Greetings, One & All~
As the sun sets farther and farther south on the mountainous horizon day by day, the stars come into sharper focus in the clear midnight sky, the pre-dawn air turns cool and crisp, and the late afternoon light grows golden here in Northern Sonora, there is also an abundant harvest of cool autumn news in your October A 440 Newsletter!
Nakai, Eaton & Clipman
The legendary Wilde Boys ride again, this time to New Mexico for a concert at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque on Saturday October 4th at 4 PM.
Tickets & info for this show at http://indianpueblo.org/aiaf/
On three. . . everyone look really serious!
William Eaton Ensemble
The next morning I’ll gas up, grab a tall black coffee and hit the road for Phoenix AZ to perform for a private event with the equally wild William Eaton Ensemble at the fabled Heard Museum on Sunday October 5th at 8 PM.
Skipping ahead on the calendar, the William Eaton Ensemble will be in concert at Old Town Center for the Arts in Cottonwood AZ on Saturday October 25th at 7 PM.
Tickets & info for this show at http://www.oldtowncenter.org/events.html#3
WEE are very wee!
Radmilla Cody Band
But I digress. . . . On Saturday October 11th at precisely 8:20 PM I’ll perform with the Radmilla Cody Band at the annual Agua Caliente Cultural Museum Dinner in the Canyons fundraising gala in Palm Springs CA, where the incomparable Radmilla Cody will sing both solo traditional Navajo songs in the Dine’ language and her own original songs in the contemporary Americana idiom, backed by Johnny “Basshawk” Walker on (you guessed it) bass, Steve “Fattburger” Laury on guitar, and yours truly on drums.
Tickets & info for this show at http://www.accmuseum.org/Dinner-in-the-Canyons
RCB chillaxin’ on the rocks!
Temenos Quartet
Sometimes we need to glance in the rearview mirror to see more clearly what’s down the road and around the bend. . . . A big THANK YOU to everyone who came together to create an SRO crowd for the premiere performance of the Temenos Quartet at Galactic Center on the Autumnal Equinox, and helped us elevate the building a few feet off its foundations with intergalactic sonic synergy!
TQ probably won’t perform in public again until the Vernal Equinox (you are no doubt detecting a theme here, perceptive beings that you are!) but will be delving deep into the rehearsal room and recording studio in the meantime to lay tracks for the album everyone wanted to buy at the show, but which we had not yet manifested at that time. . . stay tuned to Station W-I-L-L for deets & dates!
These people are having entirely too much fun!
Myths & Masks
Beginning on October 27th and continuing through November 20th I’ll return to Sonoran Sky School in Scottsdale AZ to conduct my 18th annual Myths & Masks Artist-in-Residency with a new crop of fifth grade students. Does it make me feel old, you ask? Naaahhh. . . but I must share that the newest member of the fifth grade teaching team this year is a former fifth grade participant in my workshop, which dates back to the opening of the school in 1996. . . . Yikes!
Art keeps us forever young!
New Media
Talk about impeccable timing. . . . A while back I contributed textural percussion to a recording project with ambient trance-groove composer and soundscaper Dyan Garris, and just yesterday I got this new YouTube clip from her for the song Mystic Kiss from her forthcoming CD Mystic’s Nine:
I found it to be a very soothing montage of sonic and visual imagery, and I trust you will, too!
Poem of the Month
I’ve always loved Shakespeare’s line brevity is the soul of wit, and (my sometimes voluminous A 440 Newsletters notwithstanding) I always aspire to say more with less, with varying degrees of success. This heretofore unpublished Poem of the Month for October takes its inspiration from precisely this time of year, attempting to articulate the subtle shifting of seasons in the Sonoran Desert I call home, and distill from that moment a truth about the human condition. If you’ve read this far, gentle reader, read on for eight more lines!
The Fall
I love the light of autumn:
the fall from grace
through space and into place,
a season between extremes
when we forgive each other and ourselves
for all we have and have not done,
and prepare together
for the darkness and cold to come.
© William Clipman 2014; from Wilderness in the Marrow
~May your autumn be blessed with beauty~
