My summer performing has ended and has been wonderful. I started my my first solo recording project with a session on Nathan Davis’ Simple Song’s of Birth and Return and spent two weeks at Monadnock Music playing some solos, chamber music, stepping up to the podium as a conductor.

Nathan and I recorded his piece last week over a couple of days at my house in Concord. The piece is for mbira and electronics and thanks to my funky basement, we were able to do some great things. First of all, my house has a funky old sauna in the basement (a remnant of the swinging 70′s and living in ski country.) Turns out, it is a really great sounding room for mbira. We had mics perched on heating rocks, music stands precariously placed on benches and me squeezed in a barely functional way. For the electronic effects, we setup a storage room with our tin can amplifiers and far too many mics. The only casualty there were my sons popsicles (turns of the freezer for noise issues and never turned them back on, sorry little man!!!) I am really excited to share it with you. I should have a rough mix to post sooner than later. Here are some pics from the sauna:

Monadnock Music is summer festival in Peterborough, New Hampshire that I started attending about five years ago. It is a festival of amazing performers from New York and Boston that get together to play some great music in the woods. It is funny for me since I now live in these woods. While this is a road gig for everyone else, it is a chance for me to stay local. This year, we did our second annual “On the Beaten Path” percussion show. Nathan and Dave Schotzko (this year joined by the great Toni Arnold, Robert Black, and Stacy Shames) get to spend a week goofing around, catching up, and putting this concert together. We did some Crumb Madrigals and a host of other solo pieces. I also managed to do one of the dumbest/ funniest mid piece stick adjustments that I can think of (will post video if I get it.) In short, we had a blast and are looking forward to next year.

The big thing for me was getting to conduct at the festival this summer. It was immensely fun!!! I had never considered conducting before this and really enjoyed having the ability to engage music in a different way than I am used to. The ensemble was incredibly helpful and supportive and we rocked pretty hard in the show. We did Four Settings by Melinda Wagner. It is a great, rich, and complex piece. I really loved getting to study the score and work with this ensemble from a position other than behind a percussion setup. I think the best part was making music without the years of baggage inexorably attached to everything that I do as a percussionist. I could be alone in this thought (but I bet I am not) but I think that when people like me perform, we are always carrying with us the ghosts and experiences of years of schooling, teachers, defeats, victories, prejudices… to everything we do. While I was by no means approaching conducting as a nube, I really did not bring all of this “stuff” with me. I spent a week simply waking up and preparing for rehearsal, hoping for the best, and leaving rehearsal feeling invigorated in a “just played basketball/ rode my bike/ took a hike/… insert hobby here” way. I also found myself really open to feedback in ways that I may not otherwise be. Whether or not you ever see me on the podium again, I am so grateful for this opportunity for knocking out a bunch of cob webs in me and reinvigorating my curiosity in a big way.

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