I have been taking a little hiatus from my ballet project but just got the great news that the distinguished principal dancer of the New York City Ballet, Isabella LaFreniere, has agreed to dance our lead role, the title character, Raffaella. I look forward to getting back to the ballet soon, but have not been letting any grass grow under my feet during this break, as you will see (and hear) below.

During my break from the ballet, I have been able to compose the entire first movement of my new Symphony No. 3. I am pleased to share with you here the new mockup of this movement, hot off the press today (that’s why this post is later than usual)! Just click on the play arrow below (please use good headphones or speakers; note it starts soft and gets louder). Unlike the short ballet pieces I’ve been posting here, this is symphonic in weight and form, at over fourteen minutes. Then I will have three more movements of the symphony to write, all four totaling around an hour. This symphony will not be so fairytale-ish or swashbuckling as my second symphony, but more serious in tone, though still emotional and melodic. This movement is subtitled “Upon a Walk in the English Countryside.” Here is my program note about it, and below that, the play button.

Symphony No. 3:  I —  Upon a Walk in the English Countryside

While my last symphony musically explored my sensibilities about fairyland, this one invokes a different kind of magic, though more serious and without the fairy dust effects. As an American Anglophile with English roots on my mother’s side, I have loved the opportunities I have had to take walks in the beautiful English countryside. I’m not a hiker and prefer a leisurely pace, often stopping to take in the views of stone walls, flocks of sheep, great colonies of hares on a hillside, heather on a moor, bright yellow fields of rapeseed, and distant green meadows stretching across vast, multi-colored horizons. It may seem natural, then, if you hear in my music some influence from the timeless beauty of the so-called pastoral English composers like Vaughan-Williams, Delius, and Butterworth, whom I love. But unlike them, I do not use folk melodies or nostalgia about peasants or England. Here I simply respond musically to the present-day beauty of the landscape itself, as I have experienced it. Perhaps these vistas still do feel magical to many of the English, though, and they certainly feel mysterious, ancient, spiritual, and timeless to me as an outsider. During my walks there, those gorgeous scenes seem to be silently singing with a symphonic or even epic quality, which is to say imbued with hidden dreams and emotions, a countryside still lush and Romantic in any time.

I just put Crystal on a plane this morning to hang out for the weekend with her mom in Fort Lauderdale by the Sea, Florida and already got this photo from her. During this time the mice (me and some friends) will play at our home, which means grilling my famous Tandoori Chicken. This great recipe, strangely, is to be found in the Southern Living Cookbook! That massive book has a lot more cuisines than Southern, and all of them obviously well tested and carefully detailed. It was not a cookbook I would have thought to purchase but was a wedding present. It’s my go-to cookbook that includes basic techniques as well as recipes. I think it would make a good choice, if you’re looking for a wedding or house-warming present.

Last Saturday, Pull-Tight Players in nearby Franklin, where Crystal performed the role of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella this past season, had it’s big annual awards party/ barbecue dinner, with the theme of the 1960’s. There were performances in period outfits of big 1960’s hits, including songs from “Hair,” the musical. There were corny but funny jokes from the old show “Laugh-In.” We, the audience, were asked to wear appropriate period garb, which, for me, meant a bold paisley shirt. Crystal performed in the review, soloing on “Good Morning, Starshine” (pictured here, left, with her arm in the air) and “It’s in His Kiss” (right, with mic). Nice time with nice people. Inside scoop: Crystal has been offered and has accepted a role in another musical, not yet announced, to be performed in September. Yay!

I was thrilled on Monday, when finally arrived a 2019 DVD produced in England! It is called, All My Life’s Buried Here – The Story of George Butterworth. In my program note, above, I mentioned the pastoral English composers of the early twentieth century, my favorite of whom was George Butterworth. Such beautiful music by a great composer whose life was cut short at 31 when he was shot through the head by a German sniper at the Somme in World War I. He had already performed heroic deeds in the battle prior to that. I am of the opinion that had he survived the war, he would have gone on to be England’s greatest composer of the last century, with apologies to his friend Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose beautiful “Lark Ascending” was dedicated to George’s memory. You can hear Butterworth’s gorgeous music on YouTube.

Finally, last time, I mentioned this tiny spotted fawn frequenting our garden that I could not get a photo of, whom Crystal gave the very original name “Baby Fawn.” This week, I got photos when Baby Fawn came with his or her mommy (right photo) and then came again by himself, possibly lost from his mommy. Baby Fawn is a bit bigger now than he was two weeks ago, but still tiny. He had to be gently shooed away when he finally started to nibble on our clematis on the patio. He let out a tiny, high-pitched cry for his mommy and went back up into the woods, so we were worried and hope they found each other. Okay, all together: “Awww!”

And, last but not least, I finally got a photo of another character we keep seeing, “Baby Bunny.” So long, for now.