Im wunderschönen Monat Mai

The Law of Mosaics / Vancouver / Milwaukee / looking ahead...

Well, hello. I’ve been doing a truly miserable job of keeping in touch. The demands of parenthood—my partner and I are raising two beautiful, effervescent, and exhausting children under five—along with rafts of music to write, administrative tasks to fulfill, songs to record, and so on and so forth, have made it all but impossible for me to devote any attention to this space. But that will change, I’m sure of it!

Inspired by my friend Matthew Zapruder, who has a new book out called Story of A Poem (which I intend to read as soon as I get through Rachel Cusk’s Outline Trilogy; I know, I’m late to the game!), I’ve recently instituted a new ritual: I begin each work day by writing 500 words. My hope is that this will lead to songs, ideas for larger works, and also the nuggets of essays that I’ll publish here. I’ll try to return to a schedule of getting something up every other week.

Meanwhile, there are a few upcoming events I’d like to make you all aware of:

1. On Friday, May 5, I’ll be hosting the second and final Oregon Symphony/Reser Center concert of the season. The program is called The Law of Mosaics, after a work of the same name by Ted Hearne. The basic conceit of the evening is to present a series of collages, mosaics, jump-cuts, and juxtapositions that occur within, as well as across, multiple works. Fabulous music by Hearne, Jessie Montgomery, Györgi Ligeti, and Andrew Norman is paired with older gems by C.P.E. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Louise Farrenc. I’ll be on hand as host & guide, and would love to see you Oregonians there. Tickets!

2. On May 10th & 11th, I’ll be presenting Book of Travelers (solo) and Magnificent Bird (with the Capilano String Quartet) on back-to-back evenings under the auspices of Music on Main in Vancouver, B.C. Music on Main, and its founder and artistic director, Dave Pay, have been supporters of mine since the earliest days of my career, and I’m thrilled to be returning to perform these pieces. Tickets can be found here.

3. On May 31st & June 1st, I’ll be in Milwaukee to perform Magnificent Bird with a string quartet furnished by Present Music, another organization that has been a part of my creative life since I was still wet behind the ears. (If memory serves, my first appearance with them was some fifteen years ago!) Tickets are here.

Looking ahead to some recently announced events: those of you in the Chicago area can catch my father playing Heirloom with the Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia Festival on August 10th. In November, my dad and I will be with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for a week—I’ll conduct Heirloom (my subscription debut in that capacity), and he’ll conduct a set of my songs (with me singing). To top it off, he’ll play Rhapsody in Blue, and I’ll do a set of tunes by Connie Converse, Paul Simon, and Billy Strayhorn. (Nov 24-26 at The Ordway.) Last but not least, London’s Southbank Centre has just announced its fall/winter classical season, which will include the BBC Concert Orchestra giving the UK premiere of emergency shelter intake form on January 19 of next year.

That’s all for now. The sun is shining in Portland. As Charles Ives said, “the lettuce rows are showing green.”

Sending you all my best,

Gabriel

P.S. I have enabled paid subscriptions. For now, I don’t have any intention of offering different tiers of content, but I did want to make it possible for people to support my work more broadly through a subscription model. Absolutely no pressure!