Pulse

Soloists' Concert photos

Thanks to all who came out to join us at the Old Stone House on Tuesday night. We all felt very good about the performance and I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. The sound in the room was terrifically warm and full, and we're looking forward to posting the audio from this concert shortly. Meanwhile, here are some photos from the gig.

I'll be here all the time... I can never quit

Hi. Darcy James Argue here. You might know me from my other blog, and as you might have guessed, this whole Pulse blog thing was my idea (just in case you are looking for somewhere to lay the blame).

I want to begin with a hearfelt thank-you to newly inducted Pulse Ensemble violist Frank Foerster. As fate would have it, circumstances required the violist who was originally scheduled to appear with us at the Old Stone House tonight to bow out, leaving us scrambling to find a suitable replacement at the last minute. And by "us," I mean Joe, whose powers of persuasion never failed us yet. However, I admit to sweating a little, as the piece I had written for tonight's concert was a viola feature, and the part is a real mother... contains a variety of techincal challenges.

Frank, who between his gig as the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra's Principal Violist, his solo career, and his teaching commitments, clearly has a ton of time on his hands, agreed to step in with two rehearsals to go and killed it on the first reading. I cannot adequately express how humbled I am to have this guy playing my music, and playing it with such tremendous fire and grace. Frank is also a warm and down-to-earth human being, which, believe me, is very much appreciated when everything is coming down to the wire.

As far as my piece goes, well... it's called "E Hastings." East Hastings Street is ground zero of Vancouver's heroin epidemic. Faced with a mounting death toll from overdoses, infection, endemic poverty and homelessness, and drug-related crime, a few years ago Vancouver's civic leaders did the unthinkable -- they listened to the experts. Public health advocates had been pushing for a policy of harm reduction for years, and in November 2003, Vancouver opened North America's first supervised injection site, where the city's thousands of injection drug users can get clean needles, medical supervision, primary health care, and — if they ask for it — addiction counselling and treatment.

The notion that heroin addicts are still full-fledged human beings deserving of dignity and compassion instead of a de facto death sentence is (I'm sure you've noticed) still something of a radical notion in our culture, and so "E Hastings" is dedicated to the workers and volunteers that staff Vancouver's supervised injection sites, and to the people who continue to advocate for them in the face of overwhelming prejudice and ignorance.

Over the course of writing "E Hastings," I found myself including several allusions to "Memories Can't Wait" by the Talking Heads, a song I used to listen to a lot back when I was growing up in Vancouver.

And here we are...

Hello everyone. Thanks for checking out our thing. It's been quite a journey over the last couple of years, and I'm sure there's only more adventure ahead. It's been very educational & inspiring to me working with these 6 other composers. I'm intrigued by their music, but also the way they each operate in life.

This next concert is gonna be really neato, I think. It's in a really unique space right in the middle of a park (and across the street from my favorite bar)! I'm glad we've been able to give each performer a little bit of featured time. They are all so wonderful for dedicating their time, efforts, and emotional involvement. We can't thank them enough, so hopefully many folks will come out to see/hear them shine.

I thought I'd let you readers in on what's going on with me to get a glimpse of what we're all up to outside of our Pulse projects. I just finished a commissioned wind ensemble piece for New England Conservatory which includes 3 jazz standards associated with Billie Holiday. Patrice Williamson will be the featured vocalist with the 30-piece ensemble.

The Schumacher/Sanford Sound Assembly (the original music big band I co-lead) just finished mixing our CD that we recorded back in August at Systems Two. We're very pleased with it and hope it's available some day soon, so stay tuned.

I'm also preparing for a gig with the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble at the Kitchen on February 17-18. It's all his music, but I do conduct the group. His CD "A Blessing" (OmniTone) was nominated for a 2005 Grammy Award in the Best Large Ensemble category. If you haven't heard it or this group or any of John's groups, and you like new music of any kind, you should definitely check it out.

Anyway, I hope we get a lot of folks at the concert on Tuesday.

And here endeth my inital blog experience. Was it good for you?

The Lady Who Sailed The Soul

As you know on Tuesday January 24th Pulse will have a Soloists' Concert. Each composer will be writing a feature for one (or two) members of the Pulse ensemble. My composition is titled The Lady Who Sailed The Soul and features Chris Howes on violin and Lis Rubard on horn. The composition is actually the first movement of a planned violin "concerto" featuring Chris and my ensemble Numinous, to be performed in the spring of 2006.

My composition is a violin "feature" and I have tried to take advantage of the virtuosity of Chris from both a techique and improvisational standpoint. The horn part is also very important, as Lis has many melodic ideas which tie the entire composition together. With both Chris and Lis, I also wanted to explore their lyrical sides and there are a number of passages which features their wonderful sounds and melodic sensibilities. It has been a pleasure in rehearsals to hear how beautifully Chris and Lis have taken my music and made it their own.

The composition was originally inspired by my watching of kites one afternoon in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. The soaringness and elegance of motion brought my thoughts to the concept of solar sailing. About a month ago I found and read a short story on-line called, The Lady Who Sailed The Soul by Cordwainer Smith. While the story was pleasant, I was more interested in the title (I liked the multiple meanings it brought to my mind) and "the image of the great sails, tissue-metal wings with which the bodies of people finally fluttered out among the stars."

While solar sailing has been mostly thought of as science-fiction (most recent examples include a Bjorian ship in an episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Count Doku's ship of choice in Star Wars Episode II-Attack of the Clones), space engineers have begun to seriously explore solar sails as a way to create continual propulsion for spaceships without the need for heavy and expensive fuel. In the spring of 2005, the Planetary Society co-sponsored the launch of Cosmos 1, which was to be the first test of solar sail technology. Unfortunately, the Russian-made rocket booster failed to fire and Cosmos 1 never reached orbit and the project was lost.

I have included  few links for information on solar sailing technology and in science-fiction.

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/innovative_technologies/solar_sailing/

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/innovative_technologies/solar_sailing/science_fiction.html

I am really looking forward to the concert and if you are in Brooklyn or New York City on January 24th, come out to hear for yourself my composition and 6 other wonderful works written for some incredible soloists.

Joe