Bonus Days

I do not believe in life after death, but, because of my recent intimacy with cancer, I have started to understand things quite differently than I had in life B.C. (or b.c.). I have come to think of everything that has happened in 2026 as a generous bonus.

If I hadn't had the opportunity to start treatment for this cancer in January, when the pain from the tumor on my sacrum was unbearable, I would very likely not be here to write this post. But science, insurance (Medicare), an enormous amount of support from my family (particularly Michael who helped me through the worst pain and the worst fears), a team of brilliant and dedicated doctors, extremely helpful and dedicated nurses, and my friends, have made it possible for me to experience extraordinary things during what I have come to understand are bonus days.

Come to think of it, every day is a bonus day.

Today I played a Bach prelude and part of a fugue on the piano, practiced some Brahms on the violin (I'm playing with a new pianist, and next Tuesday evening we're playing Brahms), practice some of the music I have written for violin and piano (this new pianist is interested in reading that too). It ain't Brahms, but what is except Brahms? I also played some Grieg on the piano, did some teaching, and talked with both of our kids and our grandchildren (who wished me a happy birthday today).

Michael and I read two chapters of Bleak House, mowed the lawn, and went out for dinner.

That I have a future is a gift.

That I can look forward to seeing our daughter and two granddaughters this weekend, and can look forward to the arrival (into the world) of another granddaughter next week is a gift.

That the treatment for this cancer has made it possible for me to walk every day, to practice every day, to read every day, to go to concerts and watch movies, to do work when necessary, and to do daily tasks (cooking, washing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning the house) is a gift.

Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas, who died yesterday at the age of eighty-one, will always be a young man to me.

I am grateful to Lisa Hirsch, who knew MTT well, for making a portal post with multiple obituaries and links.

I had the opportunity to sing in the children's scene at the end of an unstaged performance of Wozzeck in 1969 or 1970 at Tanglewood, and Michael Tilson Thomas was our conductor. He stood in front of us, and we felt safe. It is an odd thing to say when referring to that particular opera, but that is how I remember the experience. Before we were on stage everything was bloody and murderous. On stage we had this animated young man making sure we were singing together.

I got to sing with him again a few years later, when I was in the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. My mother was in the chorus, and somehow I was able sing in it too. I found the program for the first concert that I sang with the chorus, and Michael Tilson Thomas, who I already knew, was the conductor. I had no idea how unusual this program was for the Boston Symphony Orchestra to play.

I do remember that Thomas always referred to the Canticum Sacrum as the "Canticum Geshundheit," and I could never figure out exactly why. Could the word "Geshundheit" which means health in German, be in the same "family" as a "Bless you" after a sneeze, since Sacrum means sacred?

This has bothered me for much of my life.

My Arrangement of Price's "Adoration" to be Performed by the Vienna Philharmonic!

I just learned the other day that for their Sommernachtskonzert on June 19, 2026 the Vienna Philharmonic, under the direction of Lorenzo Viotti, has programmed my arrangement of Florence Price's "Adoration."

I remember looking at the organ music (Price's original) for the first time in the winter of 2013, and being blown away by what I heard. I immediately made setting of it for violin and piano, and brought it to my friend John David Moore's house to play it through. We decided to include it on the concert we were planning for February 28, 2014.

The two of us were the only people who knew it as a piece for violin and piano. And that concert increased the number of "Adoration" cognoscenti by a few dozen.

I decided to make a string orchestra version of the piece for our local Summer Strings orchestra, and shared that arrangement, as well as the violin and piano arrangement in the IMSLP. You can find all of my arrangements of "Adoration" here, along with settings by me and by other arrangers. The number of musicians who enjoyed playing the piece increased exponentially. And the number of people who enjoyed listening increased exponentially as well.

During her lifetime Florence Price never got the kind of recognition she deserved for her exquisite work. The idea of the Vienna Philharmonic including a piece written by her on one of their concerts would, I am certain, have been something far beyond her wildest dreams.

And having an arrangement of mine being performed by the Vienna Philharmonic is nothing I could ever have imagined in my wildest dreams.

I feel so grateful that I have had the opportunity to develop the skills necessary to do Price's "Adoration" justice as a piece for string orchestra (as well as one for violin and orchestra), and I feel so grateful to the people who chose the music for this Vienna Philharmonic Sommernachtskonzert for putting the Price on the program.

Back in the very early 1980s, when I was studying recorder in Vienna, and playing flute and recorder on the Kärntner Straße in order to pay for rent and food, and hanging out at Jazz clubs with my friend Leo Wright, I never would have imagined being "present" in the city in this way. But here we are.

Matters Musical and Emotional

I heard a most interesting discussion on NPR the other day while driving to my weekly blood draw (treatment is going very well) about a crisis in mattering. Hearing this discussion at this particular point in my life (mid 60s, with a disease that has certainly caused me to think about life differently), was exactly what I needed.

Before the internet became the highway, street, road, window, and path to just about everything we do, both as musicians, and in extra-musical activities, my feelings of not mattering were personal family issues (a lot of typical middle child stuff in a wildly atypical family). Despite my issues growing up,  I had friends, and I knew that I mattered to a lot of people.

Mattering and connection were, thank goodness, hard-wired into me through public school, my neighborhood, my musical life, writing letters, talking on the telephone, and even my various workplaces. Occasionally colleagues became friends, but even if we remained only cordial in our interactions, those relationships still mattered.

We didn't think so at the time, but raising children in a small town ended up being a real advantage in the mattering department. Even though they came of age with the internet (though it was primative and wired with annoying dial-up connections), they grew up with activities they enjoyed and a local paper. They also had to live and grow among people who had very different priorities from the priorities we had at home.

But they knew everyone, and everyone knew them. And they grew up knowing that they mattered. In their adult lives and in their lives as parents of young children they both seek out relationships that are meaningful. 

Our son lives in the Boston area, which is where I grew up. I told him that I used to know all the cracks in the pavement in the Back Bay area of Boston, but then they changed the pavement. Aside from his young family and a few friends, I have very little connection with Boston. But I occasionally learn that musicians there play music that I have written and arranged. I need to remind myself that what I do and what I have done matters, even if I hear about it in indirect ways. It is so easy for me to forget that what I have done (and what I do) musically does matter.

I think the music I write as a medium through which musicians who play together can feel that they matter to one another. I try to make my music as comfortable as possible to play or sing, so that people are free to express themselves. 

After a period of withdrawal from active professional musical life because of the unpredictability of the array of chemo drugs I am taking (since the beginning of 2026), I am doing my best to start stepping out a bit and am making connections with more local musicians. It feels like a healthy way to move forward.

I am also using this time to take a break from composing. I am spending all my musical energy practicing violin and playing piano.  After playing at the piano for the past decade or two, I can finally play the instrument more freely, and without tension. I have no desire to develop the kind of technique that would make me sound like a real pianist, and do not care at all about playing at any tempo faster than molto moderato, so I do not practice scales or etudes. I just play music. 

Violin is a different story. My goal with the violin is to be able to play everything at tempo, in tune, with clean articuation, and with the greatest possible sense of phrasing and nuance. It makes for a nice life balance. Good cop, bad cop, I guess.

I am learning a great deal about writing music from Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms these days. They are my best teachers. I am excited to see what comes out on paper when it is time for me to write something new (or when someone asks me to write something new, whichever comes first).