Indigenous Instruments

December 20, 2007

Hey all!

This is Chase writing again, and we're just a couple weeks away from the end of 2007. It's been a fantastic and phenomenal year for all of us in Citywater, personally and individually as well as within the group. The holiday season approaches and we're about to qo guiet for a couple of weeks just to lay back and enjoy ourselves before the frenzied work of practicing new repertoire begins. A couple of days ago, the entire group got together to take new photos, this time including our fascinating, hot-shot clarinetist Milun Doskovic. This is the stuff that'll get sent out to Berkeley, San Francisco, and the general Bay Area for press and publicity regarding the upcoming Steven Mackey concert. Afterwards, we all went out to a nearby Pub. Now, I believe that if you take the time to read these things, you're 100% deserving of reading about EVERY SINGLE STEP in our group process. You should get to read the dirt and the dish, and you should get to know all the little things that make us click. So without further hesitation, I present to you what incredible things happened to us at the bar that night-- ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! And we wouldn't have had it any other way. It's always nice just being able to shoot the breeze before you launch into business and start talking about scheduling and music and whatnot. I think Milun and myself had a brief discussion about the lack of single women in bars these days, and then, not too long after that, we immediately jumped into talking about future rep.

Just yesterday, I met with Tim (hot-shot cellist) and Ben (hot-shot percussionist) to get some of my music and to talk about scheduling. Suddenly, this became a very real thing. I mean, it's always real once you talk about it and a concert date gets set in stone, but seriously, once you have those pages in your hand, the music starts to taunt you. Yeah, that's right. You don't know a damn thing about me, and further more, you don't know how long it's gonna take for you to figure out how I work. And I don't give up my secrets easily, son. So you do whatever you think it is you have to do, and we'll see just how charitable I feel like being with your sanity. Then you go away, not wanting to start trouble, and make a battleplan for the best course of action on how to start working on the damn thing. But despite my individual hesitation and fear, my excitement overrides all. One of the Mackey compositions we're delving into is called Indigenous Instruments, and it's exciting. You always hear people talking about this piece when they reference the composer, and now, we're playing it. It's weird to think about sometimes. It'll be even more weird to start if none of us have any idea how to approach it. That's why we've scheduled what Tim calls a "Crash And Burn" rehearsal in mid-January which should give us a proper amount of perspective on how each of us is going to need to practice the piece. Fun, fun, fun!

Well, I don't really know what else to write about, and I fear that if I keep going any longer, I'll start to ramble and make-up stories along the way. Like "Citywater Saves Santa Claus" and our adventures to the North Pole or something. I'll spare you guys the pain, and I'll spare myself the embarrassment. Until we meet again, or until the next blog.

All the best,

Chase

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The Next Big Thing

Hello everyone!

This is Chase writing. I've been gone for a minute, but now I'm back. And isn't that last sentence a lyric from some sort of song? God, I'm already almost sorry that I wrote it because I know it's going to turn out to be from something that I either hate, or I'm too embarrassed to admit I enjoy. Anyhow, it's been a little while since I've written on this thing, and in the off chance that any Citywater fanatics-- future ones or otherwise-- love to read these things, well, then I'm all too happy to oblige.

Things have settled down for us a little bit just in time for the holiday season. We're off visiting family, catching up to loved ones, shopping for friends and family, and enjoy each other's company socially, outside of rehearsal. It's a nice time, but none of us are fooled. We all know that the busy times are just weeks around the corner, so it's nice to use the holiday season to send e-mails back and forth to composers whose works we'll be performing and to kind of get into a mental space that's ripe for good reheasing early in the year. We like to spend that time practicing, making sure we understand our part, and figuring out how we're going to make things happen. (NOTE: For any pianists out there, know that this is especially true for Jen Reason, our pianist. Most of our pieces involve her doing some sort of crazy-ass extended technique that the rest of us have never even heard of, so she spends a lot of her time face-down into the piano, scratching her head and occassionally, cursing out the composers.) Also, we listen to as many recordings (if any) as possible so we can get an idea of how somebody might've done things before us.

I know that Cathie was on here not too long ago, writing about our upcoming concert at UC Berkeley: The Music of Steven Mackey. That's incredibly exciting for all of us, and we just now set our program for the concert. Once again, Ben Prima will be taking on the mighty Micro-Concerto, which is quickly becoming a staple for us. And there'll be three other pieces on the program, one of which is called "Heavy Light." The rest of the gang will be performing that with our special guest, none other than the man himself, Steven Mackey. Unfortunately, that piece doesn't involve yours truly. A tragedy, I know. Be sure to write your local Congressman. But it's going to be an incredible concert, and I certainly hope that a lot of you will be able to make it. They'll have to correct me if I'm wrong, but if any of you are "Marimolin" fans, there may even be a special surprise sometime during the performance. I don't know, we'll have to wait and see. Or should I say I'll have to wait and see if I can work it out somehow.

So we're on to the next big thing. The group will be taking some new publicity photos at the end of this year and startin' up the rehearsal grind once again. There'll be a couple of outreach concerts, and maybe something at the Mondavi Center. It's going to be great. We're having the time of our lives. We think you'll have the time of yours, too!

All the best,

Chase

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Begin Game

Hey everybody!

This is Chase writing, and we're smack dab in the middle of the fantastic Festival of New American Music that takes place in Northern California. Citywater just had a successful debut with the festival, and I don't think we could've asked for anything better. It turns out that all of the excruciating 7AM rehearsals we had paid off, big time. I'm actually a little bit surprised that I'm awake right now, and writing this at 2:00 in the morning. In about six hours, the group and myself will pack our stuff and head up to Sierra College and play an outreach concert as part of the festival. Very exciting stuff! A lot of memories will be made for us after this, ones I don't think we'll be likely to forget anytime soon.

Here's one of them:

We had just finished playing a concert with Pauline Oliveros on one of her pieces she devised called "One Hundred Meeting Places", but Sunday was quickly looming over the horizon, and we still needed to rehearse. Luckily for us, we were able to get the hall from 10:00PM to about 12:00AM and get some last minute detail work in. And then, a surprise guest showed up and listened to one of our runthroughs. The guest was noneother than the world class marimbist and New Music Queen, Nancy Zeltsman, also a guest artist on the Festival lineup. That was an exciting moment for all of us, even though we were trying to maintain our composure and at least a slight sense of professionalism. She was even gracious enough to attend our concert on Sunday, and what fun that was!

Well, there's lots more stories to tell, and I'll certainly get around to a few of them, but like I said, there's still a concert to play in the morning. So for now, I'm signing off, and sending out all the wonderful thanks to the people of Sacramento who've been so wonderful and supportive. We've got some more tricks to pull out of our sleeve, so stay tuned-- literally-- because this game is just gettin' started.

All the best,

Chase

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Behind The Scenes

Hey everybody!

This is Chase writing. Now, you might see me listed on this site as "Charles," but don't let it fool you. That's just something my parents like to see on music programs. Anybody who knows me calls me Chase, and especially if you're a friend, and if you ever get the chance to make it out to one of our concerts and you visit us backstage, then that certainly makes you a friend of mine.

It feels like it wasn't too long ago when the murmurs about putting this group together actually started. It was Ben Prima's mighty solo recital and we took on a piece by Steve Mackey, and after we were finished, we all gathered backstage (minus poor Ben who still had one more piece to go.... I think it had something to do with getting drunk on stage). Somehow, that's when it clicked to us. We could actually make it as a functional group. We could potentially turn this chance, one-time meeting into a full fledged thing. And if you have the privelege to work with the people I get to work with, you'll know that once somebody drops an exciting thought like that, then get ready, 'cause you're off to the races. We had some time off during the summer and exchanged phone calls every now and again, followed by a couple of e-mails. Then we started meeting.

"Hey guys, I heard this really cool piece that I've been thinking about...."

That came from Ben.

One thing led to another and we started talking about schedules. Now, if you're a musician, and even if you're not, then you know that coordinating a time where more than four people can meet on a project can turn into pure, unadulterated hell. Getting the schedule together was a bit of a blur, but all of a sudden, we started the rehearsal process. Then, people started catching on to us, and we got a performance date. Then, we got another performing date, and some members in the groups got another date after that. This quickly snowballed into an official thing. So, it's hard to think that what's coming up for this newly-born group during the 2007-2008 season began with somebody suggesting backstage at a concert that we should all stick together. I'm certainly glad that we did, and I have a sneaking suspicion that you will be too. Now, I'm not going to give anything away, but there are some big plans in the works for us, so keep your eyes and ears open. It'll be an exciting time and we hope to take you some places you never thought you'd be able to go. And from time to time-- this is one of my favorite things-- we'll be checking back with the web site and writing about the journey the whole way through. I expect you'll be hearing some stories in no time.

All the best,

Chase

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