It’s getting suddenly chilly here at the Hilltop! Oh wait, today we’re back into the 80’s! I do love all the colored leaves, foods, and holidays of fall, but I confess I am a summer person at heart. I want sunshine, not pumpkin coffee. Even so, I already have just a twinge of Christmas in me. Last year I read The Valencourt Book of Victorian Ghost Stories, which I absolutely loved reading by the fire. If you like A Christmas Carol (with Scrooge and his ghosts), you’ll love these short stories. Some are pretty scary.

One day last week, we drove a little north of Hilltop, up into the country, and bought some treats at an Amish store, like pickled okra and eggs, cheeses, and sausage, and they have all their marvelous handmade furniture on display, too. We stopped at a big roadside produce stand and bought enough home-grown apples for a couple of pies, some decorative pumpkins, yellow squash, white zucchini, and peppers.

And we stopped at a new cozy bookshop with a tea room and really enjoyed browsing and how they had it decorated. To go into the children’s book section, they had a big wardrobe blocking the door to that room with its back cut out, through which you had to pass, as though entering Narnia! Crystal has already used half of the apples to make the apple crisp pictured here. Yum.

Since I last wrote, my mixing engineer implemented the two-page list of final tweaks I gave him, mostly small volume adjustments. As I wrote last time, having pieced together all the best moments of the best playings that were recorded, we were able to assemble what, for me, is now a flawless performance. That kind of patchwork quilting and tweaking may feel a bit artificial, since I’ve never heard a perfect live concert! But you really don’t want to cringe at the same slightly ragged entrance on a recording every time you play the album, do you? In this case, though, the orchestra was really on its game, so most of my editing choices were between “very good” and “even better.”

Mainly, it sounds so beautifully human compared to those sterile computer mockups. Pictured is the Pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse’s “The Lady of Shallot” (1888), after which my symphony’s third movement is titled and which will decorate a page in the CD booklet, among its other illustrations.

Two days ago I got the finished “master” recording, exactly as it will be on the album. The audio work is done! Yesterday I sent by e-mail several complimentary advance copies of the mastered audio file to select people – potential conductors and people who might either do a live interview or a written review or other publicity. There is already one interview arranged, in response. As far as live performances of what I have titled my “English” symphony, I am praying and making inquiries for an English orchestra to play the premiere. Only my chamber music has been performed in England before, never an orchestral composition.

On Monday the ERO (European Recording Orchestra, who recorded my new symphony last month) posted a video they took of the orchestra playing a bit of the symphony, as a promotional reel for social media. Lovely! Here is a link to see it: HERE.

Last time, I mentioned that I have used my down time from composing to focus on my “Unhook the Feedbag Diet.” (My motto: “Hey, it works for horses! Why not me?”) While frantically trying to finish a ballet by last June and then a symphony by September, it was very hard to think about how much I was wolfing down on the run in nervous eating. Simply put, the name “Unhook the Feedbag Diet” just means eating less! I can eat anything I want but simply way less of it. So far, minus twenty pounds and counting! I cannot even imagine how I was carrying around the weight of these two ten-pound bags of flour and already feel a huge difference.

Artistically, though enjoying some necessary down time from composing, I once more have entered that familiar and slightly insecure time of questioning. Each symphony by the great symphonists of the Romantic era is different from the others and has its own unique personality, while somehow still sounding like that composer. I spend a lot of time now just listening to the great symphonies. Some of them feel like kindred musical spirits at this time in my life, and some don’t. I confess that I did start tinkering on paper with some music that came into my head this week. But it’s just an idea. It might end up somewhere in the middle of a second movement, or not be used at all.

The ballet Raffaella, for which I composed the music, was filmed by a crew with five cameras when it premiered last June. It has been made into a first-rate pro film that will have its premiere screening in South Bend, Indiana on October 31 and then show in other venues, and later on YouTube. For more information, go to HERE. Anyone can attend the screening.

Our scrawny little Charlie-Brown lemon tree (about two feet tall), gave us exactly two big, plump, bright yellow lemons, which grew all summer. We wanted to be able to taste them and not cover their flavor with other ingredients, so I made us a couple of lemon cocktails – a “White Lady” for me (a 1919 vintage cocktail with egg-white foam floating on top), and a “Lemon Drop Martini” for Crystal. We toasted, and they were delicious.

Finally, I was in our downstairs bathroom, with its window at ground level and felt I was being watched. Lo and behold, there was this dear little deer with its face to the glass watching me!

Till next time, in two weeks, I wish you a happy autumn!  

However, watch for a special bonus edition of the Hilltop Diary in just one week.