Well, not nothing, of course, but sitting here putting together another entry after not doing anything for a month makes it seem like nothing.
Rosh Hashanah starts today, and the choir at temple is pretty well ready. Everyone's nervous, of course, but there have been no breakdowns, no screaming, and no tantrums anywhere that I've seen.
I'm told that's unusual for this temple. May it continue through the rest of the season.
DV blew up again, but I think most of the pieces have been reassembled. We hired a fine person for general manager and today was his first board meeting. What a way to begin, immediately after another firestorm of overwrought e-mail and hurt feelings this last week.
The church is fairly quiet these days. Of course, they're getting ready to host the regional assembly for the denomination and that means lots of work is going on around the place to get ready. They commissioned a new anthem from me for the weekend and if I can say so myself I think it turned out okay.
It's on a text by the pastor (my boss) based loosely on the Beatitudes text from Matthew. It even includes a Spanish language chorus in one section. The Spanish was translated by a friend in Phoenix (another pastor in the region) and I hope I didn't mangle it too badly. It's set for SATB choir, two trumpets, and piano. I think the two trumpets add a nice mariachi flavor to the piece without actually quoting anything real mariachi. We'll see how well it goes over.
After things calm down a bit I need to get to work creating a new edition of the Christmas cantata I wrote for them almost ten years ago now, Brightest and Best. That's going to be the main piece for the season. I'll flesh the rest of Advent out with The Cherry Tree Carol setting I made a couple of years ago and maybe a couple of new settings for this year. We'll have to see how much time I have to work between now and then.
Dog knows I need some sort of triumph right now. I've been so discouraged for the last year and a half that I've barely written anything. Maybe I can turn that around this year. I've already written more in the last two months than I've done since that stupid movie a year ago last April.
Oh, enough, May the blessings of the season be upon you.
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