Emails from Yury

I made a lot of choices in 2015. The choices that seemed like they were going to end in disaster ended up becoming some of the best moments of my life. On a solo tour stop in Atlanta I was visiting my friend Chelsea. I met a couple while getting a cup of coffee in the morning and before I knew it they were inviting me to their wedding in the woods. They exchanged vows under a waterfall while this hippy guy played mandolin. Chelsea and I were the only witnesses and they traced the shape of our feet in a book they were putting together for their future child. In Turner's Falls, MA the amazing artist/musician Noel'le Longhaul gave me a tattoo of the cover from The Fiery Furnaces' Bitter Tea.

But then I also made the choice to move to a boring commuter town outside of New York City with a girl I didn't really know that well. It seemed like a really good choice at the time and I wouldn't necessarily advocate that someone doesn't move somewhere far away with their significant other, it was just disastrous for me.

The thing about moving is that once you get there, you also need to find a job. She had a real good one but I didn't. One day on Craigslist I saw an ad that a piano tuner / technician / mover was looking for help. No experience required. I had never worked on pianos before but I knew how to play them so I went down to a run down warehouse in the Shippan neighborhood of Stamford, got the job, and started the next Monday. I was told it was going to be a pretty standard 9-5 job. Occasional late hours with notice. $10/hr. 

It only took one day for me to realize I wasn't going to be working there long. Hours were instantly cut and I was constantly listening to a barrage of sexist and racist comments about our clients. I was physically threatened and called a whole range of homophobic and misogynistic slurs. 

The last day I worked for them we were moving a piano to Scarsdale, NY. I had been asked to drive a commercial truck that I'm not licensed for. My boss and coworker were smoking pot in the back. I was constantly being screamed at: "Drive faster! Drive slower!" Finally I turned around and told them I shouldn't be driving anymore. I was uncomfortable. It was an unsafe situation and despite how much I needed the money I couldn't put myself through it anymore. Our boss told me to get out of the truck. We were on I-95. 

I got out of the truck on the side of the highway and walked to a train station in Scarsdale. I had $10. I was able to buy a ticket to Harlem and then jumped on the train back to Stamford hoping that I could make it to Connecticut without being asked for a ticket. The conductor was walking towards me when I was able to get off the train and walk the three miles back to the warehouse and get my car. 

Over the next month I fought with my former boss over whether or not he should pay me. He was trying to claim that he had hired me as an apprentice that CT apprenticeship law allowed him not to pay me. He was wrong. I did eventually get paid but not after exchanging some heated emails, texts, and phone calls. So I saved them all and set them to music. Here you go:

In other news, someone sampled my voice for a contribution to the Waywords and Meansigns project which I am also a contributor to. Check it out.

Love,

-Greg

Sweet Rivers + new performances

I'm beyond lucky to have seen two beautiful performances of my music in the past few weeks. Natalie Hunt and Yukiko Oba performed my art song "To S.M. a Young African Painter Upon Viewing His Works," with poetry by Phillis Wheatley.

And at the beginning of the month Jeremiah Cossa and Cory Gross performed the first three movements of my song cycle, "I Keep Writing In Place of You." Poetry by Xu Lizhi. The final three movements are going to be performed by Felix Aguilar-Tomlinson this fall.

I'm maybe a little burnt out on how much vocal music I've been writing lately but every time I think I'm going to take a break from art songs and choral writing, I get another new idea for a project. So here I am again, finishing a song cycle, working on an opera, and starting work on a piece for string trio and baritone. 

Last night I (late to the game) watched the Bomb the Music Industry documentary, Never Get Tired. I have so much respect for Jeff Rosenstock and his work and it was pretty beautiful and inspiring to see everything laid out on film like that. There have been a lot of comparisons with Fugazi and "Instrument" but I really think these are different sorts of documentaries. Instrument is really more of an abstract portrait of a band while Never Get Tired is a straight up chronological talking heads documentary. That's not a judgement call it's just pointing out a difference. Bomb the Music Industry only played all ages shows, capped ticket prices at ten dollars, really never sold any merchandise, and gave away all their records free. They're really an inspiring group and deserve to be immortalized in this way. But really just try not to cry at the end when they splice all the performances of Future 86 together. 

Dérive is about to record demos of our new album so I have frantically been writing and rewriting and rewriting lyrics. The Boston Conservatory Contemporary Music Ensemble is going to be performing my piece, "Sweet Rivers" on Tuesday April 4th.

Today I am snowed in at my partner's house in Manchester, NH so I am spending the day writing and editing.

Short current listening playlist:
1.) Beethoven String Quartet 8
2.) Dag Nasty - Can I Say
3.) Zemlinsky String Quartet 3
4.) Ligeti Requiem
5.) Fauré Requiem
6.) Holy Molar - Cavity Search
7.) Vacation - Bomb the Music Industry

from a route 3 coffee shop

I am very happy to announce that my miniature for soprano and cello, "I Can See You and I Know What You're Doing," will be performed by Courtney Sherman and Michael Dewhirst on a faculty recital on March 28th at The University of Wisconsin - Green Bay. These two premiered the piece a little more than a year ago as part of A Very Small Consortium and I'm very happy that they'll be playing the piece again.

In ongoing project news:

1.) Dérive is hard at work on a new album. 9-10 songs it's looking like. We are making some demos next month and the studio time is booked for May. We have a couple shows booked before heading out on a full US / Canadian tour this July. 

2.) I will be collaborating on a new piece with forty/sixty for their 2017-2018 season. My friend and collaborator Joshua Scheid will be singing with them as well. We're looking at a series of 12 politically themed miniatures so stay tuned. 

3.) Meanwhile I am currently finishing up a trio for harp, flute, and vibraphone called "Sick as the Sound of a Skyscraper Coming Down," as well as going through the preliminary work on my first chamber opera, "War Is A Racket."