Prelude on an eve of departure

In approximately six hours, before the sun has decided it must reveal a golden glow, a  hopefully perky uber driver will be outside my door to transport me to the Brisbane International airport where more people machined with transport will help me to get to the Nief-Norf Summer Music Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee.

But this is a dawn for something that I have long felt overdue– the blog, well, you may endearingly term it ‘the Bog blog’. So welcome, you are always free to browse, to comment, to linger for a little longer and even to leave.

This post will be short and sweet, hopefully with a taste as memorable as MSG, leaving you thirsting for more. I believe I must write, in all forms, textural and musical (composition), I think this is a way that I am able to navigate through myriad texts and thoughts of others which I have read, performed, played and considered throughout my life. It occurred to me recently that the avid journal keeping that used to be ritualised into my nights, even when not on a holiday adventure has been dormant for almost three years. Fragments of thought have been dappled across pages, napkins, receipts but very few page after page, entry after entry. I’m not seeking a chronological timeline of events but a way to assemble the fragments, perhaps not into a clear salient image or idea but to have the opportunity to perceive and grasp at these sometimes fleeting or presque-vu images or ideas in my curious mind. There’s an abundance to consider in this world. I often think back to Madame Chenoweth, my French and English teacher during high-school who told me to write my thoughts down in third-person as a distance-mechanism, to consider for a time later, then close the book and perhaps revisit. I won’t write in third person, not always, but there may come times when I feel it would be the best mode. I guess instead of a grand ol’ analysis into how I should write and how I will write won’t do much other than make your eyes dry so I will allow you to discover for yourself the cogs behind these typed words. (Fun fact, I also only type with two fingers, I’m not sure if this also assists in extra trill potential for flute… for two fingers only).

Read as you will— I’m certainly very excited to begin this blog especially at on the eve of a new adventure– The Nief-Norf Summer Music Festival, a two week festival (11th-26th June) in Knoxville, Tennessee which I have been invited to as a performance fellow. It’s a mixing pot for musical folk (performance, composition, research, technology) who are part of a wonderful movement, pushing boundaries of sound as you and I know it to convey new ideas. I am overly excited to have the opportunity to play and perform some Kaija Saariaho (YES!!), Morton Feldman, Juro Kim Feliz, Christopher Burns, Drew Baker and Erin Gee (and perhaps also some surprise some sneaky pieces by the composition fellows). Also my newly composed game piece, Share House I will make an appearance at Norf-Speak during the festival and I am so excited to share this with the Knoxville folk! I hope to share with this a world of daring sounds, peculiar and profound ideas as well as a great investigation into the food options for a hungry vegan human in Knoxville. As it turns out there is a small but active handful of vegan restaurants so it will not just be the golden pride of two weeks of potatoes. But, I am so very excited to meet others who love making lots of noise!

Thank you for being one of the first to ponder this prelude. So, again welcome to the ‘Bog blog’, and I’ll be keeping things as fresh and regular as can be!