Summer has come and gone (in a hot flash, it seems!) and students are suddenly back in school and life is travelling even faster than I ever imagined it could!

With the CD “WHO WILL BELIEVE MY VERSE IN TIME TO COME?” released and beginning to enjoy circulation, I am about half-way through the mixing process on “TAKE ALL ME LOVES…” – the jazz/rock/pop settings of Shakespeare’s sonnets. The CD contains 35 sonnets in styles that range from New Orleans Blues to hip-hop to big band swing to bossa nova. It truly runs the gamut.  And, as it seems with all of my projects, it grew bigger than I had originally envisioned it and on some days it seems it will never be completed! But I  am trusting that dilligence and Divine Intervention will win out and we will finish on time and be ready for an October 2009 release! (The music book that goes with it is – happily! – completed now and available for download next week!   Go  to DDuvallMusicPublishing.com)

While all of that is bring worked on, I am also preparing for the stage adaptation of this project: “I ALWAYS WRITE OF YOU” – which is being workshopped at Seattle Shakespeare Company in late October 2009. We will be auditioning at the end of next week for 6 singing actors (3 men, 3 women) who will sing, recite and re-invent about 2/3 of the Sonnets in a no-plot non-revue style that I am very excited about. It’s really an examination of how amazingly clear these poems are – still, after 400 years — and how many ways can we find to relate to them today.

Of course, when creating the stage show I realized that there were more up-tempo and “fun” number needed — and after writing them I realized they should be on the “TAK ALL MY LOVES…” CD —- and that is how the CD project grew bigger than I had anticipated. Very “Catch 22″ : The better the stage show got, the bigger the CD playlist became…

Between all of the preparation needed for these ventures, preparing for a winter production of DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS  that I will be musical directing, teaching private lessons and still trying to turn out a few private commissions I’ve been given — well, let’s just say life has truly become a handful.  I’m also still raising the funds needed to complete all these projects – so hold a good thought that everything will come together as it should.

Having celebrated another joyous anniversary with my wife, my eldest daughter’s 18th birthday, spending  a week with my sister in Canada and experiencing a few other milestone moments in the past 3 months, I am ever convinced of many of the things I read and work with in Shakespeare’s Sonnets — “Love Alters Not…. but bears it out, even to the edge of doom”. Hope you are all able to hang in there as we move day by day into our future and a clearer love of ourselves and each other —

Until next time –

DD

I’ve gotten back to work on “TAKE ALL MY LOVES…”, the CD of  my pop/rock/jazz settings of Shakespeare Sonnets this past week and will continue working on it through September. It’s good to be back at work on this part of the project again, having spent the last few months concentrating on the more classical settings. (That CD, “WHO WILL BELIEVE MY VERSE IN TIME TO COME?”, was made available to the public almost 3 weeks ago and I feel fortunate to have gotten many compliments on it — much of the credit for those compliments go to the astounding performers who appear on the CD, to whom I feel highly indebted!)

And I finally joined Facebook today, and I feel the need to share why – since I’ve been getting several comments about my initial Facebook entry from friends. I mentioned in my first blog here that my good friend Greg Palmer had recently passed. He was both friend and mentor to me, and I always found his advice to be sound. About 2 weeks after he passed I got one of those e-mails that says “the following people are inviting you to join Facebook: ….” and Greg’s name and graphic were on the list. Not knowing exactly which plane he was residing on at the moment I still gave him my best askance-look dry take to say: “excuse me?!?!?” – and thought “well, now, I suppose I should pay attention to that“. Then just before Father’s Day weekend it happened again – while searching for a different old e-mail that one popped up, as if to remind me I hadn’t done anything about the last message yet. Finally, on Father’s Day Sunday, the cover photo of Pacific Northwest Magazine inside the Seattle Times was of Greg, and the magazine featured an excerpt from his last book “Cheese Deluxe”. No escaping him. So – Why fight solid advice from beyond the grave?

There are a lot of benefits to being on Facebook that I am sure I will discover as time goes on. From wherever he is, I’m sure he has a good reason for making sure I took care of it.

I’m not hugely excited about having one more thing to pay attention to  – or, more likely, one more thing to get distracted by – but I was kind of astionished to see how many friends (current, recent and long-lost) there were on Facebook to keep up with – and surprised by how many have gotten back to me either through Facebook or my personal e-mail account to let me know they want to keep in touch. Warms the heart, it does! So if you’re one of those reading this, now you understand the comment that I posted and hopefully you’ll come back here from time to time to find out what’s going on with me. And if you’re not one of those, hopefully you’ve read an entertaining story.

And everyone please keep a good thought for the successful completion of “TAKE ALL MY LOVES…” — so far the work coming out of the studio is quite wonderful (again, thanks to engineer David Lange and brilliant performances by talented friends!) but with only 4 out of 25 songs finished it really feels like we “have not yet begun to mix!”

Until next time –

Jus a quick note to say that my wife Penny and I had the pleasure of attending a concert at the Good Shepherd Center in Seattle last Saturday – Musica Latina Classica- devoted to music fom Latin American composers. While I will grant that some of the selections were more avante garde that I personally like music to be, it was all performed brilliantly and most of the concert was mesmorizingly beautiful! Our friend Natalie Lerch was the lone vocalist, joined by her friends Julie Cho on cello, Victoria Parker on Violin, all performed with the magnificent Oana Rusu Tomai on piano. The concert was a feast of musical emotions – passionate & fiery, as one would expect of latin music, and the romantic lushly-composed ballads were truly sumptous to the ear! Lots of variety in the program. I hope that these four team up together again. It was a wonderful evening – and the heat of the day, still resonating in the Good Shepherd Chapel on the fourth floor, along with the sunlight streaming through the beautiful stained glass windows really added to the Latin American atmosphere!

Which leads to an important but more mundane train of thought — while I go back into the studio in about 3 weeks to continue work on the second CD of my settings (titled “TAKE ALL MY LOVES…”), I still need to raise between$5,000 – $7,000 to complete the project. Lord, how I miss the days of artists having patrons and/or government assisted arts projects. (Okay – we still have some of that, but not nearly what we used to…. it’s such a distant memory it almost feels like a past life!) I’ve been doing what I can to raise what I need – and I will continue to do so until the project is completed – but I decided that there was no reason not to make the Universe aware that there is this need. What is almost completed here is a collection of timeless verse that clearly has historical and cultural value -that has proven itself to be a timeless capturing of the human condition – having been put to music in a selection of styles that makes it accessible to those unfamiliar and/or intimidated by their age and their language. And it’s working! I have friends who are already teaching from the music books, and students who are truly turned on by the material. There are people chomping at the bit for the recordings to be completed so they can enjoy them and/or use them to inspire students and friends. So many of the brilliant performances that have been recorded were donated to the cause – (I am truly moved by the number of talented artists who contributed to the project for no more reward than being part of it!) and what has already been accomplished in the studio happened for easily less than 1/4 of what it should have cost. But there’s this last bloody stumbling block that I need to conquer before these pieces of musical and literary art can reach their audience.

SO — if you or someone you know is interested in contributing to an incredibly worthwhile, educational project that will bring light and joy into the world, please contact me and let me know. Contact information is on the home page of my website. There is no contribution too small. A $5 contribution is as valuable to me at this point as a $500 or $5,000 one. The goal is $7,000 – which on the scale of commissioned art is almost nothing. I am aware that everyone is having challenges finding the money they need to complete their art – and it’s all important work that needs to be attended to — still I know that some of you like to be part of the process in this manner, and I am happy to accept patronage at any level!!!!

I am planning to create a section in the CD jacket to acknowledge “The Shakespeare Angels” – those who would like to be recognized for their contribution to the completion of the project. For those who wish to remain anonymous.. well, that’s an even easier thing to do. For those who do contribute, the biggest reward I can promise you is that people of all ages will find joy in and new respect for our wonderful language and the thoughts that a poet of 400 years ago was able to capture with his pen…. proving that love – with all it’s joys, pains, complications, benefits and mysteries – will remain universal as long as human beings exist. (Whoa….. seems that there is a theme developing for the end of my blogs…. )

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO THE SONNETS — and wishing beautiful, love-filled days to you all –

David

Ahhh… my “virgin” blog. It seems like forever since I’ve done something for the first time. Nice to have that particular  feeling of anxiety again…..

As I officially launch my website I wanted to include a blog on the events of the last few days – many of which seem particularly relevant to this occasion. Things come to an end and other things come to a beginning.

My wife Penny and I had the thrill of seeing the 5th Avenue Theatre’s production of SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE last week – went to see several friends who were in the show and to witness the very cool techno set that has been creating such a stir. The set was indeed impressive, and my friends gave the kind of brilliant performances that have made them so successful and popular with audiences. SUNDAY IN THE PARK always moves me greatly – I don’t know how you can be an artist of any kind, particularly a generative (as opposed to “interpretive”) artist without SUNDAY being a deeply moving experience. As I lived through a beautiful interpretation of the script and score I was reminded time and time again by parts of the story and the performances presented why it is that I do what I do – what the on-going cost of the need to create is – how private and personal the true rewards of creation are – what some of the things one can do to avoid the more painful pitfalls are, and that many pitfalls are just unavoidable…. and the show reminded me of a quote a favorite line from the film  POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE: “I don’t want life to imitate art, I want life to BE art!”.  And I truly do.

Life has not been “finished” art this week, but it has been “work-in-progress” art — something akin to the middle of the week episodes of YOUNG AND RESTLESS. I suddenly lost a dear friend and mentor on Friday – the ever witty and always wonderful Greg Palmer, who taught much more about life as art and visa versa than almost anyone I’ve ever known. It’s been 4 days now, and parts of me are still in shock.  His passing comes as I’ve been inundated for several weeks with reasons to discuss and/or think about the people who taught me what I know about life and art — mentors I can remember back to when I was about 7 or 8. And as that earthly friendship/mentorship with Greg came to an end, the following things came to a beginning:  I just booked the best nightclub show I’ve ever created into a short but hopefully powerful run at Julia’s On Broadway this summer; I finished raising enough money (today!) to duplicate “WHO WILL BELIEVE MY VERSE IN TIME TO COME?”, the first of the CD’s of my new Shakespeare Sonnet project – so I now know that will be ready to release the first of June; I began writing arrangements for my friend Cayman Ilika’s new tribute show to the music and career of Rosemary Clooney; Seattle Shakespeare Company has confirmed it’s intention to workshop “I ALWAYS WRITE OF YOU”- a theatrical adaptation of my new musicalizations of Shakespeare’s Sonnets; and news that there are a few more nibbles on a debut production of SOMEBODY’S CALLING MY NAME- a show that I created with playright OyamO that celebrates the evolution of race relations in America via the evolution of the Spiritual. Nothing I’ve been working on is exactly ready for public consumption, but so many things are right on the brink.  All that, and three people important to me that I have not had contact with in almost a year all got ahold of me today – for some random reason –  to remind me that they love me, miss me and want to stay part of my life.  Losses and gains. Ups and downs. Yes, I am a Libra – (so I find this next fact enormously comforting) – but clearly the Universe is all about balance.

In fact, if I’ve had one recurring thought this weekend, it’s that there quite definitely seems to be an order to the universe – and my only regret is that I can’t seem to flip ahead in the script to see where it ends up or what exactly I’m supposed to do to get there. All I seem to know today is that Love – be it in the form of friendships, children, students/mentors, relatives, partners, spouses – is very clearly at the core of all things…. good art celebrates that truth, and all things will happen in their own time, no matter how much you want to control the minutia of it. (Damn — guess I have to keep giving up control of the situation….)

I’m always open to your thoughts – please feel free to share – that’s what this blog is for. I share, you share, we all scream for ice cream…..

May you find joy and warmth in the art and the love that comes your way —

David