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Message: <blockquote data-quote="monsmord" data-source="post: 8126012" data-attributes="member: 6876475">Ha! I'm nobody.Ms. Higdon's just affable. I got to see a few of her works performed in Philadelphia (notably her violin concerto, Blue Cathedral, and Cold Mountain) and she was there herself, did some Q&A, shook hands, all that. She wouldn't remember me to fall over me. I recommended some chamber work for exactly that "rambling" reason - shorter works leave less room to roam.My degree is in music composition (then I became a computer programmer, so a lot of wasted money and effort there; it was West Chester University, a couple blocks from the Samuel Barber House!). Years later, a dear friend knew I'm still deeply into "serious music," and her father happened to be a muckity-muck in the social and financial corners of the Philly Classical Music scene. (He was a big deal in medicine, and used some of his wealth to patronize music institutions.) Once a month or so he would throw a salon party, and folks from chamber groups or the Academy of Vocal Arts or Curtis would come by and "do a set." He knew Crumb, and Mr. Crumb would appear if he was around that weekend. One day my friend mentioned she could introduce me that very Sunday. I nearly shat myself. I couldn't think of a single thing I could ask or say that wouldn't reveal my ignorance and amateurishness. Now I kick myself for that cowardice. An irrecoverably lost opportunity.But I will name-drop my friend Melissa Dunphy, a Philly-based composer (and acquaintance of Ms. Higdon). Her work is getting performed internationally, and because some of it is political in nature (especially the Gonzales Cantata), she's been featured twice on Rachel Maddow. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /> She and her partner run a swell Air BnB in the theater they're renovating (and THAT is an enormous, crazy story detailed in their <a href="https://boghouse.thehannah.org/" target="_blank">Boghouse podcast</a>), so if you're ever visiting Philly...Yeah, losing Lili Boulanger so young is Music's loss. One wonders what her late output would have offered after she evolved from Impressionism.</blockquote>

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