Program #90, February 7 2002: Northwest composers series, part IA: The inaugural program, concluded.

Well, I should have known that starting a new series on local music would tempt me to overfill my plate. Last week's program featuring the new SoniCabal compilation disc (more about which here) ran long, what with all the nice live improv that was going on there in the studio. I'd originally pledged to play all the tracks from that disc, as well as work in some other material by SoniCabal composers as possible... but was running out of time to finish that agenda properly. What to do?

A bit of judicious rescheduling on the fly enabled me to continue the Northwest Composers inaugural program over into this week. So, I started off by finishing up the leftover tracks from the SoniCabal disc, then moved on to works by other local composers: past and present, SoniCabal-associated and non-SoniCabal. In a way, I'm sort of glad this ended up getting stretched out to two weeks -- I got to start off the series in a vivid way with the SoniCabal, as I wanted, and yet was able to work in other local folks for a more well-rounded inaugural program. Couldn't have planned it better if I'd tried!

I've also taken a hint from the embarrassment of riches I experienced putting together, um, this not-quite-singular inauagural program. Although I'd originally planned that the Northwest Composers series would run whenever there was a fifth Thursday in the month, starting in April the Northwest Composers series will trade positions with the Asian Voices/Dialogues with Asia series, and will run on the fourth Thursdays of even-numbered months. And of course, in the midst of this I will continue looking for good ways to interpolate the work of local composers into other playlists, themed programs, and series.