Lots of travel over this spring while I was on leave, often for musical reasons, and sometimes just to see a new place. 2026 started with a MacDowell residency, where I worked on a piece to be performed by the Bangor Symphony in 2027, and continued work on the fairy tale opera “Blondine.” The studio setting was wonderful, although the size of the snowstorms during January was impressive.
in the studio..
There were performances to attend at the UGA New Music Festival, and the Splice Festival, where the ‘Vive Ensemble continued touring with my piece based on a poem by Joan Wickersham, Eroded Lions. Since the piece is for clarinet, trumpet, and video, most of the performances need to have a dark stage, and here’s what it looked like at Colby College’s excellent space.
Spencer Brand and Katrina Clements
The duo also played the piece at the SEAMUS National Conference in San Antonio, and later this month will play it at the New York City Electro-Acousitc Music Festival in lower Manhattan.
Seeing the piece live a few times inspired me to use some of the music from Blondine in another form, which was in turn inspired by an illustration from the edition of the fairy tale that I’m using for the opera.
Blondine rides on the back of a tortoise for a very long time in the fairy tale..
So, now there’s a new piece for bass clarinet and video, Turtle Crossing, and a demo of the piece is up on Vimeo. Most of the images in the video are historical paintings or public domain photography (thanks, publicdomainpibtures.net). But the Blondine image does appear as well, and one photo I took on a tourist trip to Quebec City, at the Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré:
The tips of the shoes do not appear in the video..
Now that this “distraction” of a piece is done, it’s back to the original summer plan, working on the fairy-tale that has giant tortoises, evil parrots, albino deer, and a host of other magical creatures. There will be a couple more performances of other pieces in Maine, as part of the Bar Harbor Festival and a solstice concert that’s part of the Vigorous Tenderness series. Plus, I need to practice the clarinet part for La Traviata for August, which will be a great segue into the school year. Which will be here before you know it…
beth wiemann 