"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.
The best part about the Outer Banks is the National Seashore – gorgeous beaches that stretch for miles without any sign of commercialization. It’s a trek to get out here (a five-hour drive for me, and I live in-state), so the development further up the coast hasn’t hit this far down. I was never a big beach guy, but this is my seventh summer here, and I’ve come to realize that the beach is never a single thing – every visit is a new experience. Many people can’t imagine going to the beach on anything but a hot, sunny day, but overcast skies sometimes bring out special qualities in the air and in the indigenous populations.
Yesterday, Rebecca and I found some time away from work for a pleasant stroll in the sand, in the course of which we saw a school of dolphins feeding about 30 feet away, a flock of pelicans skirting the waves in tight formation, a beached conch shell, and countless splots of jellyfish. The fact that there was a light drizzle made little difference in our quiet delight. I got some great pictures, but for some reason Blogger isn't letting me upload them.
Last night’s production of Twelfth Night was a victim of a rainstorm, so instead audiences were treated to an impromptu cabaret act in the Art Gallery.
Fine arts and flip flops – sure suits me.
[S21 update -- somebody has taken a chainsaw to my wiki page. I guess that kind of thing is to be expected, but it seems a shame.]
posted by Lawrence Dillon
12:36 PM
