October 6, 2007. The College of Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
In keeping with the weird magic of coincidence that seems to infuse the air of this town, Ji retrieves a startling message from my phone as our trusty Luna heads into the Santa Fe city limits. "Michael Borrelli... says he's in Portland... got cast in New York for a play..." Ji relays to me in bits and pieces the call. My old friend I hadn't seen in 9 years rings from our home turf just as I drive into the town where we last met. It doesn't surprise us in the least. We're back, and glad of it too.
First thing's first. We check out the new contemporary music building for the second time this year, wanting to pop in and find out the haps for the evening's concert. If you'll forgive the lengthy ramble following this, I'd like to give a bit of history. But I certainly wouldn't hold it against you if you skipped ahead.
The Contemporary Music Program is a far cry from when I first entered college as a sprig of a human - 17 years old and from a 70's suburb where no one behind you in the supermarket commented "Look at you lining up your groceries on the belt, you little Virgo you!" I had no idea how that woman knew I was a Virgo, but I knew I wasn't in Tualatin anymore. My first encounter with the CMP was through the wild and steady gaze of Kevin Zoernig, beckoning me into his office to talk about the particulars of taking piano lessons if music wasn't my major. Kevin's office turned out to be the broom closet off of the foyer of the Greer Garson Theatre. In that dim, cramped space, with it's dust and filtered light, I took a piece of chocolate from a man who would end up being one of my finest mentors, and left bearing the optimistic load of "double major." Such was Kevin's charm. I just had to agree, if I want lessons, why not major? And yes, he was right, Sharon Shaheen turned out to be the perfect teacher for me. Years later, with a degree in theatre, I find myself steeped in music, on the road once more with my drummer/poet husband and living a life that stems from creative roots nurtured in a shabby closet by a weird and wonderful sage. Thank you again.
The CMP grew from that closet and it's neighboring practice rooms, to the refurbished military barracks, and now finds housing in the beautiful and well-kept renovation of Benildus Hall. As Ji and I pass through the quiet carpeted hallway, with it's gateways leading to fantastical recording studios, piano labs, the Gamelan Orchestra room and other such wonders, we come upon the atrium that we must necessarily pass through before entering O'Shaughnessy Hall. "Necessarily" is an awful word to describe our passage. In reality it is an anticipated treat. From the low-ceilinged hallway, we break into the double-story open space in which natural light plays first rambunctiously, now softly, now in a manner like syrup as the clouds outside dictate. Our footsteps ring on the tile and some other sound, barely noticeable at first, seizes our attention.
Former CMP head, Steven Miller, has done an amazing thing here. He has set the Atrium Sound Space. This is a place for sound installations created by various artists to weave a sonic environment in a public space. It is never intrusive, and the effect is one of living in your own movie, where the composer has done such a stellar job making the aural tapestry that the listener/viewer does not see it as separate from the whole. The current installation creeps up on us gently, eerily, and with a surprising tenderness somewhere in the sounds and the spaces between sounds. This is all I can say to describe "The Language of Ghosts" (2007) by sonic artist Kim Cascone, other than that I am inspired to write a piece based on the emotion I felt standing still and "hearing" about me.
Pulling open the doors of O'Shaugnessy Hall, we find our man: Paul Brown. Paul is a treasure, a talent, and we burst into grins as hugs pass around accompanied by pats on the back and the sort of shoot-the-shit type comments that happen when you haven't seen someone in a while. "You drove in from Denver... today?" he asks wide eyed. "Just got out of the car." I reply, adding, " Forgive us if we're a bit rummy from the road." And so on. We leave our equipment with the good-natured fellow, (happily a light load because I actually get to play a real, shiny, sleek grand piano tonight - yes!), meet a student who positively shines with youth (was I really that young?!), and head out again.
Second things second... and for all intents and purposes, this should have been first, but for our time constraints... Horseman's Haven!!! After shoving perfect heaping forkfuls of burrito and green chile into our eager and burning mouths, we motor out to Madrid. Staying with Carol in this artist's community is always an adventure, but this time no dogs attack our car. We get about a ten minute reset-button nap and then change to go back to Santa Fe and perform.
Oh to play a real piano. Ji and I exchanged looks of mutual elation through the opened lid of the grand, and tried out a couple of tunes on the intimate and attentive crowd. No one threw anything, so it can be said to have gone reasonably well at that point. The highlight was probably when I used my extraordinarily suave stage tactics and announce to the listeners that I had a terrible runny nose I couldn't possibly disguise any longer and would they please excuse me while I lept from the piano bench and fled to the restroom? Before my tidy exit however, I explained that Ji would tell a joke while I was away to help pass the time. Good thing I zoomed out before catching his amazement and subsequent murderous look.
"Why are there no jokes about Jonestown?"
Silence.
"Because the punchline's too long!"
From inside the hollow-sounding bathroom I discerned a riotous drum-fidgit. "Drum-fidgit" is the term Ji and I have given to the nervous, unconscious action of a drummer when he or she has no idea what to do and feels either uncomfortable, bored, or simply "looked-at." All of a sudden it seems like a surprise and a relief to have something to whack at handily nearby. The drummer then helplessly bangs out a pattern on the nearest playing surface.
Far from unconscious, Ji exercised in a forthright manner his lucky circumstance of being his own drummer for his own awful joke, and smashed an ending in the place of would-be laughter. Since every member of the audience secretly wished at some point that they had their own drum-set after a floundering joke, they immediately burst into the best kind of recognition laughter.
After the "fidget", I walked into a room of the giggles and chuckles that followed Ji's incredulousness that he even told such a sinker.
"What happened?" I asked everybody.
"Nothing," Ji firmly replied.
In editing this, he pipes up from his deep immersion in a National Geographic article on memory and insists the this joke still has all of the elements of greatness. Namely, supreme irony and coarse shock value. I think so too, but don't tell him I said so. Also, he remembers that he warned them"I don't know why this just popped into my head, but it did, so it's 'the one,' and it's probably totally inappropriate right now." he explained, and launched into the joke. When a drummer is as undeniably brilliant and unpredictable as Ji, the audience can be very forgiving.
The show eased up considerably from that point on, gliding through anecdotes, melodies, laughter, and of course, growls. We even answered the call for an encore, so the overall performance couldn't have been as bad as I had dreamt it would be the night before in my anxiety. I've never learned the trick of losing that anxiety; even if I play nights and nights in a row, for one person or a hundred people. But I do know that if I just talk, or ask a question, or simply own up to what's really going on and jet from the room in search of a kleenex, things come out glowing in the end.
And it's true, Ji and I glowed from face to familiar face. Greeting old friends and teachers, standing in amazement at their individual paths of artistry, Ji and I glowed even more with the flush of enthusiasm and inspiration. Striking up acquaintances with new folks and students, we glowed still more. And it can be said that these little musicians glowed free, free, free all the way home.
In keeping with the weird magic of coincidence that seems to infuse the air of this town, Ji retrieves a startling message from my phone as our trusty Luna heads into the Santa Fe city limits. "Michael Borrelli... says he's in Portland... got cast in New York for a play..." Ji relays to me in bits and pieces the call. My old friend I hadn't seen in 9 years rings from our home turf just as I drive into the town where we last met. It doesn't surprise us in the least. We're back, and glad of it too.
First thing's first. We check out the new contemporary music building for the second time this year, wanting to pop in and find out the haps for the evening's concert. If you'll forgive the lengthy ramble following this, I'd like to give a bit of history. But I certainly wouldn't hold it against you if you skipped ahead.
The Contemporary Music Program is a far cry from when I first entered college as a sprig of a human - 17 years old and from a 70's suburb where no one behind you in the supermarket commented "Look at you lining up your groceries on the belt, you little Virgo you!" I had no idea how that woman knew I was a Virgo, but I knew I wasn't in Tualatin anymore. My first encounter with the CMP was through the wild and steady gaze of Kevin Zoernig, beckoning me into his office to talk about the particulars of taking piano lessons if music wasn't my major. Kevin's office turned out to be the broom closet off of the foyer of the Greer Garson Theatre. In that dim, cramped space, with it's dust and filtered light, I took a piece of chocolate from a man who would end up being one of my finest mentors, and left bearing the optimistic load of "double major." Such was Kevin's charm. I just had to agree, if I want lessons, why not major? And yes, he was right, Sharon Shaheen turned out to be the perfect teacher for me. Years later, with a degree in theatre, I find myself steeped in music, on the road once more with my drummer/poet husband and living a life that stems from creative roots nurtured in a shabby closet by a weird and wonderful sage. Thank you again.
The CMP grew from that closet and it's neighboring practice rooms, to the refurbished military barracks, and now finds housing in the beautiful and well-kept renovation of Benildus Hall. As Ji and I pass through the quiet carpeted hallway, with it's gateways leading to fantastical recording studios, piano labs, the Gamelan Orchestra room and other such wonders, we come upon the atrium that we must necessarily pass through before entering O'Shaughnessy Hall. "Necessarily" is an awful word to describe our passage. In reality it is an anticipated treat. From the low-ceilinged hallway, we break into the double-story open space in which natural light plays first rambunctiously, now softly, now in a manner like syrup as the clouds outside dictate. Our footsteps ring on the tile and some other sound, barely noticeable at first, seizes our attention.
Former CMP head, Steven Miller, has done an amazing thing here. He has set the Atrium Sound Space. This is a place for sound installations created by various artists to weave a sonic environment in a public space. It is never intrusive, and the effect is one of living in your own movie, where the composer has done such a stellar job making the aural tapestry that the listener/viewer does not see it as separate from the whole. The current installation creeps up on us gently, eerily, and with a surprising tenderness somewhere in the sounds and the spaces between sounds. This is all I can say to describe "The Language of Ghosts" (2007) by sonic artist Kim Cascone, other than that I am inspired to write a piece based on the emotion I felt standing still and "hearing" about me.
Pulling open the doors of O'Shaugnessy Hall, we find our man: Paul Brown. Paul is a treasure, a talent, and we burst into grins as hugs pass around accompanied by pats on the back and the sort of shoot-the-shit type comments that happen when you haven't seen someone in a while. "You drove in from Denver... today?" he asks wide eyed. "Just got out of the car." I reply, adding, " Forgive us if we're a bit rummy from the road." And so on. We leave our equipment with the good-natured fellow, (happily a light load because I actually get to play a real, shiny, sleek grand piano tonight - yes!), meet a student who positively shines with youth (was I really that young?!), and head out again.
Second things second... and for all intents and purposes, this should have been first, but for our time constraints... Horseman's Haven!!! After shoving perfect heaping forkfuls of burrito and green chile into our eager and burning mouths, we motor out to Madrid. Staying with Carol in this artist's community is always an adventure, but this time no dogs attack our car. We get about a ten minute reset-button nap and then change to go back to Santa Fe and perform.
Oh to play a real piano. Ji and I exchanged looks of mutual elation through the opened lid of the grand, and tried out a couple of tunes on the intimate and attentive crowd. No one threw anything, so it can be said to have gone reasonably well at that point. The highlight was probably when I used my extraordinarily suave stage tactics and announce to the listeners that I had a terrible runny nose I couldn't possibly disguise any longer and would they please excuse me while I lept from the piano bench and fled to the restroom? Before my tidy exit however, I explained that Ji would tell a joke while I was away to help pass the time. Good thing I zoomed out before catching his amazement and subsequent murderous look.
"Why are there no jokes about Jonestown?"
Silence.
"Because the punchline's too long!"
From inside the hollow-sounding bathroom I discerned a riotous drum-fidgit. "Drum-fidgit" is the term Ji and I have given to the nervous, unconscious action of a drummer when he or she has no idea what to do and feels either uncomfortable, bored, or simply "looked-at." All of a sudden it seems like a surprise and a relief to have something to whack at handily nearby. The drummer then helplessly bangs out a pattern on the nearest playing surface.
Far from unconscious, Ji exercised in a forthright manner his lucky circumstance of being his own drummer for his own awful joke, and smashed an ending in the place of would-be laughter. Since every member of the audience secretly wished at some point that they had their own drum-set after a floundering joke, they immediately burst into the best kind of recognition laughter.
After the "fidget", I walked into a room of the giggles and chuckles that followed Ji's incredulousness that he even told such a sinker.
"What happened?" I asked everybody.
"Nothing," Ji firmly replied.
In editing this, he pipes up from his deep immersion in a National Geographic article on memory and insists the this joke still has all of the elements of greatness. Namely, supreme irony and coarse shock value. I think so too, but don't tell him I said so. Also, he remembers that he warned them"I don't know why this just popped into my head, but it did, so it's 'the one,' and it's probably totally inappropriate right now." he explained, and launched into the joke. When a drummer is as undeniably brilliant and unpredictable as Ji, the audience can be very forgiving.
The show eased up considerably from that point on, gliding through anecdotes, melodies, laughter, and of course, growls. We even answered the call for an encore, so the overall performance couldn't have been as bad as I had dreamt it would be the night before in my anxiety. I've never learned the trick of losing that anxiety; even if I play nights and nights in a row, for one person or a hundred people. But I do know that if I just talk, or ask a question, or simply own up to what's really going on and jet from the room in search of a kleenex, things come out glowing in the end.
And it's true, Ji and I glowed from face to familiar face. Greeting old friends and teachers, standing in amazement at their individual paths of artistry, Ji and I glowed even more with the flush of enthusiasm and inspiration. Striking up acquaintances with new folks and students, we glowed still more. And it can be said that these little musicians glowed free, free, free all the way home.
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