"There are no two points so distant from one another that they cannot be connected by a single straight line -- and an infinite number of curves."
Composer Lawrence Dillon has produced an extensive body of work, from brief solo pieces to a full-length opera. Three disks of his music are due out in 2010 on the Bridge, Albany and Naxos labels. In the past year, he has had commissions from the Emerson String Quartet, the Cassatt String Quartet, the Mansfield Symphony, the Boise Philharmonic, the Salt Lake City Symphony, the Ravinia Festival, the Daedalus String Quartet, the Kenan Institute for the Arts, the University of Utah and the Idyllwild Symphony Orchestra.
Although he lost 50% of his hearing in a childhood illness, Dillon began composing as soon as he started piano lessons at the age of seven. In 1985, he became the youngest composer to earn a doctorate at The Juilliard School, and was shortly thereafter appointed to the Juilliard faculty. Dillon is now Composer in Residence at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where he has served as Music Director of the Contemporary Ensemble, Assistant Dean of Performance, and Interim Dean of the School of Music. He was the Featured American Composer in the February 2006 issue of Chamber Music magazine.
March is the month when Petersburgians are most likely to be killed by falling icycles. This morning I was whistled by a traffic cop for walking too close to a building that was tossing deadly chunks of ice down at the passing pedestrians.
The Cyrillic alphabet is like John Cage: first it is annoying, then it's fun, then it's annoying, then it's fun, then it's annoying, then it's fun, etc., etc., etc.
Health Notes: 1] Nobody here is overweight. 2] Everybody here smokes.
Sidewalk shoveling seems to be the exclusive provenance of women.
It's been snowing two days straight, but weather seems to have no impact on the steady, heavy flow of pedestrian traffic and daily business on Nevsky Prospect. Even street musicians continue to perform, with temperatures in the single digits (Fahrenheit).
I tried to buy some sausage at a market around the corner, but the grocers refused to sell it to me, insisting that I really wanted hot dogs. Who was I to argue? But I really wanted the sausage.
