Clowning

Once upon a time I got to play dress up with one of my greatest friends behind the camera. The trope of Pierrot had long inhabited my consciousness since seeing Lucy Shelton, eighth blackbird and Blair Thomas Puppet Company perform it - by memory, in full costume - at a museum in Chicago.

Witnessing the narrator’s descent into her own bleak reality by the end was poignant to the text and music. Her hold on reality is loosened and quickened simultaneously. I had the distinct privilege of working with Charlotte Mundy on Schönberg’s masterwork in several settings in NYC: at a Bushwick Halloween loft party, Bowery Poetry Club for a dystopian Valentine’s, and at Symphony Space, downstairs and conductorless.

Now that I’m based in the Baltimore area, Tony Arnold mentioned it to me in passing. She’s a rockstar and now teaches at Peabody Conservatory full time. I’ve been here for less than a month; can I truly become here? What will collaboration look like for me in the coming months, running up to next concert season?