I'M BACK (as a certain ex-Governor of California once said)

Apologies for disappearing from the blog-o-sphere for so long, but as they say in the funnies, we've been busy.  Just after the New York concert (see below) Catherine became ill, and we had to return to Australia for her to receive proper medical care.  She's fine now, and recovering well.  Meanwhile, we were scheduled to move from Wollongong, NSW to Daylesford, Vic, in February, and because of her illness, I had to do all of the work for this myself - with the able assistance of several friends, of whom I can single out Malcolm Ellis for services above and beyond the call of duty.  Many thanks, Mal!  And everyone else who helped as well.  Then, once we were moved, by around mid-February, I suddenly landed not one, but two jobs.  I'm teaching music theory and related subjects at Box Hill Institute in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne from Tuesday - Thursday, and audio engineering at Bendigo Regional Institute of TAFE on Fridays.  Needless to say, being thrown in the deep end of those courses took, and is taking, a LOT of time.  So for the past two months, I've been playing catch-ups with teaching during the week, and unpacking boxes at home on the weekends, when not preparing for the week's teaching. Time to do creative work - or even blogging, has been at a minimum.

Which is not to say that art things have not been happening.  Things seem to have a momentum of their own, which I guess is one of the aims of making creative work and releasing it into the world.  Most recently, Speak Percussion played my "Vibraphone and Tuning Forks," which I wrote for them last year, at the Castlemaine State Arts Festival, on April 4th.  Castlemaine is just 1/2 hour drive from Daylesford, our new home, so we went, and the program was splendid.  A piece I especially enjoyed was Mark Pollard's new work, from last year, for Vibraphone 8 hands.  An absolutely lovely piece!  Congrats, Mark.   On 19 February, in London, my new video "Free Music: Percy Grainger and Beyond" premiered at the Celebrating Grainger 2011 Festival, which also commissioned it. I hope to be showing this video in various places over the next while. Also, for those of you of a theoretical bent, my article "The Wilson Installations" has finally appeared in Perspectives of New Music - Vol. 48, no. 1.  For those who aren't able to access Perspectives in a local library (they don't put current issues on-line), you can download the article here.  Coming up, on May 28 and 29, in Melbourne, there is an Astra Choir concert in which Michael Kieran Harvey will be playing my five minute long piano work "Aardvarks II: Mr. Natural Encounters Flakey Foont!" from 1971.  More details on that as we get closer to the date.

The move to Daylesford, and back to the Melbourne area, has been a good one.  It's great to be back in Victoria, around a thriving arts scene and close to many friends.  And gradually, as things settle down, I'm returning to a little bit of composing activity.  More on that, as it evolves.  And yes, I eventually will return to finishing off the posts on "My History with Music Technology."  At the moment, most of my archives are in boxes in a warehouse in Ballarat, 40 minutes drive away from here.  That will be one of the on-going projects of the next few months - getting that archive unpacked and sorted.  Also, an upcoming long-term project will be releasing my CD archive as digital downloads.  This too, will take time, but it will happen.  So stay tuned, more info is to come.