Hej!
As the first day's subtitle may have brought to your attention, my internet has been ranging from spotty to downright bad. An unfortunate negative slope of quality since my arrival. Perhaps even my modem is preparing me for my departure. Not much to report, but the next few days look particularly promising...
6/24:
I decided to entitle 6/24 Internet Issues, but Homesick Sunday could have just as well been the subtitle, a major wave of it (I'm glad there have been no serious attacks up to this point). After waking up from a particularly bizzare dream (involving The Sound of Music on a zeppelin, Muppets, and flying to Saturn), I could have almost sworn I was in my room back home. Obviously, I wasn't, and I realized how much I missed my room at home, my dogs, my family, pizza night on saturday... No need to get sentimental, but it was sort of hard to motivate myself to do anything. I practiced a bit, but I mostly listened to music (Staffan had given me a lent me a bunch of CDs that I wanted to listen to), read, and puttered about.
During the night on Sunday and this morning, it was AMAZINGLY windy. I checked weather.com and it was forecasting 19 mph winds. The image came into my head of some Swedish version of Paul Bunyan blowing on Malmo like it was a birthday cake, the wind was so fierce! It also put me in mind of my first visit to London back in 2000 with my grandmother, mother, and sisters; I remember hearing a similar high-pitched (high velocity) wind the first few nights we were there...
6/25:
Today officially marked my 1 week until departure date. I'm going to need to tidy up a bit, the girl from whom I'm renting the apartment is coming by to collect her mail. I'm hoping waylay her to see if she can help me with the modem troubles, but I think she will be in more of a helping mood if her place isn't a shambles (it isn't, by the way, but it could use some organizing). At the moment I'm actually not using my laptop, the modem seems to have given up hope on my computer, so I'm using a 'work' laptop that the girl left behind. She said I could use it, but I'm more comfortable using my own (not mentioning the Danish keyboard). However, the Blog must go on...
Today was yet another lesson with Staffan. We began by listening to one of his pieces. I wish I could remember the title because it was amazing! I'll have to write it down at my next lesson (tomorrow, conveniently), it was 5 somethings -songs I guess- by a German poet of whom I'd never heard before, for Wind Ensemble and Choir. It was an incredibly masterful bit of choral writing, as well as orchestration. There were many times, in fact, that I forgot that there was not a string section. The way in which Staffan used instruments was very effective, both at conveying the texts (Staffan was kind enough to give me sum ups of each of the texts) and at supporting the choir. The poet was an early expressionist, and the musical style fitted it well, in its lushness it reminded me of some of Mahler's text settings, but I mean lushness only in a good way The whole piece - about 40 minutes - was really beautiful, and I hope that it is on CD somewhere so that I can share it with my colleagues at Blair.
That was only the beginning of our lesson, though lesson is perhaps only the formal word for today's session. It was more of a show-and-tell. After Staffan's seemingly extensive turn, it was my turn, which took even longer (indeed, sharing my pieces, interspersed with discussions about text setting, the state of the modern orchestra, current trends in music, and the creative process, took up nearly the next 4 hours). I gave him a sort of directed and abridged history of the music I've written over the past 3 years, and he had a lot of interesting things to say, also agreeing with me that, after a very compositionally active school-year (8 pieces in 8 months!), may now was the time for absorption and rest, not production. He gave me a lot of music to listen to today as well though, interestingly, even though I've begun listening to this new batch of CDs, I haven't heard anything I enjoyed as much as his piece.
Plans for the rest of the week? Well, cleaning up tomorrow morning, another lesson (another lesson thursday as well), and the Swedish student composers I met in London are hoping to get together with me on Wednesday. I'll report back then!
Godnatt!
-Trey
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