Stuck in the Middle: How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? (a guest post)

Hi Everybody, today's blog will not be as eloquent, thoughtful or humorous as it usually it is because Emily's husband Aleks is writing it. I recently returned from a trip to New York where I just had two new works premiered at Carnegie Hall. Apparently people want to hear about how things went so let me share.

Let's start with day one: Tuesday (feb. 5th) I arrived in NYC. I went from the airport to have lunch and catch up with my old friend Jen. Of course I started off the trip without taking a pictures of her or our food. After a great time catching up I caught a cab and headed to the Hyatt Grand Central and walked around New York for a little while.

Here's the best picture I could get of the city skyline

My swanky hotel room

The nasty first day blister. :(

After touring the city for a little while I had reservations for the restaurant Ko, owned and run by David Chang of Momofuku legend. This restaurant is so cool because it seats 12 people and you sit at the bar and are served 16 courses by the chefs. For a foodie and avid home cook like myself it was awesome because I could talk to the chefs and ask all sorts of questions (they didn't seem to mind).

The restaurant is so hip you can't even find it. It's hidden behind that cage. Also you're not allowed to take pictures while your inside so, sorry, but no food pictures.

Day 2: After an exhilarating day in the city it was off to Connecticut where I stayed at my friend Tom's house (one of the three composers being featured on Carnegie along with my friend Craig). The three of us caught up and then went to the Hartt School of Music where we gave a guest lecture to the composition students at Hartt. Afterward the head of the program, Robert Carl, took us out to dinner and beers and showered us with praise.

This is Tom's daughter Charlotte who is just a month younger than Ruby. Her favorite song to sing is "Lucy in The Sky with Diamonds" by the Beatles.

Here are the hallowed halls of Hartt, where I spent many a year learning and teaching.

Day 3: The next day we all woke up bright and early and drove to Kutztown, Pennsylvania where the musicians, known as the Case Ensemble, were giving a preview concert.

On a personal note whenever a group you don't know is going to play a piece(s) of yours, especially at somewhere big like Carnegie Hall, there's always a lot of stress about what kind of performance you're going to get and how your piece will be received.

Let me tell you the preview and rehearsals were AWESOME. In fact I would rank it as one of my top three performances of my music ever. These guys came to rock.

Dress rehearsal for my piece REM (Ruby, Emily, Maia)

Day 4: Alright so here's where it starts to go to hell a little bit. If you're not aware Thursday night the weather announced a little snowstorm would be coming through and New England would be getting between 3-5 feet of snow...So I woke up at 5:30am and high tailed it from Connecticut to NYC to beat the storm. Fortunately I made it to the city and met up with my dad who had flown in for the concert. We spent the day touring a little bit of the city, spent most of it buckled down in our hotel room avoiding the ice snow and that evening had dinner with some of my family who live in New York and only get to see every five years or so.

The beginning of what they called the "White Scare"

This is the new Freedom tower where the WTC used to stand

The eternal fountain at the 9/11 Memorial

Doesn't quite have the same ring as "Take the A train."

By the end of the day this is what NYC looked like. Not bad at all.

Day 5 (The big day): So here we were the big day of the concert. It was pretty amazing and a little bitter sweet. While Manhattan hadn't really been effected Connecticut had been bombarded with snow. Tom's house had been covered and the snow banks were about 5 feet tall. Unfortunately the Governor shut down the roads and there was $1000.00 fine and up to year in prison if you were caught driving on them. This of course meant that Tom did not make it to the concert. However with all that said we had a great turn out of 70+ audience members, a spectacular performance by the Case Ensemble and overall a really magical 5 day experience. Of course I was sad that Emily and the girls couldn't be there to share it with me. And my mom flew to Kansas to help them out which was huge. But like I told Emily this isn't the last time my music will be played there.

The day of:

The poster outside Carnegie Hall

Dress rehearsal in the hall

Top secret picture taken during the concert (Pictures are for forbidden without prior consent from the house manager and is punishable by fines and you can be ejected from the hall, etc. etc. Don't tell anyone)