Cyril Scott ~ Intermezzo 2014.04.26@Poncho Hall, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, WA

From the Top taped a show commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the opening of Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts in their Poncho Hall on April 26th. Pretty heady stuff, treading the boards where John Cage prepared his first piano, due to the stage being too small to accommodate the percussion ensemble he called for …

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Cyril Scott ~ Courante from Pastoral Suite

From the Top did a most pleasurable Pacific Northwest sweep this week, with great kids from the area and beyond, first at Tacoma’s Tivoli Theater, then at the Cornish College for the Arts (got my honoris causa there last year) in Seattle. Gunther Schuller, my mentor of many years, on hearing my Radiohead et alia …

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Haruki Murakami ~ Sputnik Sweetheart

In my current Haruki Murakami binge, just finished reading this exquisite daPontean Romance, Sputnik Sweetheart, a book resplendent with troubled and fantastical relationships, interactions and friendships with metaphysical consequence and resonance; Murakami at his most unabashedly musical;  an otherworldliness as a Philip K. Dick-style alternate reality (much akin to PKD’s Exegesis, in the falling cards …

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Reid Anderson ~ People Like You 2014.04.08 @New World Center, Miami Beach

From the Top taped at the home of Michael Tilson Thomas‘ New World Symphony, the New World Center in beautiful Miami Beach, FL. With South Florida’s finest Steinway in the sumptuous acoustic of the hall, it was high time (The Bad Plus‘ recent release of their Rite of Spring, nearly to the day) to revisit …

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Haruki Marakami ~ South of the Border, West of the Sun

Just finished reading the first book I ever felt compelled to finish at all costs, as it happened, during 2 1/2hrs of StairMaster reading (i’d started it yesterday, read a little more half-heartedly on my flights home after 2hrs sleep); couldn’t NOT finish it: Haruki Murakami‘s novel, South of the Border, West of the Sun. …

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Haruki Murakami ~ The Elephant Vanishes

Just finished reading an early collection of Haruki Murakami short stories, The Elephant Vanishes. The volume begins with the story that would eventually become the opening chapter of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (worth rereading, certainly) and a bouquet of his most riveting miniatures. My favourites included the darkly exuberant Sleep, The Dancing Dwarf, Slow Boat …

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