I am in the process of notating all the music from my first album, Cello Man Dreams, and also creating a second album, which has a couple of tentative titles, but nothing settled on that yet. And that is like the album itself - I surely have over an hour's worth of new work that has been created over the fall and winter, but the laborious task I have now is to polish it all well enough to release. Questions of arrangement, how simple or complex the instrumentation will be, and how different or similar to Cello Man Dreams this new work will be are all roaming around my mind most of the time. It is kind of an uncomfortable time - I go out and play, as I have been - more and more opportunities to play are coming to me, and at the same time, I am so ready to be performing new work. And yet, it isn't really quite there yet. I feel it coming, but it is not yet here. So I keep taking the little steps that I can - there has already been a lot of rapture in the pouring out of new ideas, but this part is the slow and steady attention to the details of the pieces and trying to see what they want to become. Each event I do with poetry seems now to be an opportunity to sharpen up new material that will wind up on the album - so that is what I am working towards now - the next poetry event on the 12th of February: "The Subject Tonight is Love".

Another magical moment...

A dad, and his two kids sit down on the bench. The little girl is about four, her brother is probably three. They are listening raptly. I catch the eye of the little girl. She gets this smile and what I can only describe as a very "lovey" look on her face - seems like the music is moving her, too - so she reaches over and starts hugging her brother...

of course, he's three years old - not so sure where his sister is coming from...but it was pretty adorable...

Today, here is what I saw in the park:

I saw a an older man, looked like a tradesman, like someone who had worked with his hands most of his life, a little grizzled, graying mustache, sit on the wall, his eyes almost closing, looking dazed. After awhile he got up and walked by - as I was playing he said, " Have to go - its too much for me..." and then motioned with his hand that he was shaky...

I could see it as I played - he was somehow falling into tears...

Did not see him after that... 

I got my first shipment of CDs today and am very happy to say they are already flying off the shelf. I will have more samples on the Cello Man Dreams page to the right probably by Thursday.

Today was a joy in the park - great weather - happy people out on the meadow and in addition to a lot of my originals I have been enjoying playing a lot of bits and pieces of the first three Bach Suites. Especially the D Minor. Every time I play the prelude to that one I seem to go deeper - it is a marvelous piece of work.

I also pledge to have a good list of all my events on that page soon as well - there are many, many new things on the horizon and I seem to be just catching up with myself.

By Monday, the 15th, I will have CDs to make available to all who want them. I am pretty stoked. There are many things to say, but I think for now I just want to get some samples out to folks so they can have a taste of what has been created. The album has a pretty good variety of styles and moods and approaches. It is not perfection embodied, but it is a pretty good embodiment of my work, circa 2009. So given the fact that I produced this all by myself with a newly discovered technical skill and a determination to let it unfold in the most delicious way I know of, I am pretty happy. I set up a link over to the right to take you to notes on the songs and an option to buy online. Please let me know if you have any questions.