Posts about my setting of Nancy Willard’s A Visit to William Blake’s Inn
I had hoped to get further into Make Way tonight, but I got sucked into a social engagement that I should have declined. Good friends, good times, but at some point the work has to be done.
At least I did get the official invitation to the backers audition mocked up in InDesign. It needs its explanatory copy and a sunflower graphic, and then I can get it printed and into the hands of the members of the Cultural Arts Commission.
So I crafted today; no art.
So tonight, finally, I had an evening clear, and I chained myself to my computer. It seems to have worked.
I got the Wise Cow’s first verse scored, pulling back on the waltz chorus so that it plays against the expansive nature of the theme, building a little suspense. Again, I find that cutting back on the orchestration is very effective.
I was able to take the old flute/oboe combo for the Rabbit’s part of the verse and reinstate it for the second verse. Likewise, for the Wise Cow’s part, and for her waltz chorus, I added a little more to the mix. It may be too much, but by now I’m used to paring everything away when I need to.
My goal was to make it to the timpani roll and trumpet fanfare of the third verse, and I did. I held the trumpets in reserve for that moment, and I think it’s going to be lots of fun. I stopped there, but I’ll flesh out that part tomorrow night.
It’s the big finish that will take the most time now. The Wise Cow’s verse will be all pure, shimmery strings, then the waltz chorus will be tutti all the way. Expect harp glissandi.
In other news, the shakedown from the Cultural Arts Commission meeting continues to play out: further meetings, guest lists, etc. By May 3, we should be pretty much prepared to move forward. It’s too exciting.
Lots of creativity today. I finished the kindergarten video, and it turned out pretty cute, although to my semi-trained eye there are way too many things wrong with it to make it actually useful. But the untrained were entertained.
At noon I went to meet with the Newnan Cultural Arts Commission to offer the proposal for William Blake’s Inn. Everyone was supportive and excited. They decided to sponsor the May 3 performance and to begin looking at finding funding for the entire project, so that’s exciting. (You can download a PDF version of the prospectus.)
We had workshop tonight again. Tonight we worked with Denise Johnson on Two Sunflowers. Melissa is stepping in for Ginny, who will be out of pocket in the days before the performance. (Grayson has to come home from college or something.) We played with the four sunflowers Carol Lee provided and got the Two Sunflowers’ part all blocked out.
We went back over Man in the Marmalade Hat and plugged Denise into that. Then after she left we played more with the Sunflower Waltz. We got the beginning blocked out, but it has become very clear that the big, big parts of the waltz can’t be worked out through focus on the movements of individual sunflowers. We will have to use the masses of sunflowers and their movements to make sense of the music. Somebody should have thought of that before they let me write all that huge ballet music.
We’re moving into a new phase, less brainstorming and more implementation. It’s harder work.
In other news, Marc has been playing with ArtRage and has produced the following images:
Striking, a beautiful use of the program.
Back to work at the workshop! Dale, Marc, Laura, Carol Lee, and Melissa in attendance.
Dale and Carol Lee shared their autographed copies of A Visit to William Blake’s Inn, plus other fun stuff from New York. Dale talked about the meeting of the Cultural Arts Commission tomorrow and some of the ins and outs of getting ready for the backers auditions.
Our schedule called for us to work with members of the octet on their role for the May 3 performance. None showed up. Ginny did, but she was still dressed for work, and since Denise will be dropping by tomorrow night, we sent her home.
We decided instead to choreograph Man in the Marmalade Hat from start to finish. We worked on movement for the ToastHeads, and choreographed their movement onto the stage. We coordinated that with the ice sprites and left space for the MMH. (Galen will be in tomorrow night.)
We then switched to the Gang and their role in the piece, their close order drill. We had choreographed it before, but basically we had to reconstruct it.
Now it’s all written down, on our wall-size chart of the lyrics of the piece.
Before we left, Dale read through the prospectus he’s prepared for the Arts Commission. We discussed some kind of ideas for budget. We are having some phenomenal ideas, and it would be a shame to see them fall short because of a lack of funding. But all the indicators are that forces are lining up that will make it all possible.
Before I went to workshop, I pulled up Make Way and took a different tack with it. I had forced myself to hear the piece in my head and listen to what I was hearing. I was hearing “lighter,” so I stripped out the flute/oboe combo for the opening melody and gave it to a solo violin. As it happens, the “Strad” violin sound is pretty whiny, but you gotta hear it under lights, so to speak. I think it will work.
Very little today, as we traveled back from Greensboro.
However, I did get the article on lunch with Nancy Willard written and submitted. That’s a little something.
And I did take a stab at listening to the orchestration for Make Way, but it’s still not working for me. I played with it for a moment, but it’s too late and I’m too tired. I’ll be back to it tomorrow, because I have to get it done.
In other news, I got home today to find several packages. One was a book I’d ordered from Amazon, the catalog for an exhibit of Alice and Martin Provensen’s illustrations for children’s books, with an intro by Nancy Willard. The others were from Nancy herself. One was her new book, The Flying Bed, and it was her usual magical storytelling. Another was a book of Erik’s photography in Florence (where The Flying Bed is set.) He makes beautiful photographs, these from an apparently crappy little camera. (I haven’t finished reading the accompanying material yet.)
But the other two were my copies of A Visit to William Blake’s Inn.
In the paperback, the one I’ve used for twenty-five years in writing this music, Nancy had painted the Sun and the Moon, and an inscription thanking me for my music.
The hardback one, the one I bought thinking it might come in handy to display if we ever performed this work, has an angel bearing a banner made of my music, also with an inscription.
She was unable to find Alice Provensen at home, but that’s all right. We’ll invite Alice down for the premiere. This makes me very happy indeed.
No, I’m not posting pictures. Come to the workshop, or come to the performance on May 3.
Last night, we went to a production of Man of La Mancha, at Guilford College. A couple of Grayson’s friends were in it, but mostly I wanted to see what kind of theatre Guilford was capable of.
The idea of the show, “The Impossible Dream” and all that, is very easy to sneer at, but the show itself sucks you in. It’s too good. Every song is a winner, and you find you cannot get “I am I, Don Quixote” out of your head. Already, you are singing “…Lord of La Mancha, my destiny calls and I go…” in your head if not out loud.
The set was good, the orchestra was good, the costumes were credible, and for the most part, the performance was not bad. The leads needed to be miked, but their voices were not unpleasant. The young man playing Cervantes/Quixote was good, as were the other leads. The only real problem, and I don’t know that it could be fixed, is the almost total lack of specificity of many of the actors in their choices. Lines were just said. Most comic opportunities were missed because they didn’t seem to understand how to play the scenes. It’s a common issue with college-age actors; the production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile I saw at VSU was almost completely devoid of life, except for Mike and Bailee and their friend who played Picasso. Those three understood characterization, they understood comic timing, they understood that lines must be delivered, not just uttered.
I got the feeling that many of the performers in La Mancha were vocal majors; they had lovely singing voices. But actors? Not so much. Wasn’t enough to ruin the show for me, after all, I have just witnessed The Pirate Queen, so it takes a lot to disgust me these days.
I’m on the road today, heading to Greensboro to visit Grayson for the weekend, so there’s not a lot of time to actively create… not unlike the entire past week.
However, I have written an article about our lunch with Nancy Willard, so there is that.
Also, I think I need to assess where I am with the music for William Blake and set some goals for the next few weeks.
I have gone over the first four pieces and tinkered with the orchestration to make them better. Overall, I think as I work my way back over this familiar territory, I will be stripping out more than I add. My experience in Broadway houses over the past week has impressed upon me the need for greater transparency of orchestral accompaniment.
I still have three pieces to orchestrate: The Man in the Marmalade Hat Arrives, The Wise Cow Makes Way, Room, & Believe, and Blake Tells the Tiger the Tale of the Tailor. All three are big, and my tendency is to err on the big side. Witness the issues I had with the Sunflower Waltz.
I think that I will tackle Make Way, because the other two already sound orchestrated even though they’re not.
Nothing is open before 10:00 in NYC, and MOMA is the only art museum on Mondays. Plus, if you have a lunch engagement at 11:45 down on 3rd Avenue, what can you really do between 10:00 and 11:00? So the coolest plan for us all, we thought, was to get up and go to the Empire State Building, which is open seven days a week and opens at 8:00 a.m. We could do that in plenty of time to walk over to the restaurant to meet Nancy Willard.
We were therefore surprised and disappointed to waken to a great NYC fog which obscured even the tops of the more lowly buildings up in Times Square. What to do?
The Honeas decided to go squeeze in MOMA, which opened at 9:30. We decided to walk back down 8th Avenue to a hattery that Ginny and Carol Lee had discovered on their way to Hell’s Kitchen yesterday, because they had… wait for it… hats. And they did: bowlers, homburgs, porkpies, knit caps, mukluks, Stetsons, even boaters, for pete’s sake.
We were there because Grayson, having worn a bowler in Beauty & the Beast last year, had expressed an interest in owning one. We had called him yesterday to get him to measure his head, and not only had he done so, he had done so with astounding accuracy: 22 and 13/16 inches. A little too precise for hats, but hey, it demonstrated an enthusiasm one sometimes does not sense from the young when you’re trying to do them a favor.
We got him the black bowler (as opposed to the more pimperific purple, green, red, or baby blue), and threw in a madras patchwork driving cap. I myself picked up a nice tan straw Panama for my car rider duties in the afternoon. Of course, I don’t know how we’re getting these nicely packed boxes back home, but hey, it’s fun walking down the Avenue with your hat boxes. I would wear mine here, but it’s really not warm enough yet.
Soon it was time to hop the train to our lunch date.
This was the most exciting part of our entire trip: we were going to meet Nancy Willard. Heck, forget everyone else. I was going to meet Nancy Willard. One of the world’s most gifted children’s authors has allowed me to use her work as the basis of my piece, and I get to meet her in person.
We arrived at Docks, seafood restaurant corner of 41st and 3rd, right after they opened at 11:30. We were shown our table, a nice large round one in a corner by the front window. We had just divested ourselves of coats and stuff when I saw Nancy and her husband Eric coming down 41st and getting ready to cross the street. It was a thrill to look out the window and recognize her.
Nancy Willard is a total delight. Everything I thought I knew about her from the video, from her poetry, from my correspondence, is more than true. Conversation was far-ranging and fun. I even got her to acknowledge that we did have business to discuss at some point, although that’s all we got, an acknowledgment. I told her I’d mail her (and her agent) some contracts, and in her case, the Grippo book she’d need to understand them.
We talked about the creative process a lot. She was surprised to find that I am completely untrained as a composer, although I’m sure I’ve confessed that at some point. Both she and I work out of order, and both of us have been known to write the equivalent of “abortive attempts” at the top of a blank page, to forestall the perfection demons.
Many of her “creatures” and the Inn itself are now at Ann Arbor, at the University’s Rare Books Collection, which amuses Nancy. She and Erik both thought that they would be more than willing to arrange a loan for an exhibit for the premiere. Cool!
(Not to cheat Eric out of his due: he was as charming as she, and it is easy to see why they are a match.)
When it was finally time to go, we presented her with our gifts: Carol Lee had brought a sunflower to give her, and she was of course delighted with that. Ginny and I had Coweta County books to share: Herb Bridges’ postcards book, and of course A Taste of Georgia.
She in turn had brought me a copy of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, which she had covered in a nice music score fabric, and The Ballad of Biddy Early, illustrated by the same artist (Barry Moser), and a collection of poetry that is denser than William Blake’s Inn.
Finally, I pulled out my copies of William Blake’s Inn and asked if she would autograph them. Ah, she said, she would have to take them with her. That kind of thing couldn’t be done on the spot. She would have to paint something. Oh. My. God.
Oh, and she said, she thought Alice Provensen was at home; she’d get her to sign it as well. OH. MY. GOD. Alice (and her late husband Martin) not only illustrated William Blake’s Inn, they also illustrated my favorite book as a child, The Color Kittens. Oh. My. God. Those of you who know me know that I am not easily rattled, shocked, or impressed. But Oh. My. God.
Well, what can top this? Nothing. We could go home right now and this would be the greatest trip ever. 
But not until Ginny had her hair appointment at Nick “What Not To Wear” Arrojo Studios in Chelsea. Off we went, finally switching from subway to cab to make sure we got there in time.
I had no such appointment, and of course galleries are closed on Mondays, so I asked if there were a spa in the neighborhood which offered massages. There was, so I walked over and got a massage. Not the best I’ve had, at all, but a massage is always relaxing. Ginny was waiting for me when I got out, and we hurried back to the hotel to change for dinner.
We were meeting our friend Robyn Ice and her husband at the Algonquin. Yes, Round Table, and all that. I thought we were meeting for drinks at 5:30, but Robyn and Donnie didn’t show up until 6:30, which was absolutely fine. We had our drinks in the lobby with Mathilda the Algonquin cat and just relaxed for a while.
Robyn is our friend from the old days at UGA, we had reconnected back in February out in L.A. and had agreed to get together on this trip. She started as a puppeteer at the Center for Puppetry Arts, but left to become a lawyer after a couple of years. She worked for Alston & Byrd in Atlanta and then in New York, but now is with a different firm. Last year, she married Donnie Kisselbach, bassist with The Turtles, and he’s a really neat guy. We had a lovely dinner and great conversation.
They live in Connecticut, so we let them go early, and we walked down Fifth Avenue to the Apple Store. {cue: hosannas}
This was a pilgrimage, pure and simple, because there is not a thing I need. I played with the Apple TV display, but it’s not something I want at this time. If I were actually exercising, I would want a new Shuffle, but I know myself well enough to know that buying one as a bribe to start working out is a false hope. My promise to myself is that if I actually exercise for a week, I’ll reward myself with a Shuffle.
We caught a cab back to the hotel and hit the sack. What an incredible day!
I revisited the music for Sun & Moon Circus tonight. Now you would think that I had fixed everything there was to fix with that, but no. There was the passage where the Child rings the bell above his head so loud he thought he’d wake the dead, only it was still just the English horn over pizzicato celli. Not very loud at all.
I played with several options, first adding a French horn at “‘Rabbit,’ I called, ‘come here.'” Very nice. Then I tried doubling the English horn in the first part of the phrase with the French horn, but it was too much. I doubled the celli with the horn. Icky.
Finally I doubled the celli with the violins in the second octave. Not too shrill, and just enough to make us notice that it’s “louder.” And then the French horn comes in at the end of the phrase, leading us into the lovely “No need to cry and quake…”
So that’s done.
Mostly tonight, I played with my new Moleskine New York City notebook. What a fiercely wonderful thing! I’ve written in all our theatres, the hotel, the restaurants, the museums, that’s addresses, phone numbers, and subway lines/stops. I’ve marked everything on the detailed street maps. I’ve used the translucent sticky notes to draw actual routes on the maps. I’ve used the blank pages to plan our itinerary, including travel times, a deadly omission that beginners often make.
And it all fits in my pocket. I love it.
Forging ahead, Marc, Dale, Carol Lee, and Laura in attendance.
Carol Lee has finished two sunflowers:
They are quite magnificent. We began to see a lot of possibilities now for choreography. Dale suggested that we keep in mind the Silly Symphony cartoons, with their simple and repetitive patterns. They’re a lot of fun to play with, and very easy to make into characters.
Dale reported on his adventures in Hedgehog Land: he worked with Sherry Lambert’s kindergarteners again on the MMH Arrives sequence, and they’re getting quite good at it. He then tested them on some ideas he had for the Marmalade Man Makes a Dance to Mend Us, where he asked them to strike hedgehog poses on the beat. Then they played follow-the-leader, taking a step and striking a pose on the beat. It worked, so we’ll actually be able to stage both MMH pieces! He also sent letters home to the parents so they could decide whether their hedgehog would be able to participate in the May 3 performance.
Then we forced ourselves to get to work on visuals for Sun & Moon Circus [SMC].
Marc continued his study of the circular bed, the Gang in pyjamas, King of Cats as ringmaster:
That’s a magic lantern the Tiger is holding, projecting moons/stars/suns onto the circus action around them.
Carol Lee grumbled about being a three-dimensional artist (i.e., hot glue) being forced to work in a two-dimensional framework, but she approximated successively nonetheless:
Here she has the sunflowers listening to the Moon’s lounge act. Looking at this idea, it occurs to Dale that we can actually write in a vocal part for the Moon in the circus sequence, sort of a Cirque du Soleil descant thingie.
A simple image, for creatures clapping. We probably could come up with a few more, paws and fangs, to add to the mix.
After working with paint last week, Dale went digital this week, using a program called ArtRage. It’s very gorgeous, and it comes in a free version for both Mac and that other platform, from Ambient Design. There’s also a $19.95 version that has layers, worth it if you can afford it.
Here the tiger is awakened by fitful, flashing light, streaming through his window. He has managed to get his paws on a bit of it.
We do not have workshop next week, April 3, because it’s spring break and Dale and Marc and Carol Lee will be in New York City. In fact, by this time next week, we will already have had lunch with Nancy Willard!
Yes, I finally got work done. I listened through Blake’s Wonderful Car Delivers Us Wonderfully Well and made a few tweaks. Pretty subtle, but they were necessary. I think it sounds marginally better.
In other work, I dug out my personality profile from when I was a student at GHP in 1970. I find that it is the Cattell 16PF Profile. We were given this test, and then called in by the counselor (Eddie Najjar, a theatre person actually, and kin to the Mansours here in Newnan) to discuss it. He would show us our score on each item, and then we got to choose which of the synonyms on that end of the scale we thought described us.
Looking at it now, I’m a little surprised to see that I was in the average range for Self-Assured. Geez, I was an insufferable little thing. I must have cheated on the test.
Anyway, I dug it out because I’m going to use its scales to give my little bloggers a handle on describing characters from their books. If they can see some contrasting personality traits, they can latch on to one or two to hang their writing on.