Author: Stacy Horn

Yesterday I’m reading this book Choral Music in the Twentieth Century, and the author predicts that out of the crop of young American composers, the possible break-out star is Eric Whitacre. Boy, did he ever call that one right, (and over ten years ago). If there’s a God handing out gifts, he had a pile of them in his hands when he tripped and fell and they all went to Eric.

So my choir is having its Annual Spring Benefit Cocktail Party – Thursday, June 9, at the lovely home of Kevin Roon and Simon Yates in Tribeca. From our director’s email: Simon and Kevin’s apartment is becoming one of the premier musical salons in NYC, and to add to that trend, our special guest, baritone Robert Gardner, will be sharing some vocal gems with us at the event. (Choral Society aficionados will remember Robert as our “Elijah” from a few years back.)

Tickets are $100 if you buy them from me or $125 otherwise. It’s a lot of money I know, but it’s for our choir which yeah, benefits ME, but also a lot of great people and our audiences. I’ve spent the past year reading hundreds and hundred and hundreds of articles and studies about singing and I can say with authority that singing like this makes the world a better place. Watch that video I linked to in the first paragraph!!

To buy tickets, go here and click on June 9th party (there will be an option to buy the lower price tickets because you know me). A shot from last year’s benefit:

My friend Marisa and I went to the Met yesterday to see an exhibit of night photography. My three favorites were Robert Adams, Stephen Tourlentes, and Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Their work was on a wall together, three in a row, and those three photographs were the ones that grabbed me. Before heading up there I was transcribing my interview with composer Morten Lauridsen, the part where he was talking about trying to make music that takes you to a place where there are no words, and that’s how I would describe the work of these three photographers.

The Hiroshi Sugimoto photograph of the sea I had to get up close and spend some time with, but it was like being hypnotized. The work of the other two (I’ve also been browsing their websites) was so expressive they’re almost painful, I think I have to say Robert Adams especially. If I was going to go for a life of crime I’d steal his pictures first, definitely evocative of something that I’d like to have around always. Update: I’ve been browsing some more and now Adams and Tourlentes are tied for which photographs I’d steal first. I’m going to need a partner.

The Alexander McQueen exhibit was INSANE. We decided we’d come back during the day when everyone else is at work.

A bike accident that I passed by on my way to the museum.

A friend just told me about this great, very affordable weekend conference about social media—it’s just $150 for the whole weekend. You can go for the whole weekend or a day or just part of a day. It was organized by Columbia’s Journalism School Continuing Ed division.

More information here, and tickets can be purchased here.

Last night’s Bones episode. Honestly, I’m not sure what it is, but I can’t take TV heartbreak like this anymore. The only thing I can think of is, I’ve exceeded my life’s allotment of sadness and just can’t take any more, even if it’s only tv. I won’t say more. I don’t want to spoil it for people who haven’t seen it, and for people who have, you know what I’m talking about. I know I’m insane. No need to point it out.

That said, the writers of that scene and the actors did a great job. I don’t know if there’s anyone left who is insisting that television can’t rise to the level of great art (anyone worth listening to) but last night was a terribly poignant expression of what is most difficult in life, saying goodbye to this, for all that sucks about it, saying goodbye to those we love, saying goodbye period. But still, don’t fucking do anything like that ever again everyone over there at Bones. Oh God. Remembering the character’s last words. Now I’m mad again. Yeah, I’m insane.

Look at the top of this building! What an enchanting place to live.

Someone asked me for helping finding the name of a bar in Alphabet City, from 1999/2000 or thereabouts. The consensus on Echo is that it was a place called the Wah Wah Hut.

I thought I’d check here as well. Does anyone know what place this was (or is):

“The place had/has a photo booth, a small place for live music and a fresco or mural inside with—a painted heart with a spear through it—and a caption that reads something similar to ‘Well, it’s in my back, but you’re going to have to face it.’”

The last time I walked up Park Avenue South that billboard was for Little Red Riding Hood (or whatever that movie was called).