Stephen Sondheim (born this day in 1930) was the kind of guy who would answer his fan mail.

from CYCLE OF FRIENDS - "Blue Hills Over the North Wall" for soprano and orchestra YouTube video by Michael Kaulkin

Here is the soprano/orchestra movement of my choral work CYCLE OF FRIENDS (c. 25) – a journey through five diverse texts dealing with the universal theme of friendship. This early piece (1996) remains the one I'm most proud of. (The rest can be heard on my website.) www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMR9...

When I was a smart-ass college student in the 1980s, I subscribed to Newsweek or something under the name Paul Hindemith. That resulted in all sorts of interesting junk mail.

Márquez - Danzon n° 2 sous la baguette d'Alondra de la Parra (répétition) YouTube video by Orchestre de Paris

My Lyft driver in San Antonio just had Márquez’ Danzón No. 2 on his playlist. (How cool is that!) It reminded me of this dazzling snippet of Alondra de la Parra rehearsing this piece. Such wonderful musical leadership.

youtu.be/YfKBfH0g_Hc?...

The rug really ties the room together.

Surely this joke has been made already by someone, but… I don’t get out much.

Flight tracker map of Phoenix, AZ showing “Superstition Freeway”

Is this Phoenix’s answer to the Information Superhighway?

It’s a music dance experience.

Trade show booth banner for Swirly Music set up at home in the living room.

It has been a busy week, and next week is even more so! Just kicking the tires on my new banner rig for the Swirly Music booth at the Texas Music Educators Association convention in San Antonio. Any Texan choral directors out there? Stop by Booth 111!

Aw, nuts! I woke up sure that this whole Riviera thing was just a bad dream.

Ugh – sorry!

Excellent. One of them had a Seussian bushy mustache, if I remember correctly.

Let’s face it. All time zones are silly.

It depends on the context, but sometimes people truly don’t have the slightest idea what I’m talking about. Or sometimes they think I do jingles or film music, or write pop songs, etc. All fair enough, I suppose – just not quite right in my case.

I have a similarly hard time explaining what I mean when I say I’m a “composer“ most of the time.

Thanks – I hope you'll consider it!

Questions and Answers • Swirly Music • An eclectic source for repertoire by today's self-publishing composers Questions and Answers Composer Questions General Financial/Legal Arrangements Standards and Guidelines Customer Questions Coming soon!

There's no prohibition against pieces with no recordings, and no harm. It's just that busy folks are way more likely to get interested in things they can listen to for a first impression. You can always add titles and update them later with recordings. More→ www.swirlymusic.org/about-swirly...

Serving the self-publishing composer as a platform to handle sales, printing, and fulfillment, 10-year-old Swirly Music was recently redesigned, and I'm just now starting to crow about it! Here's a little demo/intro I made for a brand new Instagram account.

www.swirlymusic.org • #classicalmusic

Live: Plane Crash reported near Reagan Washington National Airport YouTube video by WUSA9

Plane crash in DC. I grew up there, and this is reminding me very much of the Air Florida crash in the Potomac in 1982 when I was about 15. Sounds like there are some survivors! www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KM6...

Perfect! I hate thinking about what I should listen to.

from CYCLE OF FRIENDS - "Blue Hills Over the North Wall" for soprano and orchestra YouTube video by Michael Kaulkin

CYCLE OF FRIENDS (25’), for soprano solo, chorus and chamber orchestra. I can’t share the whole thing here, but here’s the soprano/orch-only movement. The rest is on my web site.

youtu.be/UMR91tzIKV4?...

I ditched Twitter years ago. It has become insufferable long before X because of the ads and the algorithm. This seems promising. Give it some time, I guess.

Bucket list item checked. Conversation in Persian with strangers in a parking garage elevator. Something like this:

ME: Are you speaking Persian?
THEY: (surprised) Yes.
ME: I'm learning Persian.
THEY: (more surprised) That's great!
ME: Thanks! Goodbye.
THEY: Goodbye.

About all I could handle.

I love the way you put that!

It's the beginning of the bottom voice here. I had pointedly asked the students, "When does the bottom voice begin?" And (as expected) they said it begins on beat 2. So I want them to think of the rest – rests in general – as part of the performance.

“Start being a musician before you make a sound,” I said to my class yesterday.

Then I thought to myself - hey, that’s pretty good! (The context was a melody that begins with a quarter rest.)

Music classroom with selection from Kodály's BICINIA HUNGARICA on the monitor. The tempo marking is "Not too fast, and not too slow."

Best. Tempo marking. Ever. Translated from the Hungarian "Mérsékelten".

This is exactly the kind of rigorous discourse I was hoping to find here.

OK – "BOO," Hanz Zimmer... But imagine how galling this is if you're a Saudi composer!

Haha! Thanks – I figured that would be a dynamite ice breaker.