I've come down with a hideous cold this week. It flared up on Sunday and I should have spent the whole day in bed, except that we were in Bristol so it wasn't really an option. We went to see the Wallace and Gromit exhibition instead:

We also dropped in on a John Cage exhibition on the way - very cool - including some fabulous realisations of Fluxus pieces. Funny how I never understood any of this experimental stuff till I took Shannon's class earlier this year - couldn't tell the difference between what was valid sound art and what was merely a pretentious waste of time. Glad I can now - Alvin Curran's piece for stones was particularly lovely. I wished I could have got hold of a recording, but the boy was keen to move on and I was feeling cruddy, so we bypassed the shop on the way out. Oh well, maybe I'll get back there before the exhibition closes in mid-January.

Anyway, so at home and all tucked up with a box of tissues, a garlic bagel and a teddy bear today (as yesterday) and cheering for the history channel. Daytime TV everywhere is always so dismal, but now we have freeview, so instead of being forced to choose between Judge Judy and staring at the walls, I got to watch 7 episodes in a row of Meet the Ancestors - so much better for the brain. So hip hip hooray for the history channel. I wonder what they've got on today...

# posted by minim @ 11:21 AM 0 Comments

If you've been reading the past few entries, you'll know that I've been going through a bit of a mental thorny patch lately. Things are definitely on the mend, I'm happy to say - dizzy spells are receding and my brain, while still not the firm-yet-supple instrument I am accustomed to, is not the pile of mushed banana that it's been for the past couple of weeks.

I've been refining a few morale-boosting tactics to see me through, the latest of which is these marvellous emotionally supporting socks which I found at John Lewis in Southampton. How can one fail to be confident and impressive in a meeting when one knows that under one's trousers and boots one is wearing red polar bear socks - and that no-one else knows! Another key technique is the tiny bear in the handbag. Gerald bear has been accompanying me to work on some of the worse days, hiding in the bottom of my red camera bag - again, a little comfort that only I know about :-) erm... till I told the world just then. Oh well. You can't see him, so you'd never know he was there if I hadn't just said so. Now you'll wonder, eh?

OK, maybe not. But it makes me happy :-)

I decided to be spontaneous last night and took myself off to a recital of Britten and Bridge songs at Wigmore Hall by 3 young artists from the Britten-Pears Programme, with Phillip Langridge. Some really fabulous voices there - a few small uncertainties here and there, but all three have marvellous tonal colour. Gorgeous repertoire too, of course, and Wigmore Hall is just lovely - the perfect size and acoustic for chamber music.

Weather is getting really cold now - tonight is just icy and I'm looking forward to another good lot of frost in the morning, camera at the ready. Tomorrow night I continue my hunt for a good winter coat - wish me luck!

# posted by minim @ 12:11 AM 0 Comments

I'm oh-so excited - my very first frost! It was thick on Reading station yesterday (a bucket of water on the station was frozen solid!) and this morning was covering half the bikes at the station with a beatiful chilly coat.

Apparently we've got a 100% chance of snow by the weekend - woohoo!

# posted by minim @ 1:44 AM 0 Comments

At last! Our central heating is ON!! It's taken a while to convince our flatmate to do it, but finally we have the heaters on. They're starting to warm things up now, although I'm still cowering under the bedclothes. No doubt will be better tomorrow when they should turn themselves on at 6pm so hopefully the house will be all toasty by the time I get home.

Spent the day in Bath today - a glorious autumn day. We saw deer and pheasants from the train on the way down & I was just revelling in the lovely golden countryside. Didn't do very much of consequence while we were there - just wandered about the shops with some friends, lunched and then strolled along the river nattering. Very peaceful and wonderful. No more news :-)

# posted by minim @ 9:26 PM 0 Comments

"Sunset over Swanage"

Finally got around to reviewing a bunch of photos from ages ago to put them online. Some rather nice ones too, if I may say so myself, including this one taken at Swanage on the August Bank Holiday weekend we spent in Dorset. This has (within 3 days or so) become my most-faved photo and my second-most commented on (only 1 comment behind the cupcakes). Interesting to see what captures the public's attention - cakes and sunsets, obviously!

Today we went to Greenwich (again?? I hear you cry) for the International Festival & Exhibition of Early Music there. I was a bit scared by the £7.50 entrance fee, but coughed up for the two of us, and boy was it worth it. We went to 2 concerts - the first harpsichord and voice including some gorgeous Scarlatti sonatas; the second brass consort music on both early and modern style instruments in the Chapel at the Old Royal Naval College which was absolutely stunning. What a marvellous space - we both decided that we'll have to go back to go to one of their organ recitals sometime soon. And we also spent hours wandering round the exhibits, playing with the instruments, talking to the makers and generally picking up lovely little nuggets of early music information. I found a nice alto recorder which I was very taken by, but unfortunately didn't get along with its £280 price tag (and that was pretty nearly the cheapest one there - machine-made, not handmade) so I had to leave it behind. Very sad. Still, I had a good chat with the chap on the stand and took their details so if I change my mind I can go and visit them and bring it home later. We've also decided to invest in a set of CDs of the complete music of Thomas Tallis, which was sounding very fine, but unfortunately they didn't have any on the spot, so we need to order it in. But this was really very restrained, believe me! If I'd had my way, unlimited budget, unlimited space and unlimited time in which to learn all these things I'd have brought home the recorder, a baroque flute, a two-manual harpsichord, a very small organ, a harp and enrolled myself in a course to learn how to make viols and so forth, just as a starter. That's not even getting anywhere near the publishing stands, CD stands and so on. DROOL! Anyway, heartily recommended if you're round that way tomorrow, or for next year's event - I'd recommend getting there nice & early in the day though to squeeze as many concerts and demonstrations (most of these are free or just want a £1 donation) as possible around the exhibition.

# posted by minim @ 8:31 PM 0 Comments

OK. Things aren't quite so bleak as yesterday made out, I guess ( = if you're my mother, stop panicking, I'm OK), but today was pretty grim - feeling very down - but the mean reds as opposed to the blues - and work was just unbearable with the incessant pop music played on our floor (although, to give the discmeisters their due, it's a very varied diet of pop music - everything from Oasis to the Benny Hill theme) and I found it pretty much impossible to concentrate on anything. So I achieved absolutely nothing and fled the scene at four o'clock. I think I should have done it several hours earlier. Hmm. Oh well, definitely feeling somewhat improved - I bought myself a Marks & Spencer instant low-fat (but very yummy) lasagne, a packet of pre-peeled carrots and some a little pot of chocolate mousse for dinner (oh this IS the life, isn't it :-) because the boy's away overnight for a far-away job interview. I collected my newly taken-up black corduroy trousers from the dry cleaners and have spent the evening playing with photos, listening to an assortment of the more avant-garde corners of my collection (not hugely avant-garde, but...) and occasionally delving into Samuel Z. Solomon's How to write for percussion when I could do so without smearing it with either lasagne or chocolate mousse. Thinking that a temporary solution to the composition problem may be to write for untuned percussion...

Anyway, the point of this posting is that I have finally had another listen to Kancheli's Styx which I heard at the Opera House sometime last year, was completely blown away by but hadn't had the courage to listen to the CD I bought for fear I would be really disappointed. I can safely say a hearty "definitely not!". The disc comes with Sofia Gubaidalina's viola concerto on it too, and I'm also very much enjoying hearing that for the first time - will be back for more and likely to see what else of hers I can hunt down in the near future.

I've also been browsing a couple of UK sites which are equivalent to our Australian Trading Post in a quest for affordable decent keyboards. Oh how I wish we had space - all the Roland/Korg keyboards I could see were generally £500-odd, but there were about 4 upright pianos going free to good homes - *sob!*

Anyway, back to Kancheli and Gubaidalina for me...

# posted by minim @ 9:22 PM 0 Comments

Going through a strange patch at the moment. I guess it comes from sort-of managing to do a bit of composing, but not having enough time to really work at it - or indeed the technical resources to make it even slightly easy. I have beautiful manuscript paper, a pencil... and erm... not too much more. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that I may have to spent quite a lot of money in the near future. Items on the theoretical shopping list are:

• Reasonable-sized keyboard (but small enough to fit in a cupboard) - because I can't handle being without a piano - it's too hard to start a piece without it (although continuing on is OK) and while I'm thrilled that the Barbican Music Library has a bookable electric practice piano, there are actually very few times I can calmly get there and if I just need to check something I'm likely to have to wait a full week before I can get to it.
• Stereo - because, much as I adore my B&O headphones and recommend that everyone gets a pair (death to horrible iPod headphones that broadcast everything people listen to on the tube to their co-travellers!), I hate having to listen to everything through them - my ears want to be free, and to do that I have to buy a proper stereo
• A new computer - because my poor old beastie can't run podcast software, can't run Skype, can't run Photoshop CS and much as I love it, is cracking up completely under the strain
• And, no doubt, due to purchase no. 3 I will have to invest in upgrades to Finale and MYOB because all my discs are in a box somewhere in our storage den in Sydney

I know I've harped on about this for several posts but while mostly I'm OK, it just really gets me down sometimes. This is one of those times - came home completely done in today, ate all the wrong food because I was starving, then felt very blah because of it. Watched a couple of episodes of Scrubs to make me feel better and was starting to feel about ready to do some real work when I realised it was 10pm and I should be starting to go to bed. Too too depressing. Tried to do some more work on the piece I'm reworking, but it's all horrible, so had to give it away and listen to some of Kyle Gann's Custer's Ghost to make myself feel better. Now completing the mood transformation with some Olli Mustonen *swoon!* while I post a few of my photos from our weekend at Chester to flickr.

Ooh - one last item (and definitely the cheapest!) to add to the shopping list (although the Naxos site says 'only available in North America', which has me worried): Naxos' new recording of Bernstein's Chichester Psalms. I've got into the podcasting swing lately, and listing to their first 2 instalments of programme on the Milkin Archive of American Jewish music, and hearing a snippet there and some more in a dedicated podcast to that release, I really have to have it - sounds fantastic. Hurrah for the glorious Naxos. Seriously considering signing up for their streaming subscription for the next year if I get a new computer that can process that much information all at one time - might be a great saving in CDs... or lead to a huge expense!

# posted by minim @ 10:44 PM 0 Comments