March 2006 – Steven Yi

Rest After Etude

Last week Thursday I finished up my piece Etude. It will premiere at the University of Georgia Alumni Concert on April 5th so I will publish it on the web after that is completed. It’s been a long a process–almost a year, off and on–in creating this work. It’s also a bit strange too to be finished, to have spent all that time and focus on the piece and to now be without that weight, now wondering what to work on next…

I’ve been a bit low in energy since finishing the piece. I guess I’m catching up on sleep from all the late nights I spent the past year and especially the last six weeks. I’m beginning to get back to working now on music and programming as well as balancing out my time a bit more for things I put to the side while in that last stretch of work to finish working on Etude. The weather should bring some sun tomorrow and I am looking forward to that, and hopefully this sense of exhaustion will melt away and my attention will be focused again on new work.

Next week will be the premiere and I am looking very forward to heading off to Georgia for that and also to see my parents and old friends. I’ve been listening to the piece every day since finishing and find I am still pleased with how it has turned out and take that as a good sign, and am looking forward to sharing the piece after the premiere.

Three Day Training With Lenzie – Spring ’06

This year’s Spring training session was–as always–an incredible learning experience. It was great to spend such focused time with Lenzie and the rest of our classmates to get to delve a little deeper into concepts and ideas than we would normally have the time to spend in our weekly classes. The work itself of course was great, and I felt this session was good for making some connections between ideas I’ve had in my mind but haven’t quite understood within the big picture of Tai-Chi. It was also just a pleasure to have the guests from out of town that we did as they brought a lot of experiences and challenges to the push-hands training, and I find that Tai Chi practioners are always enjoyable to meet. With so many great take aways from both the form work and push hands training, I’m looking forward to continuing on with practice, our weekly classes, and of course Lenzie’s next camp and training session!

^_^

Samuel Barber: The Composer and His Music

I’ve long been a fan of Samuel Barber’s music but have until now only known well a handful of pieces. Recently I decided I wanted to know more about his life and works and so checked out the book Samuel Barber : The Composer and His Music from the public library. It’s the first composer biography I have read in a while and although maybe only a hundred pages in, I’ve been enjoying the book immensely.

Reading about Barber in his youth, I was particularly inspired by his being so well-read and being such an eloquent writer himself in his letters. The time and era he lived in really seems like such a different place(though his lament that Europeans were so much more aware of Classical music doesn’t seem so distant), and I found myself drawn in to the character of the society written about as much as the biographical accounts.

It’s been great to find out more of the historical details of the works I’ve long enjoyed, and perhaps more so being exposed to works of his I haven’t yet spent time with, and now am doing so(the Serenade for Strings is quite lovely).
Hopefully this week I will be finishing up the piece I have been working on (with time after to listen and make sure all is well), and when that is finished I think I will have to devote some time to exploring Barber’s scores as well as to become a little more acquainted with the world of poetry (there’s something very inspiring about Barber’s connection with poetry, and it’s a world I simply don’t know very well and I think would enjoy getting to know.)