I have been working hard on my ballet since I last wrote, around nine hours a day! I’m very pleased to report that the entire full-evening ballet score is now completed! Just below this paragraph is that newly written final piece of the puzzle, which is actually piece no. 7 out of 14 numbers. This particular scene has a lot of story and character changes in it, which are reflected in changes in the music as it goes along.

Next, the choreographer will make one more pass through the whole ballet and perhaps ask me for a few tweaks to the score, to match the story. And then comes what amounts to a great mountain of clerical work to create the players’ parts and edit two versions of the score – one for a large (92-instrument) orchestra, for the CD (more on that, below), and one for a smaller (42-piece) pit orchestra, to use with live dancers.

Tonight, to celebrate the above and the opening of my show (see next paragraph) in two days, I’m making Crystal (who is at work teaching school by day), I’m going to make the Patsy’s Restaurant recipe for Lobster Linguini. This is their photo from their cookbook. Just looks too good!

With my musical, Dear Miss Barrett, we are now in “Tech Week,” or as some people call it, “Hell Week”. Another name for it, or the last few days of it, is “Sitzprobe,” a German term literally translated “seated rehearsal.” That refers to the orchestra finally being seated there, rather than only having a rehearsal pianist. In our case, our modest “orchestra” is a first keyboardist on the main piano part, who heroically plays my admittedly monster of a difficult main piano part. A second keyboardist fills out the ambience with string orchestra and other sounds, and to save space an “e-percussionist” programs all the percussion sounds onto silent rubber pads that, when hit with a drumstick, trigger any sampled percussion sounds you want.

The cast has already risen to the occasion and turned in a very impressive performance-ready run-through of the show last night (Tuesday). I couldn’t be more pleased with them. Feel free to come opening night, which is this Friday, March 1^st. Then there will be shows over these next two weekends, on Friday and Saturday nights and on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, eight in all. Please come! Tickets can be purchased now at www.boroarts.com —  just click on the “Tickets” link at the top. I feel certain you will enjoy this cast and show. There is something for everybody – a charming modern-day couple’s love story with pop-style songs, and the fascinating parallel love story of the English poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1844, in beautiful period costumes and with more classical (yet still tuneful) music. Bonus: Your older children will actually learn something about the Brownings, considered the two greatest 19^th-century English poets. The show web page is at dearmissbarrett.com.

After March 10^th, when the musical closes, we may actually have more of a breather. Yet, I still must finish composing the last half of the last (4^th) movement of my new (third) symphony, with plans to record it on its own album in Europe in September, on the same trip to record the music of the ballet, yielding two new large-orchestra albums for Parma Recordings. This recording plan very much depends on raising the money to pay the orchestra, though. I have finally set up a GoFundMe page with a paragraph description and video for donations here:  https://www.gofundme.com/ero-double-recording-project-ballet-symphony-3.

Last time, I wrote here about the sad demise of my 15-year-old buddy, Noah the cat. Since he passed, there have been many reminders of him in ordinary things around the house. But I am already trying to remember him fondly rather than only to grieve. We chose not to keep his ashes, but they gave us this memento of him with his paw print pressed in clay. Oliver, our other cat, the long-haired black one, has been unusually affectionate to me, too, as though he wants to comfort me. He was Crystal’s cat before we married and has always been more of a mama’s boy, but he is now warming up to me more.