the best

I may add to this over the coming days, as my mind is still in that jet-laggy-sleep-deprived fog. But here's a start to my "Best Of" list:

Best Airline: 1. V Australia (help-yourself 24-hour free snack bar, way too many entertainment choices, staff who actually talk to you like a normal person, wide/comfy/good-reclining seats, pretty coloured lights inside the cabins - mood lighting, and a bar area!); 2. JetBlue (out of all the domestic US airlines this one was by far and away the best - no baggage fees, free snacks all flight, free individual TV/etc all flight, nice new planes inside and out); 3. Southwest (the cheap-n-cheerful of the bunch, no baggage fees, sit-where-you-like - first come best dressed); all the others were pretty dreadful, and I was appalled that they were 3 of the "big" airlines - each one charged a $15 bag fee, and the only snack they gave out free was a pissy little cup of soft drink and a bag containing 5 peanuts/pretzels/potato chips. I shall avoid these airlines from now on, and so should you! United, American, Delta - pah.)

Best Meal: jeez, this is going to be tough. It was all amazing and delicious. Maybe I'll do it by city...... LA - Bamboo Chicken Ramen at "Mr Ramen"; San Fran - hmm, it's a tie between the Chinese dumpling banquet and the creole fried chicken with mashed sweet potatoes; Austin - again a tie between the Brazillian meal and my sister's amazing home cooking; Chicago - purely for reasons of atmosphere, I'll give it to the Greek place. For service it would be the Italian. Both were incredible; NYC - this one is tricky... but I can't go past the amazing naan bread at the Indian restaurant on Thursday night!

*phew*, that was probably the hardest award!

Best Crowd: for size - Austin; for friendliness - all of them!

Best Venue: they were all amazing. Seriously. I can't fault a single one for helpfulness, staff, facilities, vibe. Brilliant.

Best Performance: hm, there were moments in all of the gigs that were really special... but I'll narrow it down to - LA, performing Cat Lamb's new piece for the first time; SF - we *nailed* the duos!, and premiering Jen's new piece; Austin - recovering after the score-slipping-incident; Chicago - performing Nomi's duo; NYC - getting to finally, after 2.5 years, perform "beautiful//fragment" for Jenny.

Funniest Moment: inflatible sheep. baaa.

Favourite Touristy Thing: again, too many amazing experiences to choose from! But a few stand out - the Frank Gehry buildings in LA and Chicago, seeing "Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom" at the Blanton in Austin, the California Academy of Science in SF (especially the Spiny Lumpsuckers!), and the Jenny Holzer exhibit at the Whitney in NY.

Best Nature Moment: definitely hiking in Austin, albeit brief!

Cutest Moment: Joshua (my nephew) wins this award, hands-down. He wrote/drew me a little sticky note when I was rehearsing in Austin, saying "good luck" for the performance. awww. Also performing at his school was a real treat.

...more awards to come!!

east coast style

i'm currently sitting in Los Angeles airport, whiling away the last 4 hours before boarding my flight home. Here are some reminiscences about my time in NY...

Arrived Monday afternoon from Chicago, after encountering all sorts of flight cancellations, re-bookings, delays, and finally a green light to take off. In the end I got to NY at around the same time as the flight they'd originally booked me on! Crazy.

Found Jenny/Juice and Tes's place, and used my new arty-farty brolly to fend off the rain. Just had time for a cuppa tea before heading out to an Irish pub in Manhattan for a session that Tes was playing in. Nice cozy little pub, good music, good beer, good food, good times. Was really great to see them both again, and to catch up on plans, accomplishments, memories and life in general.

Tuesday was a chance to sleep in a little, before braving the chilly breezy spring air to have a wander in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. Not much in bloom, but there was an eerie starkness to the landscape. The cherry blossoms provided a sudden burst of colour and cheer. At this point I discovered the greenhouses, containing tropical and desert plants........and WARMTH!!! yay! I walked niiiiice and slooooooooow to soak up the humidity (my glasses fogged up as soon as I stepped inside!), before braving the outside world once more.

A short stroll home, then we headed out to dinner at a nearby Austrian restaurant - yet another addition to the ever-increasing range of cuisines I've had the pleasure of experiencing on this trip! And stay tuned for even more!! Then it was off into Manhattan for an NYU composers concert. Venue was an interesting gallery (can't think of the name offhand) which I'll keep in mind for my future performances in NY. THe performers gave convincing interpretations, and the program was diverse and bold. An excellent glimpse into some emerging talent!

Wednesday was concert-preparation day, starting with a rehearsal of Nomi's flute duo (with my Bang on a Can flutey friend Jessica Schmitz). It was nice to work with Jessica again, I wish we'd had more time to prepare one of the other cool duos I brought on this tour. Next time, for sure. Allowed myself plenty of time to get in to the city and find The Tank - it's really close to the big Broadway/Times Sq theatre district, which I wasn't expecting at all! Much crowd-battling ensued, until I finally located the venue. It really reminded me of the Metro Arts space in Brisbane - very cute funky little space!

Concert went great, and it was a particularly special night as I got to perform "beautiful//fragment" for Jenny for the first time. She wrote it for me almost 2 years ago, and I've performed it several times since then, but I've always wanted to have her hear it. It was pretty emotional for a lot of reasons, and I felt that it was one of the most 'true' performances I've ever given of this intense and confronting work. Rock on, Juice - thanks for writing such an awesome piece for me.

Post-concert celebrations were held at a Ukranian restaurant (I told you there was more cuisine to come!), and once again I can't fault the food/beer/company in any way.

Thursday was a day of reflection. Felt strange to not have a performance to look forward to, after 6 gigs in 4 weeks. In a lot of ways I was just starting to settle into the travel-gig-rest cycle. But in other ways I was exhausted!! After another nice sleep-in I headed in to the city to visit the Whitney Museum of American Art. Wow, I didn't even know this place existed until Juice and Tes told me about it. Absolutely amazing. I was particularly struck by the exhibit of works by Jenny Holzer. Very bold, confronting, thoughtful, emotional, considered, and totally etched on my memory. It's the first time in a long time (can't remember when) that I've actually been so overwhelmed that I couldn't view every single piece in the exhibit. It was a good feeling to be able to say "ok, I've had enough now" - all in a good way, mind you!

Thursday night Jenny and Tes had organised a little gathering of various friends at "The Cubbyhole". Being the first to arrive I sat in the window with a beer and people-watched for a while. After the intensity of the art museum this was a much needed moment of calm. The bar was in a really lovely little area (The Village??), and was an insanely cute place! Filled with colourful ornaments hanging from the ceiling, daffy duck stools, and a great vibe. The gathering was great fun, and there were several periods when the Americans in our group were outnumbered by Aussies+Brits. Go the Commonwealth! hehehe... everyone was really lovely (as I'd expect any friends of J+T to be!) and I had a great night of relaxing chat and laughter.

Dinner was Indian - and was awesome of course. I love that my friends and family know such amazing places to eat! Thanks guys, I've been really spoilt on this trip!! The walk to the subway was tinged with hilarity as we passed several sex shops. The inflatible sheep was particularly amusing.... and yet also disturbing! Ahhhh good times.

Today was travel, travel, travel. Left the house at 10.30am, subway-subway-airtrain, then flight NY-LA, walk-walk-walk, and now all checked in for my 10.50pm flight to Brissie. Still 3.5 hours to fill in before boarding, and only 30 minutes of battery time left on my computer. agh! Hoping that books, newspaper, dinner and possibly a short snooze will be enough to pass the time.

See you all on the other side of the planet!

Chi-town

it's hard to believe that i'm just 2 days away from the final gig of this crazy tour. in some ways the first concert in Brisbane seems a really long time ago, in other ways it feels like a whirlwind. it's been a great experience, and really rewarding in so many ways. performances in the 'classical' genre (in the broadest possible definition of the term!) generally don't get a season in the same way that a ballet or opera production might. all the hard work and months of preparation usually result in just a single performance. it's been fantastic, on this tour, to be able to spend more time developing the works in performance mode (which is totally different from practise mode), and to settle in to a rhythm of performance that's rare to find in this little niche of the music biz.

more reflections after i get home, but here's a quick run-down of the last few days.

during my week in austin i performed a small session for my nephew's 1st grade class. it went great! the kids were really attentive and asked some good questions. it was fun to see them getting up and dancing, and having a good ol' groove along to Zoom Tube. the next day i did a small session for my niece's kindy class, which was somewhat more chaotic, but pretty cute all the same. after realising that their attention span was pretty much non-existent i invited them up one at a time to try pressing a key down while i played. there were 3 or 4 kids who kept coming back time after time, and after all the others had gone back outside to play, this small group remained and just wanted to keep playing and investigating it all! very cute.

up through the middle of the country to chilly chicago, and my composer friend Nomi. i was also reunited with my flutist friend Tara, who had flown in from LA for this gig. yay! it was a small crowd, but i was really happy with the performance (even running my own sound for the first time - and it all worked!!). just as the concert started, so did the snow! behind me were a row of large windows, so each time i finished a piece i'd get distracted watching the snow fall. i kept commenting on it, even though i realised that it was an everyday sort of occurrence for the crowd. had a nice chat after the concert with another 'new music' flutist from chicago, so will be great to keep in touch with her and exchange repertoire ideas etc. also was approached by a man who had just arrived at the end of the concert, and thought i was some other 'janet mckay - flutist' that he knew in the area. i have a doppelganger!

after an arduous day's travel (should have been a simple 2 hour flight, ended up as a 6 hour marathon!!) i've finally arrived in new york, and about to head out to an irish music session. tomorrow will hopefully be a bit of a rest day (and laundry, emails, etc etc) and doing a last big promo push for Wednesday night's gig. would be awesome to end the tour with a cracker!

catching up with myself

After the initial flurry of travelling, rehearsing, meeting up with friends I haven't seen for years, and of course performing, I'm now entering a few days of down-time. I'm currently in Austin, Texas, staying with my sister Ruth, my nephew Joshua and my little niece Madeleina. It's a city I've visited frequently since my sister moved here, so there's a calming sense of familiarity about it.

Backtracking a little before I move on: I need to tell you about the SF and Austin performances! San Francisco had a disappointing turn-out, but was an otherwise awesome gig. Beautiful space, fantastic staff (thanks Adria!), and Tara and I felt like we really nailed all the pieces... especially the Caprices! It was again a very friendly and informal vibe, and I'm really enjoying the experience of developing my spiels and my overall performance (ie not just the playing) from one gig to the next. It's an adrenalin rush, keeps the creative juices flowing, and inspires me to do more of this kind of thing.

On now to Austin, where I performed last night. It was a bit of a rockstar moment, with my name up in big letters on the front of the Arts Center (see photo above). Once again, an exciting and intimate space to perform in, brilliantly colourful artworks, and fantastic staff who were ready, willing and able to do pretty much anything for me to get the performance to happen. Minor technical hitch #1 occurred in the rehearsal, when we just couldn't get the delay pedal to work for the final piece. agh! Finally, about 20 minutes before the performance, Russell (awesome tech/venue manager) got it working! yeah! A quick test and we were ready to roll.

A nice healthy crowd of about 40 came for the show. Excellent. My flutist friend Seetha joined me for the Caprices this time - we'd performed together a few years ago in Austin, and it was fun to work on a new piece with her. I was really impressed with how well the Caprices came together in just one full rehearsal and a second short top-and-tail run. Amazing. Thanks Seetha! Hermes (composer of the Caprices) was there, he's doing his PhD here in Austin at the moment, so it was wonderful to finally meet him. Thanks for writing such cool pieces!

I had a lot of audience members approach me after the concert, saying how much they'd enjoyed the evening. That's always great to hear, and gives me a boost of confidence that maybe I am on the right track after all...

Now I have some downtime before heading to Chicago on Saturday. Today I went for a massage (thanks Emily!!) and she went deeeeeeep into some seriously messed-up bits of my poor ol' body. Those muscles under the shoulder blades - owwieeeeeeee! and my right QL.... eeeeeek! I've since had a soothing bath in epsom salts and feel much better. Currently supplementing that with a heat-pad as I type this, so fingers crossed that tomorrow all shall be well.

Tomorrow is a designated "home day" for me. Not gonna go anywhere. I need to have some ME time, catch up on some work and plan ahead for Chicago and NYC. Ruth and I might go see a movie tomorrow night, as the kids' dad will be here to look after them.

Wednesday I get to go to Joshua's 1st grade class to perform for them and talk about Australia and flutes and whatever else they want to know. Then I do the same at Leina's preschool, fun!! I was thinking of making that one interactive, with tuned bottles for them to blow, and I'll improvise over the top. Hmm, still thinking about that. Anyone have any experience with getting 3 year olds to blow across a bottle top???

Still enjoying the great food, definitely soaking up the beautiful warm Austin weather (just like home!), and excited to continue the tour. Can't believe I'm almost half-way through my time here.

j*

a day off

Another slow start to today - greeted by a tasty big bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, oh yeahhhhhh. Jen and I had decided to do something hideously touristy, but by the time we got going we'd missed a big chunk of the day. No problem, I was just happy to potter around and soak it all in. We took a lovely stroll down to the waterfront near where Jen lives, and I was amazed at how many eucalyptus trees there were. Just like home.

We'd decided to head towards Golden Gate Park to check out the California Academy of Sciences: http://www.calacademy.org/ which was amaaaaaaaaaazing! By the time we got there we only had about an hour and a half but boy did we make the most of that time! Mostly hung out in the underwater section, where I discovered the Alligator Gar and the Spiny Lumpsucker (I kid you not). After much oohing and ahhing we moseyed up to the "Living Roof" which was very cool and reminded me of Teletubby Land. We just managed to get downstairs again in time for the last Planetarium show of the day - thank goodness, it was incredible! High tech digital 3D stuff from earth to the solar system, galaxy, universe, etc etc. Brilliant.

Departing the show and feeling utterly insignificant, we battled the cold wind and decided to have a look at the oceanfront. It was so close, we just couldn't pass it up! But brrrrrrr it was chilly. Lasted all of about 5 minutes before turning right back around and discovered a lovely pond in the midst of the park (the park itself stretches for dozens of city blocks - huge!), so we sat in the remnants of sunshine, chatted to the beautiful ducks and chuckled at their waddly backsides.

Next stop was dinner - a little Chinese dumpling place that Jen had never been to, but had seen great reviews online. Fingers crossed! At least it was warm in there. Thankfully it was DELICIOUS!! Wow! O Great Internet Phenomenon, shall ye never fail us?? The dumplings were amazing, as was everything else on the table (there was A LOT of food ordered. ahem. lots of leftovers for lunch tomorrow!). Sean drove us back over the Golden Gate bridge which was a gorgeous way to end an awesome day.

Now I'm kicking back, waiting for my laundry to dry, and listening to the new Indigo Girls CD that was just released yesterday :-)

Next report will be post-concert, probably day after tomorrow...

next stop...

...San Francisco! Had a lovely short flight in to Oakland yesterday, was nice to be in small airports instead of the scary big confusing ones. Flew in over soft green hills and sprawling farmlands, some hills even had a bit of snow still clinging to the slopes. From Oakland I was collected by my gorgeous composer friend Jen, and her husband Sean, and we travelled in to Berkeley where they both work. Jen treated me to a delicious lunch at a little French style bistro - I tried her gingerbread pancakes and was jealous ;-)

While Jen went back to work, I braved the public transport system and successfully got myself in to the centre of San Fran to visit the Meridian Gallery. It's a beautiful space, spread over 3 levels, and right in the heart of the city. Thankfully it's also just at the base of one particularly steep hill :-) Once again the staff were brilliant, really going out of their way to make sure everything was as it needed to be. Unfortunately one artwork has to be removed from the space as it's using the DVD screen that I'll need for one of my performance pieces (Jen says hi) but other than that all the groovy artworks are staying put. yay.

Back to Berkeley for some more pottering (including a wonderful bookshop, and a soul-warming mocha with whipped creammmmmmmmmmmm... and then dinner at a cajun/creole restaurant. I couldn't see a single thing on the menu that didn't sound absolutely mouthwatering. I went for the fried chicken with ginger-vanilla-mashed sweet potato and beans (drool), and shared some sides of hush puppies and baby back ribs (smothered with bourbon-BBQ-sauce). we drank beer from jars (I kid you not - I even have photographic proof) and finished with bread and butter pudding with brown sugar syrupy buttery sauce stuff. good lord. i could barely fit anything else in (but monsieur, it is only wafffffer thiiiiin....), but made a special effort for the sauce.

Today we're having a slow start, but plan to head in to the city and do something terribly touristy - maybe a ferry ride on the bay, maybe go to alcatraz, perhaps some wanderings around golden gate park. Jen has promised some amazing chinese food for lunch, and by the sound of it we're going to have a laundry party tonight as i'm down to my last pair of (holey) socks.

ciao!

sunday

chilly cloudy small bursts of sunshine but not enough to feel warmth overslept mild panic eased after rehearsal lunch finally finished the burrito from yesterday managed to stretch it out to encompass 3 meals and they say that portion sizes here are the same as in australia uh i don't think so adventures at officemax to print programs should have taken 5 minutes ended up taking about 30 arrived at wulf much vacuuming had been achieved great space so friendly guests arrive music begins all well received one in particular deeply touched by the performance that kind of response always gives me hope some light mingling followed by mr ramen huge bowls there's that portion size issue again great comfort food and excellent company celebrating tara's birthday our concert erin's visit emily's departure off to find a bar to hang out stumbled upon shoji's birthday is this a private party yes but you can come in karaoke cake japanese beer hilarious fun what a birthday dancing queen stand by your man rock'n'roll suicide made a gracious exit before our welcome was worn out home to bed zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz