It’s actually snowing hard up here this morning. And this guy wandered into town a few days ago.

h/t Rocky Mountain Outlook.

Darcy has given a few wonderful classes on composition: one in which he dissected one of his pieces, as he has done at his site, and another which discussed pre-compositional work: how to lay out the palate for your ideas and massage the basic elements to generate the full range of possibilities. He is also rehearsing a big band which will perform tonight and tomorrow. He and the band have graciously agreed to play my piece The Presidents.

Michael Bates talked about his own work with composition which, while coinciding with Darcy as far as motivation and practice, resulted in some very different music. Two small groups had rehearsed pieces of his and they performed them in the workshop. Michael demonstrated some remarkably simple and clear ideas for how the groups could improve the impact of their performance. The changes were immediate and visceral.

Composers Workshops have met every Tuesday and Thursday at not very jazzy hour of 8:00 am. Darcy and Michael both committed to being there and brought so much to the exploration of new work. Matana Roberts also began giving remarkable additional workshops in graphic score notation. Perhaps the gold star goes to Myra Melford, who has been leading Cobra sessions going well past midnight.