long time

It's been a little while since I last wrote an entry. In the past few weeks I've been working on the short score to the second scene, and doing a few gigs in Berlin and Leipzig. It is not easy for me to concentrate on those two things at the same time - my gigs were performances of my Leah Goldberg songs (some are available at www.myspace.com/osnatnetzer) which is a totally different aesthetics than my opera. It also requires me to sing and play the piano quite well, which takes a lot of practice... But nevertheless, I was able, before the deadline that I gave myself, to complete the short score to my second scene. Now starts the orchestration job. Usually, I don't look for many influences while I compose the core of the music, but when I orchestrate, it's a different matter. I always think; how can I do the same thing here, but more colorful, more imaginative, more extreme? Then I turn to other composers' music and look for their sensibilities. I just had a lesson a few days ago, and my teacher recommended that I look at Ravel's Rapsodie Espagnole for orchestration ideas. I always thought that Ravel was one of the best orchestrators that ever lived, and I completely agree that even though my music sounds nothing like Ravel, I can learn a lot from his sensibilities. Happily I took my teacher's suggestions, and looked a little at Ravel's score. I haven't yet started the orchestration of my second scene, but it's just a matter of a day or two until I do. More to come!

photos

I don't have many new things to add... I started working on my second scene, and it's going really well, and much faster than it took me to compose the first scene. Yay!

Yesterday I went to Leipzig and met some friends. I also had a very special moment with my favorite composer of all times, J. S. Bach. You can watch my pictures from Leipzig at:

http://osenboten.smugmug.com/City/Leipzig/10135186_4Je4H#P-1-15

enjoy!

shabat baboker

I'm sitting at the computer on Saturday morning and having a serving of the dessert that I made for dinner last night. I had some new friends for dinner last night. The occasion: an excuse to open the wonderful red wine that my boyfriend bought me in Israel, and the celebration of my completion of the first opera scene. No kidding, it took me seven month to write the whole thing, from sketch to completed score.

for dinner I served a slow cooked beef stew in wine, served with Gnocchi, green beens with a light dressing, fresh salad and freshly baked buns. All the websites that I checked recommended pairing Zinfandel with a heavy, wintery beef dish, so after a survey of what's available in Belrin, I came up with this stew, a sort of variation on Beef Bourgignon, my own version. It really came out delicious, and really did go well with the wine.

Mishap A: When I was food shopping for this meal, I had a lot of supermarket bags eventually, and I was putting two bags on each side of my bike handels. Too bad that the bags got cought in the wheels! I ended up with a torn bag and most of my green peppercorns fell out of the bag on the street! Fortunately, the peppercorn jar only opened, it didn't break, and I was able to still save what was left inside the jar (don't worry, I didn't collect peppercorn from the sidewalk!).

Mishap B: When I was making Aharoni's plum cobbler, I accidentaly put some bulgar wheat in place of brown sugar. They look the same! When I finish adding ingredients to the dough decide to taste it, because there's no raw eggs in it or anything that can be bad for me. I don't understand why the dough is grainy, and why it isn't sweet! Then I look at the bag and realize... OK - I don't panick - I only put into this dough an entire (real) vanilla bean. I can't throw the dough away and start over now. I put everything in the pan and cover it, so that the juices from the plums will be able to rise and soak the burgul, making it soft. It doesn't happen, the bulgar wheat is hard as stone... Last resort - I mix up the entire content of the cobbler, so that the bulgar wheat actually touches the plum juice. The result - yummy, but ugly plum dessert.

The guests didn't complain. They were also stuffed from the wonderful beef stew. And I am saved...

When making a wonderful meal for friends, I believe in being just a little imperfect. Of course I didn't mess up the cobbler on purpose, but if this was a perfect meal, what could come after it?

Yippee!

Great news:

I finished the first scene of the opera! The score of the first scene is exactly 100 pages long. How cool is that?

I should be very happy and I should feel accomplished... But I know that now I still have to record the whole scene, singing/speaking it in Hebrew and I have to send that to the translator so that she can translate it to English, and I also have to type it all into the computer (that's going to be hell...) and even after that's done, I know that there are going to be so many minute details to polish and so much proof reading, etc. etc.

The other thing that's preventing me from celebrating is that tomorrow I have to face a blank page again. Stay tuned to hear how that went...

Nitty gritty

The last few days' work was just that: work.

I got up every morning, made coffee and sat down to work on the opera. I made some pretty nice progress, but at the moment, I'm just orchestrating the first scene. I haven't started writing the second scene yet, even though the short score of the first scene is done. The reason is this: I am so close to finishing the orchestration of the first scene that I am just anxious to see it done before moving on. The other reason for this is that it is always scary to start something new, even if it's within the same piece that you're already writing.

But I know how I am going to approach it: I will read through the scene several times and look for some kind of climax or key moment in the theme. Then I will compose all of the main parts, those that are more lyrical or melodic, and then fill in the gaps. When one starts something from the beginning, there is always that vacuum and that expectation that the beginning will be enticing, inviting, amazing, perfect... By starting from the middle, it takes a lot of the pressure off, and then you can always use cool ideas from the middle and insert bits of them into the beginning, so as to foreshadow what's coming.

Other than working hard on the opera, I saw a bunch of friends, most of them German, just as a social thing, we didn't go to any concert or event. Come to think of it, I haven't gone to a concert in some time, because when I can already take a break from work and see someone, I just want to relax and have a good conversation... And apart from friends, I'm working on my German.

That's life right now: work, friends and German...

Sorry if it's not as exciting as the beginning of my blog...

Back in Berlin

Hello friends,

I haven't written in my blog for a long time, because I was visiting family in Israel. It's been many years since I last celebrated sukkot in Israel, so it felt different and special. I won't go into details about my trip here, because that's not what the blog is about. If you want to know more, send me an e-mail or give me a call.

Now I'm back in Berlin, and having the usual shock. I try to teach myself that making such rapid changes in life so often will naturally result in shock and some depression, and that I can just give myself a break once in a while and just adjust. That's what I'm doing today. I think I will contact some friends, talk to my boyfriend, go food shopping, maybe cook something, maybe buy some good speakers for my computer, cause one of the harder things about living alone for me, is the total silence all the time.

I can now reassure myself that before my trip to Israel I was really starting to enjoy Berlin and all it has to offer, and in a few days time, I will adjust again and feel great here. In the meantime, I don't know if I will work much today on my composition, but tomorrow is a new day...

My birthday

My birthday this year was one of the best ever. I didn't know what to expect, because these people at Sauen didn't know me at all a few days ago. But my birthday did not go unnoticed. The day before my birthday, after evening activities, we all went to a church in the village, to enjoy that space. In the church I taught Hava Nashira, a Hebrew canon that I learned at Walden (used the hand signs and everything, apparently really helped the non-musicians in the crowd). We also jammed on the organ, did some vocal inprovisations and just had a good time. When we were back, the remise (where we had most of our group meetings) was all decorated, and a party was about to start. We danced until midnight, and then they lit candles for me, gave me a cake, lifted me in the air, sang birthday songs, the whole deal... I was extremely happy. It was really like a child's birthday, with games and gummy candy and bamba, and it was very fitting, because I don't know how many people are that happy to turn thirty. At least, celebrating like a child makes you feel like birthday can still be a magical day. I also got a cake from the cooks in Sauen and a bouquet of red roses, and some people made sure that I was properly lubricated. I didn't get drunk really, just cheerful enough to dance until 2:00 am. The party lasted until morning, but I wanted to still have some of my wits left the next day, because it was another full day of activities.

That's it. Wonderful. I don't know much about Germans yet, but the ones I met in Sauen made a very positive impression.