I'm back...

I haven't seen this screen for awhile. It looks strange. My banner is messed up. My readership has probably dwindled to zero. If you are out there somewhere, dear reader, I must apologize for my silence. I'm not sure what happened. It became habit not to write and I guess I have been in a too-busy-for-reflection sort of mode as I started teaching more and working for the Guitar Foundation of America. Life without reflection is not as good as it is with. So I'm going to start blogging again, mainly because so much stuff is happening and I'd like some record of it when I'm old and gray.

A new school year has begun (and the semester is 2 weeks from being over) and I am about as burnt out as bad toast. I just got through a stressful few months in which I premiered a new recital program that is probably the most meaningful to me that I've ever played. It went really well, and I got wonderful support and encouragement from all of my faculty mentors at USC. It's a program of original music written for guitar by women, much of which is not often played by many guitarists on the concert stage. This program makes me feel that I've somehow found part of my voice as an artist, that this series of miniscule finger movements and muscle memory are communicating some kind of voice for the voiceless. There is some part of an injustice that I feel that I am slowly helping to unravel. Because music by men is played day in and day out without any question of why there is a gender gap and why a program of music by female composers is a strange thing. But in all reality, life interrupts and music by women has often been tossed by the wayside, not taken seriously, or discounted because of the composer's gender. Or there were just not as many chances for these composers to get their music published, played, and circulated when it was written because opportunities like these were not available to these women.

There is still work to be done in the fight for equality between men and women. There's always been a bit of a feminist inside of me. I used to wear this Rosie the Riveter T-shirt in 8th grade with the WWII slogan on it, "We Can Do It!" Yes, you know the one. It was actually a slogan used to encourage more women into the workforce as men fought the war during the 40's. Well, in 2010, we still need to hear this slogan as woman juggle career, family, motherhood, marriage, etc. Somehow, playing the music on this program makes me feel connected to these female guitarists and composers throughout the ages, as I imagine them struggling in a male-dominated field just as I sometimes do today. But I thank them for being who they were and doing what they did, because my struggle is not nearly as difficult as theirs was.

Here is a piece by Emilia Giuliani, the daughter of well-known Italian composer and guitarist Mauro Giuliani. She died around 1840 of unknown causes at the age of 27. Before she died, she wrote over 50 opus works of music for guitar which show that she must have had some serious chops - they are not easy pieces! I've read before that she stopped writing and performing around the time that she got married, which I assume was because she did not want to overshadow her husband, who was a moderately successful opera composer. She was probably also expected to primarily be a wife and mother as well. I wish she had lived longer and that more of her pieces survived, but the ones that exist I will be tackling one by one. She fascinates me and I'm excited to be unearthing music that has never been recorded or performed much.

This is Variations on a Theme by Mercadante, op. 9 by Emilia Giuliani Guglielmi. Hope you like it.