Musician at large

Attached to this space you are likely to find almost any subject touched upon in my own esoteric way. Musical and theatrical topics may predominate, but subjects ranging from Alfred Hitchcock to the calendar are grist for my rambling curiosity.

In the beginning was the Note, and the Note was with God. Whosoever can reach for that note, reach high, and bring it back to us on earth, to our earthly ears -- he is a composer, and to the extent of his reach, partakes of the divine.  -- Leonard Bernstein

Take a listen...

You can listen to two different sets of excerpts from Thespis, or The Gods Grown Old on this site, featuring words by W. S. Gilbert set to my own original music.

First of all, the Thespis page contains some abbreviated samples from the Durham Savoyards upcoming CD recording of the score. This is a fully live (that is, non-synthesized) piano-accompanied recording, professionally engineered, starring most of the cast members from the 2004 premiere concert reading (along with some additional cast).

Earlier that year, I whipped up a few Thespis excerpts myself by singing over a synthesized orchestral sound on my home computer. You'll find these homemade versions on the Thespis Homemade Samples page. To hear the embedded sound clips, your browser will need to have a plug-in such as Quicktime that will play mp3 files. Or you can download the mp3 files and listen to them locally.

In either case, the page will automatically download ca. 5 Mb of embedded mp3 sound clips, which may cause a short delay in loading the page.