Wilkommen!

Nine hours in the air, 4427.28 miles door-to-door, and here I am at my new home in old Vienna! I have a lovely spacious apartment, situated in the northwest corner of the city, quite far from the tourist zones. Other districts (there are 23 of them) boast of imposing palaces and ancient cathedrals; miniature museums in the flats where world-famous composers and psychoanalysts used to live; Spanish riding schools and Viennese choirboys. But the streets in my neighborhood contain nondescript five-story apartment buildings, fruit and vegetable stands, car mechanics, a few Austrian and Indian restaurants, the ubiquitous Billa supermarkets, and an assortment of specialty shops, crowded into narrow one-way streets with cars parked on both sides. This is not an area where one is confronted by a thousand years of history, where the grandeur of the defunct Habsburg empire still lingers in the air; this is simply a nice area where people live. And that's why it's just right for me.

Let's step back for a moment - why have I come to Vienna? The answer is simple: to compose music. There are so many reasons why this will be an exciting and life-enriching year, and I am keeping an open mind, as I really have no idea how living in this city will inspire, challenge, and maybe even change me. I am here to make a fresh start, to experience life on a different continent, to give myself one year without the pressures of earning a steady income. However, the most important reasons are to take lessons with Chaya Czernowin, a composer whom I greatly admire, and to spend a lot of time writing music.

I do not know what the music I write this year will be like. I can tell you that during the past twelve years, I've written, arranged, rehearsed, organized, conducted, performed, and recorded hundreds upon hundreds of pieces, ranging from piano solos to choral/orchestral settings of poetry, from rock arrangements for string sextet to jazz arrangements for Japanese instruments. I've written music that is traditional, experimental, quietly ecstatic, aggressive, catchy, lyrical, and abstract. But the great thing is that each time I begin work on a new piece, the possibilities are limitless. I love the sense of following the musical material where it wants to go.

I completely identify with this quote from modern German composer Helmut Lachenmann: "Woe to the composer who achieves what he 'wants', for he will be lost! A composer has to be puzzled, disturbed, transcended, perhaps even terrified by the in-dwelling dynamism of the things he is trying to get under control."
(When he says "trying to get under control", he might mean the very literal act of needing to write all the notes down on paper - it's fine to hear amazing music swirling around in your head, but you're not much of a composer if you don't manage to get it down so that someone can play it!)

This blog will chronicle my year in Vienna: the cultural discoveries, the music that I write, my attempts at learning the German language, my developing thoughts on the nature of music, the adventures of Chappell and Rosalind in Europe. (The lovely and talented Miss Rosalind will arrive in three weeks!) My plan is to add a long post each Friday and shorter posts during the week, peppered with photos and links.

And finally, a few pop-culture observations:
CRAZY AUSTRIAN TV!
There are six TV channels here. Channel 1 shows Austrian news programs and reruns of American sitcoms. "Malcolm Mittendrin" (Malcolm in the Middle) is a fine show, but I'm truly surprised at the choice of "Married With Children" - under the apt but strange translation of "Eine Schrecklich Nette Familie" (A Terrible Nice Family). At least Al Bundy is a little less painful to watch when he speaks in German. The news had - I swear this is true - a feature on newly-designed bathrooms around Vienna, in upscale hotels and restaurants, with a noted architectural critic interviewed in a wall-to-wall mirrored stall. Then came a truly vapid segment with pop-culture reporters in New York City, with such perceptive insights as "Sex and the City was filmed at cafes that looked something like this one" and "The meat-packing district is the hot new place to live". If there's anything valuable to learn from American TV (and there is! once in a while, at least!), it seems that Austrian TV hasn't found it yet.

THOSE CRAZY AMERICANS!
I narrowly escaped a seriously embarrassing situation at the Billa yesterday. There's a fiendish system of "Pay 1 Euro to use the Shopping Cart", as all the carts are chained together until you put a coin in. (Like the luggage carts at some airports.) After paying the obligatory euro, I realized that I had put it in the wrong slot, and I was pushing two carts which were chained together, which would make for an awfully cumbersome trip around the store. A minute of looking around furtively, hoping that the ghost of Beethoven wasn't around to laugh at this foolish American, and I figured out the system - when you chain a cart back in, the euro pops out! - and I got myself one cart instead.

SPRECHEN SIE ENGLISCH?
Okay - several people told me that everyone in Vienna would speak English. And I didn't believe it, not entirely. Well, I was right! There are people who speak English, and people who don't. I'm in a funny situation, because I do know the basics of German pretty well, but my vocabulary isn't anywhere near sufficient, so that at a store, I can generally say about 80% of what I'm trying to say - but the missing 20% is what's actually important, such as the words that mean "blank journal" or "dish-drying rack". I'm managing okay so far, but I'm really going to make it a priority to learn the language better. I have had one entirely successful short conversation in German, with a nice old lady on the subway, and that gives me hope.

I am so encouraged by knowing that I have many friends who are looking forward to reading about my journey, and I hope that you will post comments with your thoughts, and send me emails with news from your lives as well. Tschuss! (Goodbye!)