BOXING GLOVES AND A SMILE

Four days until I return to the States following an absence of twenty odd years.  The last time I visited was the morning after Lockerbie; I recall how we successfully, sometimes comically, hid the frightening news from an elderly couple in our party already nervous about our long flight.  I also remember being awoken half-way across the Atlantic by the unique sensation of an infant’s sharp teeth biting into my toe; somehow it had ended up at my feet and I never understood how it came to be quite there.  We spent a couple of weeks cruising the oversized plates of Florida’s restaurants in the company of some confident music world people, while I swerved on an unsteady path between massive intimidation and massive hangovers.

Over time, priorities emerge.  I am returning to the States as a proud parent and also as the composer of eight published piano books.  The latter is the reason for my trip.  I am attempting to inform the American piano community of the repertoire I’ve composed here in London as an American composer who lives abroad.  My email campaign earlier this year did little to spread news of my work, so I am now convinced that I must instead use my two feet and travel, I'll hand my books to piano professionals and music acquisition staff in college libraries.

Each of the three towns I'm planning to visit holds a different challenge so the preparations have verged on the schizophrenic.  I have a concert in New York that’s been organised by my good friend, artist Julia Warr, who recently made a film with my music.  Julia is suddenly and excitingly planning things so I will also perform the soundtrack to a live projection of her film during this show.  I’m giving a lecture recital at the University of Missouri- St Louis to Dr Barbara Harbach's "Women in the Arts International Conference", so I need to teach myself the art of public speaking.  

And then some very lovely icing on the cake awaits.  In the small town of Warrensberg just outside Kansas, a critical piano music project is just about to begin and I’m taking a four hour train ride (allowing me to have my only real view of America this time) in order to interview the originators for International Piano magazine. So I must learn to use the digital Dictaphone I bought for this task, as well as the camera I’ve borrowed to take shots for the magazine.  After the interview I will get to meet the pianist James Cockman III who was the first player in the world to take up my work and who is also a guest editor for one of my books.  It is a strange and lovely world that this pianist happens to live a sneeze away from where I was visiting anyway!  Even though I ran out of time to timetable a meeting with him, we worked it out so that James will kindly drive me to the airport and I will switch on my Dictaphone and interview him about his life in piano while he drives.

There are ten key music colleges and libraries in the three locations where I want to show my books and do what I can to encourage the faculties and players to take up my repertoire. 

I’ve been reading a book about Bach’s early life which describes how he travelled around in great discomfort to further his life in music; often on foot for over a hundred miles, and usually with little or no welcome at the other end. Taking inspiration from this, I will try not feel intimidated by the lack of a welcoming committee.  My cause is the continuation of the piano repertoire in the line of the great composers who wrote tunes before me.   Several colleges I have contacted have still not given me the green light to go in, but go in I will! I have not spent 19 years creating a whole new repertoire to then do less than the maximum it takes to push it forward.   

In addition to my lecture notes, Dicataphone and camera, I am packing my boxing gloves and a smile.