I want to offer my most sincere congratulations to my friend Kathy who was married today. Though I met her husband only once, he seemed like a great guy and I wish both of them only the very best!

Last week, while the regular teacher was rehearsing with the Symphony, I had the opportunity to take the Contemporary Music course over at Maryville. It’s always fun to pinch hit (especially when you’re getting paid) and since this course is right in my comfort zone the prep was relatively straightforward and uneventful. The course population is a mixture of music majors filling a requirement and non-majors looking for liberal arts credit so I knew that I had to keep theory out of the discussion and jargon to a minimum while still providing enough depth to satisfy the musicians. Although it sounds like the perfect blend of elements to have an entertaining class with a minimum of worry there was one big problem.

For most trained musicians, the composers of the Second Viennese School don’t really create much of a stir, but that very first taste of their music is usually a shock for students accustomed to popular music or the common practice era. (Think back, if you will, to your first experience with atonality.) Since I can fairly well predict the reaction to the atonal music of Schoenberg, I almost always feel a little bit of trepidation in the first moments of class, knowing that there will always be one student who just cannot contain their disgust. So when that one student heaves that all too predictable sigh with the overdramatic flail of arms and exclaims “Thank you for stopping that TORTURE!” in full voice when “Der Mondfleck” ends, I just want to strangle them. (Or perhaps a murder and subsequent drowning in a forest pond with a moonbeam pasted on my shoulder would be a better result.)

If you’re sitting there reading this and thinking “Heck yeah! I hate Schoenberg!” let me tell you that I’m fully aware of the challenges posed by listening to sprechstimme about black moths blotting out the sun. In fact, even though I appreciate atonal music and even like some of it (okay, a lot of it), I don’t put on dodecaphonic music when I want to relax. I “get” that part. My problem is that I hate that I am compelled, year after year, to give the lecture about “appreciating art for what it is” and “it’s part of our shared culture” and “we have to be open-minded and mature about this.” It’s part of the job as a teacher, but as a composer, it’s depressing to have to justify any type of music, even if my music is nothing at all like it.

On the bright side, for a few days before and after talking about him, the attendant angst brings me just a little bit closer to Schoenberg.

Now, where’d I put that Fleetwood Mac CD again?

I logged on yesterday and noticed that I’ve had quite a few visitors from the blog Oboe Insight. I want to thank the Patricia Emerson Mitchell for linking my blog, and as you will note, have returned the favor in the links section of the sidebar. Please take a moment to head over and see what she has to say.

A note on the purpose of this blog: Even though I am a composer and teach music at the university level, this site was conceived primarily as a means of communication with my friends and family and not strictly a blog about music. That being said, I since I do have some visitors that are arriving via other music blogs, I will be more conscious that some readers will be looking to hear what I have to say about music.

I was also thinking about the types of music entries that I made over the summer while at the Eastern Music Festival. I want to be absolutely clear that I am a practicing composer and not a music critic and that I consider most of the the faculty at EMF friends and colleagues (and in the case of a certain cellist, my wife!) If you were struck by the overwhelmingly positive nature of my comments regarding the performances this summer, this is the reason.

I want to apologize to all who read this site for my long hiatus. After returning from Cape Cod in early August I had absolutely no internet connection, and even when I did finally get dialup (no high speed in our new place, at least not yet…) I have been a bit overwhelmed by both the move and the changes in my life. I’ll explain a bit more in a later entry.

Today I got a bit of sad news that made me finally want to post an entry again. Axel Duwe, my piano teacher from the years I spent teaching in California passed away this past Tuesday at the age of 71 (or 72). He was a remarkable pedagogue who had an uncanny ability to parse the most difficult of problems, musical or otherwise, into manageable bits that could be learned in detail and subsequently assembled as a fluid whole. I learned a great deal about music and about teaching from him, and I owe him a debt of gratitude for his contribution to my success.

He will be missed by every one of us touched by his cheerful wisdom.