First Summer in a new home

Updates from Boston

A little over 6 months ago, I completed a 12 hour journey from Washington D.C. to Boston, MA, stopping in Philadelphia to retreive belongings that had been left in storage during the previous 6 months—during which I had been ostensibly homeless. As the snow welcomed me to the city, a very kind medical research fellow from Turkey helped me unload the U-Haul into a temporary sublet. A short contract at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine left me with enough to gamble on a new start in a new city. Boston offered me three contracts, so it seemed like a good place to try out.

I wasn’t sure how long I would be staying.

During the first month I learned how to read and write Hebrew as I started work on a translated production of Grease. It was an off-beat way to get some opera training experience, I thought, except I also had to re-set all the lyrics to the music. January came and I added a 4th contract, my first show with the Arlington Children’s Theater—a contract that proved disarmingly appreciative.

In the next few months I would write five songs for Boston Public Schools’ 2nd graders, MD “Matilda” for ACT, then “Footloose”, finally experience the shock of having a performance (Grease) post-poned due to COVID-19, and the joy of the cast finally getting to display their hard-won achievements a month later. A new keyboard would join the team as I hopped onto the other side of the baton for a moment to play Sondheim’s “Into the Woods”, and several new students would join my teaching studio. Oh, and I moved apartments in the middle of that. Life has finally slowed down so I thought I would start a newsletter before the next cycle began in earnest.

People ask me if I’m staying in Boston and the answer is still “I’m not sure”, but I will be here for at least another few months as I begin my third show with ACT, “The Music Man”, join the New Music School in Cambridge as a co-director for an original production, and embark on my most ambitious project yet: Sarah Kirkland Snider’s “Mass for the Endangered”.

Though I love my work in musical theater, I miss orchestral and classical music very dearly. I attended a performance of the Boston Symphony Orchestra to see Assistant Conductor Anna Rakitina conduct. I read her biography and joked to a friend “maybe I should just start my own orchestra…it’s apparently what all the young conductors do these days”.

And…well…I might just be doing that.

I came across Snider’s “Mass for the Endangered”, while I was still in grad school and was instantly taken by it. My gateway drug into classical music was partially the film scores of Joe Hisaishi, Japan’s own film-composing king (who also writes brilliant concert pieces), and ever since I have always had a soft spot for minimalism done well. The mass is 45 minutes of expertly gorgeous and haunting writing which together the solemnity of the topic material, the determination to correct a nightmarish trajectory, and the beauty that is hope in the face of such adversity—or is it a reflection of the natural world we inhabit?

If nothing else it is a music director’s job to make music. So, for my love of this piece and my desire to make classical music again I have decided to produce a concert. And now I’ve found a partner! Together with Cappella Clausura, I’ll be producing and conducting this gorgeous work along with compositions by Sven-David Sandstrom and my especially talented friend, Ayanna Woods. You’ll probably hear about this again when we open the crowd-funding campaign. In the meantime I leave you with a recording to get excited about. Video artist Deborah Johnson produced the animation, and we’re hoping to screen the videos at the performance!