Composer Smorgasbord!

Ug--September's getting away from me and I only have 3 or so blog posts to show for it. I was trying to be a better writer this month! Mostly I've been looking at other people's blogs, like this one.

Oh! But last Friday was amazing. Recently transplanted (from Spokane!) friend, T and I attended an American Composers Forum party at MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis. Can I just say, wow? We walk in, us two itty-bitty minor composers-to-be, and immediately we see our friend and mentor Elizabeth Alexander. Then, OMG Libby Larsen walks in. Poor Ms. Larsen--we bombard her right away, saying "hi! do you remember us? you came to our college in spokane?" And she just kind of stared at us and smiled (I'm sure our school was a distant memory to her--she travels extensively), and then someone else bombarded her....

Oh, but how I remember 3 years ago, how I walked around our campus with her (Larsen) and we were having a very cool conversation in the student lobby and she seemed genuinely interested in my projects. Sigh!

Then we walked upstairs to plates of gorgeous food and the most composers I've ever seen in one room. It was fun looking at name tags to see what other famous people were there (at least, famous to me). Stephen Paulus, Ann Millikan, Carol Barnett, Abbie Betinis (whom T had met a few weeks ago and introduced me to her---an amazing and prolific composer who's our age)....

I also had a great conversation with an old flute teacher of mine, Julie Johnson, who remembered me from about 10 years ago.

It never really hit me before how many amazing composers live here. And for the most part they all know each other in addition to knowing many music directors and musicians around town. I can't help but be immersed in this music culture here, with all the collective creative energy.