Eugene, OR - Part 3

[kenjari]

Things are going extremely well. I think that if I get into both UMKC and U of Oregon, I will have a very difficult choice to make.
My meetings with Prof. Kyr were wonderful. I think I would do very well if I studied with him. I feel that I connected with him, and we talked about a variety of things, not just the school and the program. He was very encouraging and full of helpful advice about who to talk to here and how to get a good teaching fellowship. I even got the feeling that Prof. Kyr will strongly support my application.
The Composer's Forum concert was very good. The graduate students here work in a variety of styles and there's some good stuff going on. I also got to meet some of the graduate students. They all seem very happy and comfortable here, and they are quite friendly. There's a good feeling of community, and people seem supportive of each other.
My meeting with David Crumb this morning was also really good. And continuing the trend of meals with professors, we went out for coffee (well, tea in my case). I don't think I connected with Prof. Crumb quite as thoroughly as I did with Prof. Kyr, but I still feel that there is a lot of potential there for a very good and productive relationship. I showed him my Autumn Quintet, which he said that I should definitely submit, and that I should also send in a recording, no matter how rough. Actually, both of the composition faculty seemed interested in me and my music.
I also went over to the library today to meet the librarian, Lesley Bennett. She was very nice - she explained all the facilities and services and gave me a little tour. She also told me that the music library would probably be able to give me a job if work-study was part of my financial package.
Eugene seems to be a very livable place. There's a surprisingly thriving cultural community here. I keep being told that Eugene has a real sense of community and that it is more relaxed than an urban setting. Also, there is a wide variety of types of people living here. And it is lovely.
After lunch, I met briefly with Ann Dhu McLucas, who teaches both musicology and ethnomusicology. She was very informative and interesting. I liked her a lot. I'm also getting the idea that I won't have any trouble getting into ethno as a secondary area were I to come here. Both because of my background from Wesleyan and because of having met with the ethno professors.
The professors here have seemed very interested in me. In fact, Prof. McLucas even said that Prof. Kyr was enthusiastic about me.I may indeed have some tough choices ahead of me. I'm going to have to work on concentrating on just completing all the applications and then doing lots of composing. I really have to leave the problem of choosing for when and if it appears.
In the evening, I went to the Javanese gamelan class. It was small and laid-back, but that turned out to be a good thing. I talked to the instructor before class and let him know that I'd done gamelan at Wesleyan.About halfway through the class, he let me join them! I got to play! It was great to do that again (after more than eight years), and I was little rusty, but I seemd to pick it back up fairly quickly. I loved it.
It's chilly and foggy out this evening. It looks cool, but it was no fun walking back to my hotel in it. Luckily, the coffee hut outside the hotel also has tea.
Tomorrow I have a pretty light day - just one class at noon to go to. Hopefully, there will be some composers in it so that I can find a little more out about their experience here. The light schedule will allow me to go to bed early, because I have to get up at four in the morning in order to get to the airport.