July 4th :) and "I-Quadrifoglio"

To my complete surprise, in today's New York Times there is an yearly ad placed by the Carnegie Corporation entitled "100 immigrants: Pride of America", which I am included as one of them.  A friend alerted me on my Facebook page. (I'm right next to the word "America" on the right side, middle of the page)

It is such an honor, and I am so grateful to the Vilcek Foundation whose founder, Jan Vilcek himself is listed right next to me as well in this page.  It was the Vilceks, who sponsored and presented my solo recital in May, recognizing my work as an immigrant artist.

In the meantime on earth :)  I went shopping with my daughter this morning for all-American (or trying to be) July 4th dinner, which I imagine consists of hamburgers (although we can't barbeque on the upper west side NYC apartment) corn on cobs etc.  I haven't gotten beer which is a huge oversight.  (but we got wine)

AND in the meantime I'm very busy preparing for visiting the Cassatt String Quartet tomorrow morning to do some basic soundcheck for my new commissioned work "I-Quadrifoglio" for string quartet and interactive computer, which will premiere in October in NYC.  It would be absolutely my first composition, which I will NOT be performing myself!   Although the first violinist, Muneko Otani and I studied with the same teacher and we have been a long-time friend.  I know her violin playing and how she would phrase music.  As for the title, it was very simple; Muneko emailed me one day almost in panic "I need the title!!" since they were doing a presentation at an Apple Store in Manhattan.  Everything Apple starts with "I", and I happened to be browsing at hybrid cars (!) one of which was Alfa-Romeo.  Quartet /4-leaf clover + Interactive = I-Quadrifoglio !!!    A lot of times, title of my pieces actually start to take over my imagination and this one probably will :)  And not to worry, for the premiere, I will have more 'legitimate' program notes and the origin of this title :):)

It is very VERY interesting for me to be working on this project, as processing a string quartet is quite monumental compared to processing just one violin as I usually do.   It has already been done by many composers, but I guess what would be quite unique about mine is, that I am trying to make this work completely "hands-free", that is, using absolutely no computer operator on or off stage, but with absolutely no pre-recorded materials, just real-time processing.