Night After Night: Kindest thanks.

Kindest thanks.

To everyone who surfed into Night After Night yesterday after news of my winning an ASCAP Concert Music Award became public – including the many who came via a supremely kind citation on my brilliant colleague Alex Ross's blog, The Rest Is Noise – thanks very much for stopping by.

I'm thrilled by the recognition from my friends and colleagues at ASCAP and the vital constituency they represent; humbled to be cited alongside genuine heroes like Jon Deak and Tania León, as well as the numerous worthy winners of the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards who will share the stage at a ceremony this Friday afternoon; and grateful beyond words about the response that flooded my social-media feeds yesterday.

Suffice it to say that I never knew you could win a prize simply for demonstrating an ongoing concern for the health and well-being of living composers and their work – the primary thing that has motivated this line of work I've been pursuing, on and off, since college in the late ’80s, and in earnest since taking jobs with Time Out New York and Billboard around 12 years ago. Whatever small part I've played in the rude health of contemporary music has been my privilege, my pleasure and, frankly, my obligation as a grateful listener whose life has been enriched and given focus by the work of so many others – many of whom I've been fortunate to meet, and most who I will not.

Of course, anyone who cruised in here yesterday might have wondered just what's going on – or isn't, as the case may be. Truth is, I've been in a bit of an unannounced hiatus here since mid-March, when I went into overdrive planning for a recent trip to London and Reykjavik. (Were I as gracious a host as Alex, I might simply have mentioned this…)

Believe me, it's time and other obligations, not a lack of interest, that have kept me from posting here more frequently. Hyperactive as I tend to be on the social-media front, and inundated as I clearly am with work from my two chief employers, I have never lost interest in blogging even for a moment, nor faith in the freedom and creative space blogs still represent. I'm never short on ideas I'd like to explore here; it's just that life and sleep get in the way. I'm working on it.

Thanks kindly, everyone. The Rest Best Is Still to Come.

Posted at 09:29 AM in Music news | Permalink