Ragtime

My apologies to the folks who come to this blog for Greg's musical news. It's not that he hasn't been busy -- he's been doing a gazillion things at once -- but that I'm desperately behind on my non-puppy reporting. (Okay, I'm behind on the puppy reporting too, but hope to remedy that by putting up Dinah's Web page sometime this weekend.)

Anyway, Greg has been busy getting two choral pieces ready for performance on April 1. One is April, which he wrote last year as an SATB a cappella piece. He has added accompaniment this time around, though I hesitate to say exactly what because I know I'll get it confused with the other piece. O Holy Lamb of God has gone through a few different incarnations, with some changes of words and of accompaniment. This latest version has been arranged for SSAA choir and either piano or harp accompaniment. If my memory is functioning correctly, he also intends to do O Holy Lamb with the church choir and piano (or maybe organ).

The May concert is coming up as well, and he probably would like to get at least one movement of the Sax Quartet done. He has also been working on a string quartet, and rearranged Polyline for solo clarinet and send it off to the ACA for their June concerts.

About ragtime: Greg has been in a real Beethoven groove lately -- he's been practicing mostly the late piano sonatas and the Diabelli Variations. Last night we watched a '70s-era movie about Scott Joplin, starring Billy Dee Williams (with a cameo by Taj Mahal). It wasn't a half bad movie, surprisingly -- and Greg has since been inspired to play a few Joplin rags along with all his Beethoven.

Since the president of the Maine Composers' Forum has decided to step down and move out of state, Greg has inherited that post. He has been VP for probably about 15 years now. He feels torn: he wants to keep the mostly-moribund organization alive, but his heart isn't in it. He's hoping that one of the other members might want to adopt the organization. (I'm not sure whether it's worth saving, truth be told. As far as I can see, the members really only want to pursue their own musical projects, and don't really want to be bothered. It's almost impossible to raise a quorum for the single meeting they have per year.)

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