too.
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taking a break
I’m taking some time off—back in a while.
sounds of New York (day three)
If this life of ours isn’t easy, why should our music be?
Alex Mincek (1975-), String Quartet No. 3; Mivos Quartet, live, New York, 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
By Emily Dickinson (1830-1886; Franklin 384)
It dont sound so terrible—quite—as it did—
I run it over—”Dead”, Brain—”Dead”.
Put it in Latin—left of my school—
Seems it don’t shriek so—under rule.Turn it, a little—full in the face
A Trouble looks bitterest—
Shift it—just—
Say “When Tomorrow comes this way—
I shall have waded down one Day” .I suppose it will interrupt me some
Till I get accustomed—but then the Tomb
Like other new Things—shows largest—then—
And smaller, by Habit—It’s shrewder then
Put the Thought in advance—a Year—
How like “a fit”—then—
Murder—wear!
Some instruments just seem made for each other.
Ned Rothenberg (clarinet), Mivos Quartet, Clarinet Quintet (N. Rothenberg), excerpt, live, Ann Arbor, 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
Let there be physical suddenness.
—Michael McClure
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random thoughts
This morning, before sunrise, when I was out walking my son Luke’s dog, Roscoe, he stopped to inspect each blade of grass, carefully.