Usually my days are filled with a little exercise in the morning along with practice on the cello (I need to practice the piano as well), and teaching or working on my second symphony in the afternoons.

 

Mannfried Funk is a wonderful Cellist and a wonderful teacher. He teaches me how to play the cello, and then I teach him how to use Finale’s music notation program. He does his best to keep me on track. It’s hard since the cello isn’t an instrument I grew up on. But I need to learn so that I can hear the lower instrument parts for music composition.  Along with the basics of Cello playing, I also play with the NW Mahler Festival in the summers, and with Eastside Symphony during the school year. We played Mahler’s 4th Symphony in July, 2006.  I would have liked to find 2 violin players and a viola player to play around with some of Mozart’s earlier Quartet works over the summer. But now summer is gone. Maybe next summer. I also trade off vocal coaching with Bernadette  Bascom.  Right now I have a guitar student who comes followed by my twin piano students. Another afternoon I have a beginning violin student who comes followed by a more advanced piano student.  

 

Other days are filled with writing. I have completed the Theme & Variation, and am now working on the first Sonata Allegro for Symphony #2. I’m in the development section, getting ready to refine what I have so far and wanting to move on to the recapitulation. I hope to finish this movement by the end of September or October. I want to finish the Symphony by next year, having it ready for Eastside Symphony to perform in the fall of 2007. Alexei Girsh & Eastside Symphony performed my Symphony #1 the Fall of 2003.