Author Archives: Jennifer Griffith
drama and music
could we amp up the drama in music performances? now even more? in the dumps bring it down, dry when witty, beautiful when lyrical, agitated or bitter, relentlessly despairing, committing the instrument, the perspective, the voice completely. i would like … Continue reading
time travel
While eating my lunch today, I read a piece by Jean Sprackland that mentioned something about the aurochs. Julius Caesar, in “The Gallic Wars,” described the aurochs–a member of the wild cattle family–as smaller than an elephant, resembling a bull, and … Continue reading
projections
Clean out your ears, don’t listen for what you already know. –Rumi Was it the 13-century Persian poet who also wrote that in order to project oneself into the world we cast the shadow of the person we want to … Continue reading
The Mime
Was reviewing Coppola’s The Conversation for tension music, or something DK had said about paranoia movies recently. Wanted to find sounds to underscore the party talk in Beautiful Creatures. I’d seen the film as a teen but couldn’t remember much … Continue reading
Merry Month of May – will i get more text?
I’m champing at the bit for Dom to send me the revisions as I have only 10 days from then to finish writing the music for workshop with Alden in June. There’s a bit more work than we’d expected, what … Continue reading
March Reading
The piece is coming together. We’ve been making some enormous changes at the last minute, but that makes it more fun for me. It’s been a very collective effort–Patrick, Michael, Connie and I all brainstorming to make things work dramatically. … Continue reading
Done
I have finished getting through the libretto. And Eileen’s last scene reminds me in form of those Haydn English aria settings, a bit of the improvisational and the emotional dives and upsurges. The choral setting went fairly easily, and I’m … Continue reading
Finishing up the draft
It’s been almost a month of writing, revising text and music in the process of finishing a draft for the reading. Michael is negotiating with Edinburgh / Royal Academy in Glasgow to see if we’ll premiere there. This puts on … Continue reading
Superman
MZ and I went over Hank’s aria, and worked it over, but basically it’s gonna work really well. Doing some revisions today and working out the octet where Hank goes into his anxious thing in the bridge again. Funny how … Continue reading
Party music
It’s been difficult to get to the opera because of teaching and editing responsibilities, but managed to do many of the revisions. Dominic is writing new party-talk for partygoers. Maybe they should complain about the music, which is some hack … Continue reading