I'd like to thank Lorenzo Michelli, Massimo and the other guys
from the Italian band/Orchestra for their talent and professionalism
for the reprise of the "Morning in Iowa" Robert
Nathan/Castelnuovo-Tedesco Concert - where Lorenzo also gave me the
lovely gift of a beautiful arrangement of an old song of mine "The
Great Divide" which we performed, pretty much completely unrehearsed,
as one of our encores.. hope there's a recording of it someehere. What an amazing thing it is to work with
classical musicians who seemingly can instantly produce such polished
performances and harmony from the ideas of one arranger, with only 15
minutes to spare and a few pages of music manuscript. Lorenzo also owes
me a lesson in the extraordinary art of false harmonics... his command
of his instrument is scary.
It would be fun to take this project
across the trails of mythic America, as so eloquently and gracefully
portrayed by Nathan; from New England to Iowa and on to Colorado... and
maybe then we could nip down to California, the home of its composer
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Doesn't hurt to put your dreams out there I
guess. It's interesting how for American writers, when they are
descendents of "settlers," the mythology of their stories is almost
invariably "the journey" and "the land."