When it rains...

I meant to do a few different posts in the last few days about things that have been rolling around in my head, but that I haven't had the time to write down coherently. Events, as it happened, intervened. Starting Thursday, I was elated to find out that my Night, sleep, death and the stars was nominated by Finland to the International Rostrum of Composers. As an immigrant whose permanent residence is still pending, it's a great honor to be so noticed. Then HKK and dancer/choreographer Nina Hyvärinen gave a stunning, intensely expressive performance of ad puram annihilationem meam in Tampere, which was followed by HOL's triple-gold-medal-winning presentation of Sora/Mizu from Shiki, subsequently broadcast on radio from the festival's final concert. The choir was amazing, and rightly won the highest place in the mixed choir category of the review. I was later pleased to learn that Short Road has been singled out by Gramophone for their "Blog Roll" segment in an upcoming issue (specifically, this post), another unexpected honor, though it may mean that I have to start taking this blogging thing seriously. I see my Mahler thesis vanishing before my eyes...

Not losing a beat, I managed to crank out the last bars of the remaining piece from Leaves of Grass ahead of a preview performance on Tuesday, leading to the big premiere on June 27. I hit the "Send" button, breathed a massive sigh of relief, and poured myself a generous drink. Sipping my gin and tonic (Hendricks, in case anyone cares), I thought about the things I needed to get done in the coming days when a certain chain of events started earlier than expected, and led to my best coda ever:


We named him Oliver Ralph (see this post for pronunciation guide). I've had about as much excitement as I can stand. (Photo by Esko Kallio)