Brian Sacawa: Sounds Like Now

Up next . . .

. . . on my racing calendar is Kitt Peak, which is this Sunday. The time trial is just about the same length as Mt. Lemmon, but the climb itself is a little harder. Unlike Lemmon, which gets steeper or flatter in sections and averages 5-6%, Kitt Peak is an engineered 8% grade. And it never lets up. Because of the observatory on top, they figured that an 8% grade was the absolute steepest it could be to get the mirrors up the hill. Here's a cool 3D isometric view of the climb. The wise Don Melhado of my team Saguaro Velo says that Kitt is a "zen" climb--you find your gearing, find your cadence, find your breathing, and just get into the zone for the entire climb, as it is relentless. My 7th place in the Lemmon TT puts me in striking distance for a top-5 finish for the combined mountain series--well, that is if I have a good day!

Fragility

Every time I clip into my pedals and set off on my bike, I am acutely aware of the danger involved in what I am doing. Despite the fact that I pay close attention to my surroundings while I'm in the saddle, it only takes one person juggling their cell phone and Starbucks latte in their SUV to make a mistake that could bear serious consequences for me. Screaming down the side of a mountain at 40+mph, one twitch, a little bit of gravel in the wrong place, some uneven pavement, it all has the power to end more than just the race or the day's training. But here's the thing: I am in control of riding my bike. It is a choice that I make on a daily basis. I choose to ride.

Yet some things are completely beyond our control. I think immediately of my colleague and predecessor at the University of Arizona, Kelland Thomas. In the late 1990s, Kelland emerged as a major force in the saxophone world. And when at 24 years of age he landed a teaching position at the U of A, it seemed a foregone conclusion that he would ascend to the greatest heights of our discipline, both as an artist and a teacher. However, in 1999, Kelland began to notice that he was having trouble playing like he used to. He couldn't hold a note for very long without it starting to quiver. He later learned that he had developed focal dystonia, a condition in which involuntary muscle spasms lead to the inability to carry out a movement pertaining to a specific task--in this case, playing the saxophone. Sadly, Kelland's illness derailed what was certain to be a brilliant career.

About a month ago, I, along with hundreds of other saxophonists, received an email from Michael Brecker's wife pleading for someone that might be able to help her husband--one of the most innovative, influential, and most emulated saxophonists on the face of the earth--who was battling a very serious life-threatening illness. To be honest, I didn't think much of this email at the time. I wrote it off as another scam in which someone was trying to take advantage of innocent people by using a celebrity as bait. What I didn't know until today, was that Michael Brecker's wife really did write that email. She must have spent an incredible amount of time compiling all those saxophonists' email addresses with the hope that maybe one of them just might possibly be the one who could save Michael's life.

I knew that the email was not a hoax today when Michael Brecker's condition, in all its dire seriousness, was reported in The New York Times. The article's title--"His Saxophone Is Silent, His Life Is in the Balance"--frightened me when I read it. Brecker, who is 56 years old, is suffering from myelodysplastic syndrome, a form of cancer which prevents bone marrow from producing ample healthy blood cells. His only hope for survival rests on a blood stem cell and bone marrow transplant, a dangerous procedure that is only possible if a stem cell donor with a close enough genetic match to his tissue type is identified. So far, no satisfactory donors have emerged.

How could this happen? Did Kelland Thomas do anything to deserve having a promising career as a concert saxophonist cut incredibly short? Did Michael Brecker do anything to deserve being torn away from his instrument--his passion, his voice, his identity--by an illness that threatens his life? The answer is no, they didn't. And neither of them had any say, any choice, in the matter whatsoever. It is a poignant reminder of life's fragility.

Not saxy enough

Mulford A. Barlow, an accountant for the Schneidemann Meat Packing Company and an amateur saxophonist, is suing the Selmer Musical Instrument Corporation for an undisclosed sum of money for what he is terming “gross violations of an implied contract.”

His attorney alleges that "in their glamorous print advertisements that feature beautiful women gazing longingly at men playing the saxophone, the Selmer Corporation creates the expectation that all one has to do to gain favor with said beautiful women is to purchase and learn how to play one of their extremely expensive saxophones. After spending more than $6000 on a Selmer Mark VI Eb Alto Saxophone and assorted accessories, as well as two years' worth of private lessons, my client, Mr. Barlow, is no closer to going on his first date than the day he passed his CPA exam."

Get the full story at Broken Newz.

Poster boy

Someone's on the cover of the Fall 2005 edition of the University of Arizona Visitor Guide.

Do the new

Allan Kozinn's got an astute article in today's Times that addresses the issue of "whether orchestras can find the will and the flexibility to tap into hot works when they turn up, or whether their idea of exciting programming is simply to group repertory favorites under facile thematic banners, with the occasional premiere thrown in dutifully and the word "exciting" splashed across the brochure." In particular, Kozinn is referring to 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky's Second Concerto for Orchestra, which he heard recently at Tanglewood. After this year's Pulitzer was awarded, there was a great deal of discussion on the issue over at Sequenza21 and NewMusicBox (whose discussion link has disappeared but is doing a nice service with the Pulitzer Sonic Gallery). Anyway, it's nice to see a reaction in the MSM:

While intending no disrespect to the Tanglewood Music Center or its superb young musicians, who produced a fantastic performance, I wondered why I had had to drive 150 miles to hear a student orchestra play it, some 17 months after a premiere that, by all accounts, was a success and four months after its Pulitzer?

Where, to put it differently, were the New York Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the American Symphony Orchestra and all the other orchestras that while away the musical season in a city that regards itself as the center of the musical universe? And what about orchestras elsewhere that might have picked up on the work , then brought it to New York on tour?

If you are an orchestra administrator, and you've just clucked your tongue and muttered, "He knows perfectly well that it doesn't work that way," maybe it's time to think again about how it can work, or should.

Maybe now orchestras might change their tune? I'm not going to hold my breath.

Mt Lemmon TT

The results from today's TT up Mt. Lemmon are in and I did a good ride. I came in 7th place in a field of 45 riders with a time of 55:21 at an average speed of 12.30mph. The conditions were optimal--overcast skies and no wind to speak of, which was a relief after the headwind we had on last week's training ride. I felt really good for the majority of the ride. In a couple of sections--after mile post 6 (or was it 7?) and especially between 10 and 11--it hurt but I kept myself under control so I didn't blow up. As far as TTs go, I rode a good one. I never let up, I pinched seconds whenever possible by notching up a gear or two, and after crossing the line I felt as though I'd given everything. And as an added bonus, I beat that guy who won the crit back in July by 15 seconds. Next up, Kitt Peak.

Alter ego

Erik Spangler is not just another composer with a Ph.D from Harvard University. He's also a DJ/turntablist. Known as DJ Dubble8, Erik synthesizes his interest in music for the concert stage with his passion for beat-making into some really cool stuff. I'm proud to boast that the first of his experiments into this realm was a piece called pastlife laptops and attic instruments, which was written for me and premiered last October at an integrated multimedia concert of electro-acoustic music that featured the unsurpassed video artistry of Johnny DeKam. Erik's remixed the track and it's now available on a CD titled Tomkins County Organic: homegrown beats vol. I, which can be purchased at CD Baby. Check it out! Incidentally, the live version of pastlife recorded at the whatWALL? show back in October will be included on my debut album, American Voices. (What's the hold up, you ask? Well, there were a few issues in the first master. It's being remastered and will be off to the record company within a week or so. Hang tight.) More info on DJ Dubble8 at Sonicbids. And watch out next spring for Hybrid Groove Project.

Speed machine

Well, let's hope so, at least. The bike is washed and lubed up and I'm tapered, rested, and fueled up for tomorrow's 11.5 mile time trial up one of the country's most well-known climbs--Mt. Lemmon. It's not a punishing climb as far as gradient goes--it averages 5-6%, which is enough--but it is long, and it's 26 miles to the summit. For those not familiar with cycling, a time trial is basically a flat-out race against the clock--go as hard and fast as you can until you cross the line. That translates to being at or a little bit above or below your lactate threshold for the duration. And that equals pain and suffering. The race is sponsored by my team Saguaro Velo. I'm off at 7:10:30am. I feel ready. I'm lean at 138lbs, which is my "ideal climbing weight" (height in inches X 2). Wish me luck.

Tanizaki does ongaku

As Japan hurtled into modernity during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century not all Japanese were that fond of the changes taking place. The rush to Westernization and the ensuing orgy of foreignism led many of the country's greatest writers and intellectuals to protest the direction Japanese culture was taking. In the December 1933 and January 1934 issues of Keizai ôrai Tanizaki Jun'ichirô, one of Japan's greatest novelists, published an eloquent and often amusing flowing commentary on the virtues of traditional Japanese architecture, drama, food, feminine beauty, and various other aspects of Japsnese culture, including the Japanese toilet, among other things. The essay was titled In Praise of Shadows (In'ei raison). Here's what he said about Japanese music:

"Japanese music is above all a music of reticence, of atmosphere. When recorded, or amplified by a loudspeaker, the greater part of its charm is lost. In conversation, too, we prefer the soft voice, the understatement. Most important of all are the pauses. Yet the phonograph and radio render these moments of silence utterly lifeless. And so we distort the arts themselves to curry favor for them with the machines. These machines are the inventions of Westerners, and are, as we might expect, well suited to the Western arts. But precisely on this account they put our own arts at a great disadvantage."

Their "new" favorites

As a nice treat today, the music critics from The New York Times offer up some of their favorite contemporary music recordings. Here's the story's lead:

It is hard to know, anymore, exactly how to define contemporary Western classical music. How recent does a work have to be? For that matter, how Western does it have to be, with, for example, the stimulating incursions Chinese composers have made in the United States? And does the term "classical" even retain any significance as the music returns to its roots, in a sense, becoming ever more saturated with pop gestures and idioms? However you choose to define it, "serious" music seems livelier and more variegated today than it has in many a decade, a trend the classical music critics of The New York Times are eager not only to acknowledge but also to encourage. And so, with rough justice, we present for your consideration and listening pleasure critics' selections of CD's by a handful of composers who we think deserve broader recognition, however disparate the starting points. They are Olivier Messiaen, Luciano Berio, Alfred Schnittke, John Corigliano and Stephen Hartke. Some are alive, some dead, and there is little to unite them in terms of age or nationality. But you have to start somewhere, and all at least helped set the table for 21st-century music; some are still partaking of the feast.

Ok, now for the big question: Who's your favorite New York Times critic?