Rehearsal of my music

Today we had the first rehearsal of a piece of mine that will be performed on December 9th at the Korzo Theater here in The Hague. 4 friends of mine are performing in it. It's for singer (in this case a tenor), double bass, timpani, temple blocks and tam tam. I was really really pleased with how the rehearsal went. I began conducting them during the first readings of it, and then they went off by themselves and I could just enjoy listening to it. They were all really good and also they liked the piece and it showed, so I was really excited. I almost cried at some point, but I managed to hold myself... didn't want to lose my dignity.

The text is from my favorite poet of all, Allen Ginsberg. I hope I'm not breaking some copyright law by using his text. To be fair, the entrance to the concert is free, I'm not making ANY money from this piece and I clearly state that the text is his (at least in the score, up to now, if there is any program to the concert, I intend to make it clear there also). The poem is a small haiku:

another year

has past - the world

is no different

I like very much the slow tempo it has, also it conveys so much with so few words (as a good haiku should). I won't go into what I think it means because I don't want to kill it. But in my piece I wanted to use this sense of pauses it gives, and also use a very slow tempo. I chose to use two melodic instruments and percussion because it also gives this sensation of emptiness, especially the temple blocks for me are very important, I imagine a huge stone temple and some monk aloe in the center playing them to invoke some mysterious god, while rain falls outside. 

This image reflects somehow the idea I wanted for my piece, although I must confess I didn't imagine a Gothic cathedral, it's more the mood and the idea of a huge empty space. Artwork by inetgrafx, link here, of course I do not own the art work and this person has very interesting stuff, you should check it out if you liked this. 

I would like to end today's post with a quote from a book I'm reading now. It's called "Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate" by Terry Eagleton. A friend recommended it to me, and I thank him very much for that since it has given me a very different insight on this topìc which I find so interesting. 

In claiming the world as our own, we find that we have ended up possessing a lump of dead matter. In asserting our free spirits, we have reduced our own bodies to pieces of mechanism.

Nos dha! Dobranoc! Bonne nuit! Buenas noches! (It's already 0.30 as I post this... so now to bed!)