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I’m in Denver tonight (and again on Sunday), conducting a concert of my music with Kantorei, an incredible adult chorus founded and directed by Richard Larson. In addition to the U.S. premiere of The Stolen Child, the program includes:

• Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine
• A Boy and a Girl
• little tree
• Her Sacred Spirit Soars
• Animal Crackers
• The Five Hebrew Love Songs (with string quartet)
• Sleep

Also joining me will be poet Charles Anthony Silvestri, talking about our pieces together and meeting fans after the concert.

Apparently both the concert tonight and Sunday are nearly sold out, but if you’re in town, I think it would be worth the trip:

Friday, May 16th, 2008
7:30pm
Bethany Lutheran

Sunday, May 18th, 2008
7:30pm
Bethany Lutheran

The choir is outstanding… can’t wait!

I’ve been in D.C. all week being super-nanny while my wife sings with the National Symphony Orchestra. (Full disclosure: I seem to be the only one in my family adding the word ’super’ when describing my abilities as nanny). The piece she’s singing is David Del Tredici’s Pulitzer-Prize winning insanity Final Alice, scored for full orchestra and amplified soprano. It really is the craziest piece I’ve ever heard, a full hour of the most lush, most bombastic, most tender music, all while the soprano speaks, sings, and screams the last chapter of Alice in Wonderland. Hila (my wife) is just awesome in it, and I think I can say with no bias whatsoever that the people in the audience were thinking the same thing I was as she finished her performance: I can’t believe a human being can do that. Best of all was at the audience Q & A after Thursday night’s performance, someone asked her how long it took her to memorize it. (She sings everything from memory). Her answer, “I think about a month” brought gasps from the audience, and I just sat in the back, smiling. What they don’t know was what it said about the difficulty of the piece, because she memorizes everything else in just a couple of days.

I’m really not saying all of this to brag about my wife, but that it reminded me of a couple of things. First, great musicians are capable of so much more than I could ever believe possible. I’m going to start pushing the envelope a little with the next pieces that I write, and see just what I can get away with.

And second, it is SO much more effective when performers sing/play/conduct from memory. I have always felt that the written score is a really lousy way to communicate a musical idea, what with it’s black and white notations and it’s ambiguous markings. (Forte? What is forte? In relation to what?). I think that once the music is internalized, and played from the heart and mind, it takes on a completely different life, a luster, a shininess. It just comes alive.

Oh yeah, did I mention Hilary Hahn was also on the concert, playing Paganini? Oh. My. God. What a musician. It was, as David Del Tredici said, truly the night of ‘power women.’

Here is a picture I took with my iPhone immediately following the performance Thursday night. (That’s Hila with David Del Tredici and incredible conductor Leonard Slatkin, and of course the players of the phenomenal NSO).

Sunday night the Los Angeles Master Chorale performed my When David Heard on a concert featuring music of L.A. composers, or composers with a Los Angeles connection. Except for Gorecki (who couldn’t be there) each of the composers whose music was featured was actually in the audience. Steven Stuckey, Esa Pekka Salonen, Morten Lauridsen, David O (with and incredibly fresh and exciting premiere), and yours truly.

Grant Gershon conducted the entire concert beautifully; so many colors and subtle nuances from the choir. And the singers are just incredible, truly a world-class ensemble, made all the better by the otherworldly acoustic in Disney Hall.

I won’t say much about When David Heard except this: it is just excruciating for me to hear it. Even now, nine years after I wrote it, the pain in those notes is still right there, right at the surface, as real and visceral as it ever was. Worse yet is when I’m not conducting, sitting in the audience with nothing to do but agonize over every pause, every chord. I’m thrilled that they performed the piece, and I’m happy that the audience seemed to connect with it. But I was dying through the entire thing, silently begging Grant to go faster so that it would be over as quickly as possible.

One more thought about the concert: Morten Lauridsen is a master. (I’m about to use a bunch of italics, because I feel so passionately about this). I’m not talking about musical content, or text settings, or similarities to his other pieces. (There is much debate over all of that, but for the record, I’m a huge fan of his, both as a composer and as a person). I’m talking about the orchestration of the choir, the ‘voice-estration’ if you will, his knowledge of the human voice and how to use it in an ensemble setting. His pieces just sound gorgeous. Lush, and warm, like honey, or butter, or cream. I think that part of his extraordinary success - and I attribute this same quality to the success I’ve had with October, my work for symphonic winds - is that it just sounds so good, and so many different choirs, both good and not-so-good, can pick it up and sound good. I’ve just ordered everything Maestro Lauridsen has composed, and I’m going to go through the scores with a fine-toothed comb and try to learn what it is he does that makes the choir open up and simply blossom.

N.B.: Charles Anthony Silvestri and I have been friends for nearly twenty years now. (We met in choir at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas). He’s brilliant, funny, a genuine Renaissance man: great musician, versed in Italian and Latin, doctorate in medieval history, painter, illuminator, poet, chef… you get the picture.

Together we have created a number of choral works, including Lux Aurumque, Sleep, Her Sacred Spirit Soars, and of course, Leonardo Dreams. I asked him to contribute to the blog and I’m hoping I’ll be able to persuade him to keep doing it.

At the bottom of this post, please find a YouTube video of me conducting Leonardo at a concert of which both Tony and I were a part. The choir is comprised of the two high school choruses in Lawrence, Kansas. (Tony’s home). The video is a little rough, but my god what an incredible choir.

You can visit Tony at his website or his myspace page, or just leave a message for him here… he’ll be checking in often, and responding to questions.

Eric

• • •

The Genesis and Creation of Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine

by Charles Anthony Silvestri

Eric asked me to contribute to his blog, and I thought an entry about how we came to create Leonardo would be an appropriate place to start. Of all our collaborations, Leonardo was by far the most organic. By that I mean the text and music were created together, concurrently, and Eric and I regularly met and ran ideas by each other. Composer affected text, and librettist affected music to create an unique work, one that has an energy and a spirit of its own evident every time it’s performed.

In the Summer of 2000 Eric approached me with an offer which at first I found difficult to accept. He had just been awarded the Raymond Brock commission from the ACDA, the youngest composer ever to have been so honored. In the midst of being so proud of my friend’s success I was a bit shocked when he asked if I would write the text for him. We had worked together on the text for Lux Aurumque a few months before, my contribution being a Latin translation of the Esch poem Eric had chosen. I was not a poet, or a lyricist; I had no formal training as a wordsmith and, frankly, I felt Eric was out of his mind in wanting to risk his golden opportunity on my abilities as an untried poet.

I must digress here, and reveal a bit of my inner life to shed some light on this hesitation. I have (and have always had) a very hard time believing in my abilities or accepting praise. Even after all the success our collaborations have had, I still feel like a bit of a charlatan and a poser, like the whole house of cards will come crashing down when folks realize that I have no talent and no business calling myself a poet. Eric won’t have any of this, and he rolls his eyes whenever I go to this place of self-deprecation. He is and has always been so positive and supportive of my creativity. I couldn’t ask for a better best-friend/brother.

So, I argued that he must have been kidding to want me to write the text for such a prestigious commission. He insisted. We began to talk about ideas, and Eric threw out a truly cool and crazy title: Leonardo da Vinci Dreams of His Flying Machine. We began to discuss what he would be dreaming about, what the soundtrack of that dream would be like. I remember it was a fun conversation, and it reminded me of the many outlandish philosophical wanderings we enjoyed years before when we first were getting to know each other.

I immediately turned to Leonardo’s notebooks to see what the master himself had to say about birds, wings, the air, flight, and flying machines. I copied down everything I could find in transcribed Italian, tweaked the translations for Eric, and presented them to him as a preliminary exercise. Here’s a sample of what I found:

Tolli n’iscambio di molla, fila di ferro sotili e temperate; le quail fila sienno di medsima grossezza e lunghezza infa le ligature e ari le molli d’equal potenzia e resistenziam se le filla in ciascun sieno di pari nmero.

As for the spring mechanism, take thin, hardened wire, if the wire sections between the joints are the same thickness and length, and if each spring has the same number of wire sections the springs thus obtained will be equally strong and resistant.

———————————————————-

Trovo, se questo strumento a vite sara ben fatto, cioè fatto di tele lina, stopata i suoi pori con amido, e svoltate con prestezza, che detta vite si fa la femmina nell’aria e montera in alto.

I believe that if this screw device is well-manufactured, that is, if it is made of linen cloth, the pores of which have been closed with starch, and if the device is promptly reversed, the screw will engage its gear when in the air and it will rise up on high.

———————————————————-

Se stai sul tetto al lato della torre, que’ del tiburio non vedano.

If you climb to the roof alongside the tower, they won’t see you from the lantern.

———————————————————-

Non ci vuol dare il vento questa palla dentro al cerchio ha esser quella che ti fara guidare lo strumento diritto o torto, come vorrai, cioè quando vorrai andare pari, fa che la palla stia nel mezzo del cerchio, e la pruova te lo insegnera.

The ball in the middle of the circle will enable you to direct the course of your machine. That is, whenever you want to fly horizontally make sure the ball is in the middle of the circle. Give it a try and you’ll see.

———————————————————-

Ognuno si potra gettare de a qualsiasi altezza senza alcun rischo.

Anyone can jump from no matter what height without any risk whatsoever.

———————————————————-

Se un uomo ha un padiglione di pannolino intasato che siadi dodici braccia per faccia e alto dodici, potra gittarsi d’orni grande altezza senza danno.

With a length of 12 yards on each side and 12 yards high, he can jump from any height whatsoever, without any injury to his body.

———————————————————-

Ricordati siccome it tuo ucello non debbe imitare altro che ‘l pipistrello, per causa che i pannicoli fanno armadura over collegatione alle armadure, cioè maestre delle ali.

Remember that your flying machine must imitate no other than the bat, because the web is what by its union gives the armor, or strength to the wings.

———————————————————-

Sichè per queste demonstrative e assegnate ragioni potrai conosciere l’uomo colle sua congiegniate e grandi ale, facciendo forza contro alla resistente aria, vincendo poterla soggiogare a levarsi sopra di lei.

From these instances, and the reasons given, a man with wings large enough and duly connected might learn to overcome the resistance of the air, and by conquering it, succeed in subjugating it and rising above it.

———————————————————-

Le penne leveranno li omini siccome gli uccielli inverso il cielo; cioè per le lettere fatte da esse penne.

Feathers will raise men, as they do birds, towards heaven; that is, by the letters which are written with quills.

———————————————————-

Molla di corno, o di ferro ligata sul’legno di salice incessato della canna. Rete. Canna. Carta. Pruova prima le foglie della cancellaria. Un pancone d’abéte ligato in sotto. Fustagno. Taffetà. Filo. Carta…

Spring of horn or of steel fastened upon wood of willow encased in reed. Net. Cane. Paper. Try first sheets from the Chancery. Board of fir lashed in below. Fustian. Taffeta. Thread. Paper…

———————————————————-

A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law; which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements. We may therefore say that such an instrument constructed by man is lacking in nothing except the life of the bird, and this life must needs be supplied from that of man.

———————————————————-

Eric and I discussed the overall structure of the piece, and decided on a narrative about Leonardo. Eric wanted the text to be dramatic, cinematic, and all me in English; I wanted it to be more cerebral, and all Leonardo, in Italian (minimal me–see above). I worked to create a structure in English in which Leonardo’s more poetic words could be showcased. I was teaching full time then, and it took me a few days to crib all this together. Here’s what I eventually gave Eric:

Alone in his workshop once again,
Surrounded by parchments and sketches,
Master Leonardo da Vinci dreams of a flying machine…

L’uomo colle sua congiegniate e grandi ale,
facciendo forza contro alla resistente aria,
vincendo poterla,
soggiogare a levarsi sopra di lei.

(A man with wings large enough and duly connected
might learn to overcome the resistance of the air,
and by conquering it,
succeed in subjugating it and rising above it.)

As the candles burn low he paces and writes,
Releasing purchased pigeons one by one
Into the golden Tuscan sunrise…

Vedi l’alie percosse contro all’aria
fanno sostenere la pesante aquila
sulla suprema sottile aria
vicina all’elemento del fuoco.

(You will see that the beating of its wings against the air
supports a heavy eagle
in the highest and rarest atmosphere,
close to the sphere of elemental fire.)

Tormented by visions of flight and falling,
More wondrous and terrible each than the last,
Master Leonardo perfects his design for a machine
Which will carry a man to the sky…

Trovo, se questo strumento
a vite sara ben fatto,
cioè fatto di tele lina,
stopata i suoi pori con amido,
e svoltate con prestezza,
che detta vite si fa la femmina nell’aria e montera in alto.

(I believe that if this instrument
is well-manufactured,
that is, if it is made of linen cloth,
the pores of which have been closed with starch,
and if the device is promptly reversed,
the screw will engage its gear when in the air
and it will rise up on high.)

Images of wings and frame and screw, confused and disjointed,
Spring from the Master’s pen.
Only such a mind as his can sort the frenzied tumult of these books…

I had read somewhere that Leonardo purchased pigeons in the marketplace and released them, sketching their ascent as fast as he could to record the angle of their wings, etc. I loved that image and wanted to include it in the text. His frantic drawing of the pigeons led to an image of Leonardo pacing late into the night, muttering to himself, working out the details of flight in his mind before recording his thoughts in the notebook. I thought using the present tense might communicate that urgency. I worried about whether Leonardo would be in Florence or Milan at the time of this dream, and I tried to find out his life’s itinerary to be precise, and it occurred to me that this was a poem, not historiography, and I was free to compose out of my imagination details of setting and character. It was OK to view this Leonardo as an amalgam of images from books, movies, daydreams–a fabricated, impressionistic Leonardo who exists in an imaginary place and time. This revelation was immensely freeing to me, and I have stayed connected to that freedom.

As you will note, there is much in this preliminary version which survived to the final libretto, and much that was cut or altered. As I look back at this version now I can’t help but wonder what I was thinking. I clearly did not understand the idea of singability. Eric’s main comment was a practical one–this text represented about thirty minutes of music. It had to be a lot shorter. He also reacted negatively to the final quotation, one which I thought revealed that da Vinci was not really intending to fly. We had a heated discussion about whether Leonardo actually believed his designs would work, or whether he was just giving his patrons the cool bragging points they required to keep him employed. Eric wanted grander images, more drama, more cinematic narrative. That’s when we started thinking about this piece as a little movie, and hatching the idea that Leonardo was going to try to fly at the end (even if it was just in his dream). We talked about adding refrain-like elements, something Eric could latch onto for repetitive motifs. Finally I needed to increase the singability of the text, adding a more iambic, more Italian sound to the English (the Italian sounds fabulous, no matter what it says!). I went back to the drawing board, and here’s Version II:

LEONARDO DREAMS OF HIS FLYING MACHINE…

Tormented by visions of flight and falling,
More wondrous and terrible each than the last,
Master Leonardo imagines an engine
To carry a man up, up into the sky…

And as he dreams the Heavens call him, haunting…
“Leonardo. Leonardo. Vieni à volare!” (“Leonardo, come fly!”)

L’uomo colle sua congiegniate e grandi ale,
facciendo forza contro alla resistente aria,
vincendo poterla,
soggiogare a levarsi sopra di lei.

(A man with wings large enough and duly connected
might learn to overcome the resistance of the air,
and by conquering it,
succeed in subjugating it and rising above it.)

LEONARDO DREAMS OF HIS FLYING MACHINE…

As the candles burn low he paces and writes,
Releasing purchased pigeons one by one
Into the golden Tuscan sunrise…

And as he dreams the Heavens call him, taunting…
“Leonardo. Leonardo. Vieni à volare!”

Vedi l’alie percosse contro all’aria
fanno sostenere la pesante aquila
sulla suprema sottile aria
vicina all’elemento del fuoco.

(You will see that the beating of its wings against the air
supports a heavy eagle
in the highest and rarest atmosphere,
close to the sphere of elemental fire.)

Scratching quill on crumpled paper
Images of wings and frames and gears
Turning, ever turning…

Rete. Canna. Carta. (Net. Cane. Paper.)
Fustagno. Taffetà. Filo. Carta… (Fustian. Taffeta. Thread. Paper…)

And as he dreams the Heavens whisper, calling…
“Vieni, Leonardo. If you climb to the roof alongside the tower,
they won’t see you from the lantern!”

The key at last is in his grasp!

Se sto sul tetto al lato della torre,
que’ del tiburio non vedano.

(If I climb to the roof alongside the tower,
they won’t see me from the lantern.)

On the edge of the tower Leonardo stands,
To his wingéd engine, the tortured object of his fascination, strapped,
And leaps into the air!

We were getting closer to what would become the final libretto bréve. It was at this point that Eric began to compose more than just sketches and chords and motifs. I had condensed the Italian considerably, and moved closer to a narrative structure (although still quite clunky). I had improved the singable cadence of many of the English lines. My reservations were largely about the disjointed nature of the text, but Eric assured me that was OK for him. I was beginning to understand my role as lyricist, as servant to the composer, especially as Eric began to share with me more and more of his musical ideas. He asked to borrow my Monteverdi CD’s, especially the Fourth Book of Madrigals (I recommend the Consort of Musicke recording on L’Oiseau Lyre) for inspiration.

The last obstacle (and most difficult to resolve) was the final section. Both of us were wrestling with our original idea of a narrative ending with a flight, and so my problem became how to get Leonardo up onto the tower to jump. I was so attached to the idea of an actual device that he had constructed. I struggled for hours to concoct a line in which Leonardo attaches himself to the device and yet does not sound hokey, clunky or suggestive (you can imagine the puns and jabs involved with anything being “strapped on”). What I ended up with was sort of ”Silvestri dreams of Milton dreaming of Leonardo,” and it’s still hokey, clunky and suggestive. How can a choir sing a line which ends with the word “strapped,” even if it has the word “wingéd” in it too? What was I thinking?

Anyway, Eric and I juggled around with this one for a while. Over the next week or so I further condensed the text and simply eliminated the whole tower section altogether. For some reason I cannot remember, I changed the phrase “carry a man up into the sky” to “into the sun”–sun sounds better, but I really don’t remember why I changed it. The compression of lines into stanza III. and the alternating languages increase the sense of urgency, frustration, mania, desperation, obsession–whatever you want to call it–that drives Leonardo to attempt the flight, and it gears the energy up for the climax of the piece. Finally, Eric called one day asking for the key to the whole piece, the bridge between the first sections and the leap, a line having to do with the Renaissance Humanist ideal of the triumph of man over any obstacle, something lofty, grand. So I eventually came up with the line “The triumph of a human being ascending in the dreaming of a mortal man.” This line gave Eric what he wanted, and preserved for me the construct that this was all a part of Leonardo’s dream. After that we were pretty much done with the textual part of our collaboration. I got to hear musical ideas as he was composing them, and then the piece was done. Here’s the final form of the libretto, as it appears in the music:

I.
Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine…

Tormented by visions of flight and falling,
More wondrous and terrible each than the last,
Master Leonardo imagines an engine
To carry a man up into the sun…

And as he’s dreaming the heavens call him,
softly whispering their siren-song:
“Leonardo. Leonardo, vieni á volare”. (“Leonardo. Leonardo, come fly”.)

L’uomo colle sua congiegniate e grandi ale,
facciendo forza contro alla resistente aria.

(A man with wings large enough and duly connected
might learn to overcome the resistance of the air.)

II.
Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine…

As the candles burn low he paces and writes,
Releasing purchased pigeons one by one
Into the golden Tuscan sunrise…

And as he dreams, again the calling,
The very air itself gives voice:
“Leonardo. Leonardo, vieni á volare”. (“Leonardo. Leonardo, come fly”.)

Vicina all’elemento del fuoco…

(Close to the sphere of elemental fire…)

Scratching quill on crumpled paper,

Rete, canna, filo, carta.

(Net, cane, thread, paper.)

Images of wing and frame and fabric fastened tightly.

…sulla suprema sottile aria.

(…in the highest and rarest atmosphere.)

III.
Master Leonardo Da Vinci Dreams of his Flying Machine…
As the midnight watchtower tolls,
Over rooftop, street and dome,
The triumph of a human being ascending
In the dreaming of a mortal man.

Leonardo steels himself,
takes one last breath,
and leaps…

“Leonardo, Vieni á Volare! Leonardo, Sognare!” (“Leonardo, come fly! Leonardo, Dream!”)

I was able to attend the premiere at the ACDA National Convention in 2001 in San Antonio, slam-dunked by Charles Bruffy and the Kansas City Chorale. (Charles graciously allowed Eric to conduct). It was one of those mountaintop experiences. I had been on that stage once before, as a singer in the Loyola Marymount University Men’s Chorus, at a previous ACDA National. That performance was legendary, and up to that point in my life was the most thrilling moment I had experienced. Ironically, during the premiere of Leonardo I was standing backstage with Paul Salamunovich, my college director from Loyola, who was slated to receive an award that evening. It was a confluence of so many wonderful feelings and memories–certainly an evening I will never forget.

And now for something completely different…

In the spring of 2004 I was lucky enough to have my show Paradise Lost presented at the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop. The workshop is the brainchild of legendary composer Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Godspell), and his insights about the creative process were profoundly helpful. He became a great mentor and friend to the show and, I am honored to say, to me personally.

Soon after the workshop I received a call from a major film studio. Stephen had recommended me to them and they wanted to know if I might be interested in writing music for an animated feature. I was incredibly excited, said yes, and took the meeting.

The creative execs with whom I met explained that the studio heads had always wanted to make an epic adventure, a classic animated film based on Kipling’s The Seal Lullaby. I have always loved animation (the early Disney films; Looney Tunes; everything Pixar makes) and I couldn’t believe that I might get a chance to work in that grand tradition on such great material.

The Seal Lullaby is a beautiful story, classic Kipling, dark and rich and not at all condescending to kids. Best of all, Kipling begins his tale with the mother seal singing softly to her young pup:

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.

Where billow meets billow, then soft by thy pillow;
Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.

I was struck so deeply by those first beautiful words, and a simple, sweet Disney-esque song just came gushing out of me. I wrote it down as quickly as I could, had my wife record it while I accompanied her at the piano, and then dropped it off at the film studio.

I didn’t hear anything from them for weeks and weeks, and I began to despair. Did they hate it? Was it too melodically complex? Did they even listen to it? Finally, I called them, begging to know the reason that they had rejected my tender little song. “Oh,” said the exec, “we were hoping for something a little more… hip hop.”

So I didn’t do anything with it, just sang it to my baby son every night to get him to go to sleep. (Success rate: less than 50%). And a few years later the excellent community chorus The Towne Singers graciously commissioned this arrangement of it. I’m grateful to them for giving it a new life, especially because it gave me the chance to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time: write a ’simple’, relatively easy SATB and piano piece. I designed it so that it could be performed by lots of different choirs, with hardly any splits and very conservative ranges. Here are the first three pages of the piece, which will be in print worldwide this August:

The Seal Lullaby First Draft, Pages 1-3

And I’m excited to announce the world premiere concert, 7:30 p.m. on May 31st 2008 in Pasadena, California. (Tickets available at the door or at the Towne Singers website). It will be at the gorgeous First United Methodist Church (500 E. Colorado Blvd.), and I’ll be in the audience, nervously chewing on my program.

Yes, that’s me wearing a tie. And glasses. With a perm.

Back in 1984 I heard a radio spot advertising an open casting call for a nationwide McDonald’s commercial. I convinced my Mom to take me to Reno (an hour away, thank you thank you thank you Mom), and I, along with 2,000 other people, ‘auditioned.’ I say ‘auditioned’ because I think all they had me do was talk about myself on camera for a few minutes. Incredibly, I was cast, and that weekend I spent an entire Saturday shooting my scene, over and over and over. I still vividly remember the director, desperately trying to motivate a 14 year-old with no acting skills whatsoever, to ‘imagine a cute girl with really big boobs.’

The commercial aired, and I was amazed to find that my entire day of shooting had been cut down to a two second clip. Even more amazing, though, were the checks. Lots and lots of checks, coming to the house addressed to me. I don’t remember exactly, but I think I must have made about $10,000 over the run of the commercial. A ridiculous amount of money for a freshman in high school, especially in 1984 dollars.

My parents put a lot of it away for college, but they let me spend some of it, and I bought the very first pieces of what would become a lifelong fetish with electronic instruments: An Ensoniq ESQ-1 and an EMU Drumulator. I wrote hundreds of songs with these machines, and basically spent the rest of my youth trying to be like Yaz, or Depeche Mode, or Alphaville. (If you can honestly say that you know all three of those bands, I love you).

The truth is that my life was really transformed by those instruments, especially because I think I learned basic counterpoint and formal structure from sequencing songs on the ESQ-1. Best of all, they made me kind of cool, or at least cool at my small rural high school. And as you can tell by the picture above, cool was something I lacked even more than acting chops. So I really have to thank that McDonald’s commercial for changing my life, both in terms of music and in terms of girls.

And now dear reader, because I am so fond of you - and because I know that someone is eventually going to discover this and blackmail me with it anyway - I offer you the role that changed my life. Look for me around 00:17, and don’t blink.

My God… what a gorgeous night.

The King’s Singers; The National Youth Choir of Great Britain; Symphony Hall in Birmingham.

Backstage, there weren’t enough dressing rooms, so they crammed us in together:

Yes, that would be me sharing a room with John Rutter and Bob Chilcott. Beyond cool. And it turns out John Rutter is a party animal:

Then me with the boys:

That’s Paul without the coat. He also has a brand new blue Porsche. They’re all impossibly cool, and down to earth, and all of the things you wouldn’t expect from such a legendary group. And you really can’t believe how good these guys are. I honestly had several moments while working with them where my only thought, over and over, was, “Oh. My. God.”

And the Youth Chorus is hands down one of the best choirs I’ve ever worked with, professional, amateur, young, old. And all of that is because of their incredible founder and conductor, Maestro Mike Brewer (OBE).

And then came the premiere, in what is arguably the most beautiful concert hall in the U.K.:

And another shot, from way up:

All in all, one of the great nights of my musical life, and a reminder that while the writing of a piece is mostly an awful experience, hearing it beautifully performed in a stunning hall makes it all worth it.

And here it is, the world premiere of The Stolen Child:

Just arrived in Birmingham after two days of rehearsal with the National Youth Chorus of Great Britain. My god, what an incredible choir. 120 of the finest young voices in Britain, ages 16-23, so vibrant and musical and alive. I’m really on a high.

Tomorrow morning we put it together with the King’s Singers, and then tomorrow night will be the world premiere of A Stolen Child. Am I excited? Oh, yeah, baby!

I’ll be at Carnegie tonight, but don’t look to the stage; I’ll be the incredibly nervous husband sitting in the audience. Hila is singing with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a ravishing new work by Christopher Theofanidis. Robert Spano will conduct.

It’s so strange: when I’m performing, I never get nervous. But when my wife is performing… ugh, I’m getting sick just thinking about it.

Here’s the marquee poster:

So if you happen upon the new handbook for beginning composers, Music Composition for Dummies, I triple-dog dare you to turn to Chapter 20: Ten Composers You Should Know About. Never mind that the title of the chapter has a dangling preposition; it’s the 10 composers you should be looking for:

1. Claudio Monteverdi
2. Charles Ives
3. Béla Bartok
4. Igor Stravinsky
5. Aaron Copland
6. Raymond Scott (I think a film and cartoon composer)
7. Leonard Bernstein
8. Arvo Pärt
9. Steve Reich
10. Eric Whitacre

While I am hugely flattered to be on this list - they even have my bio in there - I’m pretty sure I don’t agree. Beethoven? Debussy? BACH? I think on my list of ten composers about whom you should know would have me somewhere near #10,000, and that’s not simple humility - that’s just common sense. I mean, my god: no Barber? no Mozart? no Britten? Seems to me that the list could start with 250 composers that are absolute superstars in the history of western music, and continue for another 1,000 before you hit Vivaldi.

To their credit, the otherwise excellent authors (Scott Jarrett and Holly Day) begin the chapter by writing that it’s simply impossible to pick ten, and that this list is just ten “extraordinary composers who challenged musical conventions and public perception of what music is supposed to be. ” That’s really cool, and I get a kick out of thinking that I challenge conventions and especially public perceptions. Even beter, it will give my Mom something to show her friends. (I know you’re reading this, Mom. Get well soon!).

Truthfully, though, I can’t wait to buy Scott and Holly drinks and explain to them that they are out of their minds.