Woke up and had free breakfast at the hotel and walked to the college for the Fresno New Music Festival. It began with a master class with professor emeritus Jack Fortner. He talked about his music and his compositional approach to the 4 pieces he presented. The pieces were written very well it was great to hear him and his music. My parents had come up form So Cal to see me and hear my piece. I met up with them and attended the University High School Orchestra. For a high school orchestra playing mew music they did an incredible job. There were some nice pieces on the concert. There was a reception after the concert. Free Food. Talked to Jack Fortner about music and composer and talked to university High School Orchestra Director Johnathan Malcolm about a possible performance of my music.
The next concert was the Fresno State Percussion Ensemble. Good percussion ensemble. The 60 x 60 concert was next. Simply put, it is an electroacoustic concert that contains 60 compositions form 60 composers and each piece being 60 seconds or less. The pieces are played with a visual algorithm which is shaped by piece in real time and a analog clock showing the passage of time. There were some great moments during the concerts.
The music ensemble Conundrum came in after the concert to rehearse. I met them and they told me they really loved my piece. My piece was the 1st one they chose for this concert. I got to listen to the rehearsal of my piece and it was amazing. I heard things in my piece that I had not heard before. The ebb and flow of the melody between the flute and clarinet sounded like a wave flowing between them. The pianist had such a smooth touch and the soprano had so much energy. It was a fantastic experience. I then went to the lobby for a reception for the composers. (More free food.) More great conversations with fellow composers and also spending some time with my supported parents. All the composers were really cool people. We are all in the same struggle to get our music heard. Then the Conundrum concert. They are such a great group. There were some really nice pieces on the concert. Heard mine again and it felt like I was taken somewhere else. It was such a great performance of it. After the concert I got a picture with them. There are such a nice group of people and quite silly. I received some nice compliments on my piece which was really validating. Ken Froelich, the music composition professor at Fresno State, did a great job with setting up the New Music Festival. He is also a good composer and great to talk to. We all then went to BJ's for our after concert food consumption and concert high recovery. Mom and DD joined the table of composer and musicans and great conversations. I had such a fantastic time and made some great contacts.
Thunderstorms hit around 4a so it made it harder to stay asleep. Got up at 5:30p and made apple and cinnamon oatmeal. Then l said bye to Jennifer and left for the airport. I slept the whole way to Phoenix. From Phoenix to Fresno I sat next to Fred. Just met him. He lives in Phoenix and is going to Fresno for a guys weekend with his old college friends. He used to live in LA so we talked about So Cal, Canadians (since his gig takes him there) and about relationships. It was fun talking to him and made the flight go faster. I gave him my card since he does business in Houston.
Got picked up by the hotel shuttle and checked in. Then food. There was a Marie Calenders a walk away and got the special. It was fish and chips with 2 shrimp, cole slaw and a big piece of corn bread plus a pie. I got a chocolate satin pie. It was soooooo good. I then walked around the music department at Fresno State University. I continued to walk around the rest of the campus. I crashed a science department reception for a dean who is being promoted to director of graduate studies. I only grabbed a 7up. None of the food interested me. Besides I was still full of Marie Calenders. Continued to walk around and saw a flyer that said the salsa dance club was having a dance with a live band at 6:30p. I said to myself I am so there. So I walked back to the hotel to change into my long sleeve shirt to look impressive. I arrived at 7p and they were still doing the dance lesson for beginners. Then the club members performed which was fine. The problem was that they wanted to change outfits for each dance. Why? It is not a big deal. Especially if we had to wait for them to change while the student MC is trying to fill time by asking for questions from the audience. This crap lasted for about 45 min. Do people have no ability to plan a program? Then finally the live band began and we got to dance. They were a great sounding group with about 8 members. I stayed until midnight dancing salsa, merengue and bachata with lots of different girls. One of the girls was Erin who was quite cute. She dance with me many times during the evening. She also taught me the bactata which is a slower dance than salsa. It reminds me of the night club 2 step. I got back and practiced all the old moves I used to know. It was such a fun evening.
I played piano for the PTK honor society induction ceremony which was at 6:30p. The guest speaker was the president of our college. It was a great speech from a very good speaker. After the ceremony was free food and cake. Not fantastic food but free. It was meatballs and fried pickles (which were very good). I also had a piece of chocolate cake and a white cake. The cake was also very good. Since I am leaving to Fresno tomorrow, I then went up to Jennifer's, since she lives closer to the airport, and stayed the night. It was nice to see her before I left for the weekend.
My apartment complex are replacing the circuit breaker boxes. Since Wednesdays are my short days I leave earlier from work and go home and do not go back. I come home around 1p to eat lunch and so when I came home this time, the electricity was out. So I went to the main office and asked and they said the people replacing the boxes are done. They are just waiting for the electric company to turn the power back on which apparently takes many hours with this company. I was really hungry and the manager had bought lots of pizzas for the guys working. So I had some. Ok. A lot. Yummy.