A toast to Guinness (the dog)

2006 was the year of the dog – in the Chinese calendar and in my life. First, my roommate got a greyhound. My two elderly cats passed away – Pam in Dec. 2005, then Bertie in March 2006. The end of an era! I still do find stray bits of cat hair and kitty litter. The roommate moved away, and in Sept 2006 I got Guinness – an adorable long-haired dachshund -- he was then 9 months old (born on Jan. 4, 2006). I got him through Rosie's daughter, Ariela – he belonged to her boss, who found she didn’t have time for a puppy. I got a real dose of puppy behavior as he chewed through the computer cords (crashing the hard drive – luckily he wasn't a fried hot-dog!) and even my breast prosthesis (Mmm, yummy silicone!!)

Now he's almost 2 and much calmer. But, still I contemplate on the profound change of going from being a "cat person" for 17 years to being a "dog person." Maybe it's something like having a sex change – I really relate to the world in a different way, people who never looked at me before are so friendly and engaging!

Travel / Family / Friends

There was lots of travel: New Years 2006 in Guatemala, also a week in Guatemala in April 2007, at a language school (really great and incredibly cheap). Here's a picture of me in Guatamala (Quetzaltenango)

Feb. 2006: Cuba (!!!) for an amazing week with some colleagues from the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis

August 2006 – Santa Fe, NM – My mom and I saw some great opera

Oct. 2006 -- Prestigious NEA Journalism Institute, hosted by Columbia University. My journalistic products are here and here, as well as the Clarke Society Newsletter.

Nov. 2006 – Hawaii (Oahu ) – hey, it was a conference, lots of hard work! Followed by Thanksgiving in California with my family.

August 2007 – Oxford UK with Laura Macy for the Scrabble tournament (just kidding, we played a lot of Scrabble, with her winning almost all of it.)

November 2007 – AMS (American Musicological Society) in Quebec City

Speaking of family – my sister is now a very successful Realtor with her own webpage and her face on signs all over northern CA!

My niece has her driver's license and a job at a photography store. My nephew continues to play guitar and is learning to drive. Both are doing well at school.

Rosie and I celebrated our fourth anniversary. Links for Rosie's rabble rousing here and professional life here.

This summer, my mom exhibited several of her artworks (in watercolor and fiber media) at the Kniznick Gallery in the WSRC

Friends -- well, friends, you're the ones reading this, right?? I feel so fortunate to have such a fabulous, devoted and fun group of friends!!

Work: Clarke and other historic women

I had the very great privilege of teaching a class on women composers (mostly historic) at Brandeis in the spring of 2007. The eight students and one auditor represented a wide spectrum of experience and interests. They all did excellent work and we contributed articles to Wikipedia (the online dictionary) about many of the composers we studied.

The Rebecca Clarke Society's commission of composer Ruth Lomon to orchestrate Clarke's Sonata for Viola came to fruition with the premiere on June 8, 2007 – this was a very big project. That performance was certainly the first of many – the second will be on Feb 10, 2007!

An audio file of the second movement (Vivace) of the orchestrated Sonata is available on our website where there is also information and our latest newsletter (PDF).

I also started working on a project revitalizing The Women's Philharmonic as an advocacy organization; I'll be focusing on this a lot in 2008.

SAVE THE DATE: NOV. 2, 2008

On Oct. 16, I'll be turning 50, and by way of a birthday party, I am planning a concert. So far I have the date, Sunday, Nov. 2 – I'm pretty sure about this. Also the place, The Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis, and it will be a string quartet concert: I've commissioned a new work from a Cuban composer, Magaly Ruiz, and a work by Ruth Lomon will be on the program. For the rest of the details, stay tuned!