I’m slow to record these impressions, having been back from Fayetteville, AR for nearly a week now. Perhaps it’s easiest to share the letter I wrote to Chris Knighten, Director of Bands at UA:

Dear Chris,

   Today’s been a day of getting everything together for moving up to Tim’s place in Tennessee.  From the attic to the third floor to the basement, I’ve put in lots of stairs today.  Thank goodness Pattie was ready for a break, because my hamstrings and quads are about to go out on strike.  Yesterday morning, I started to respond to your text with a text, but my reply got too long.  So email it is, and finally I have time to sit and write something.

   The past week with you, Jann, your colleagues, and your students has been extraordinary.  It was really 4+ days, I know, but it was so packed with superb moments that it felt like a week’s living.  I’ve been searching my vocabulary for an appropriate adjective, but I can only characterize it as extraordinary.  

   In the days leading up to such a trip, I never know what will happen musically.  Once a piece is done, what it becomes is in the hands of its performers, its temporary advocates.  So I’ve learned to temper musical expectations; rather, I look forward to the interaction and exchange with performers more than musical results.

   Before we left Raleigh, even as I anticipated meeting your ensemble and talking about music and music-making, the reason I was so looking forward to this trip was because we would get to spend time and relax with you and Jann.  Reconnecting with you was the treat I was genuinely excited about.  And, indeed, it was just so nice and comfortable to spend time together.  As you’ve said, a dear friendship of more than two decades is rich with memories and many accumulated bits of shared wisdom grown from lots of experience.  If feels like the greatest gift of growing older is enjoying the maturing of friendships, learning from friends’ experiences as much as one’s own.

   And then we headed to Friday’s rehearsal.  As you spoke about the ways in which you’d approached this music, it became very clear that you knew the music, and your ensemble, to a degree I’ve rarely experienced in an ensemble director.  By the time of the rehearsal, I was more than impressed, yet again, with not only your musicality, musicianship, and leadership, but the maturity of your wonderful ensemble’s roster.  I know they aren’t all music majors, but they all make music with a significant depth of seriousness of intent and engagement with the music before them.  And that is developed and nurtured from the leader; and it’s just so evident what an effective and respected leader you are, both personally and musically, to everyone around you.

  This trip was a stunner all around, a trip to remember for both Pattie and me.  Spending this time together has been magical for me, but equally so for Pattie.  She enjoyed exploring the area, but even more so loved getting to know Jann.  Bonus treats for us were getting acquainted with Sara, Ashley, Chase, Carla, Chris, Cy, Andrew; chatting with students; sitting around the fire and feeling so totally relaxed.  And an enormous extra was the strongest performance I’ve yet heard of Prismata.

   I mentioned that I’ve not taken pencil to paper since May.  That’s largely because we’ve been so busy travelling, but I’ll admit that I’ve been ok taking a breather; the breather from daily expectations of myself.  Yet when you raised the idea of a future project, a future collaboration, ideas began jumping to mind steadily.  Ideas musical, dramatic, spacial, as well as harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic.  I don’t know yet if they’ll continue to blossom, but I’m welcoming their presence in my head, as I don’t have expectations, just curiosity.  When we return from Tennessee, we’ve got almost a month before leaving town on January 7, and I hope to begin exploring that curiosity to see where it leads.

   Thank you, Chris, more than I can express, for all of these past days, and all that’s led to these past days.  The friendship and musical collaborations have been fabulous nourishment for a long time, and I look forward to the years ahead.