By Bruce Levine

In many ways this has been an odd year for me. Not odd in that I’ve subbed at DHS almost full time – but full time when I covered, long term, for a Social Studies teacher out (6 weeks) after knee surgery. It’s an odd situation for the school as well since I’m a per diem sub who functioned as a long-term sub. I now have an email address, computer, keys, etc. which I would never have had under “normal” sub circumstances.

Odd that I’ve written only 2 full-length poems, both Halloween (1 published on Literary Yard and the other on Spillwords).

Not odd – I’ve written 83 Haiku – all published.

Odd, in its own way, I’ve written a gargantuan amount of music (20 new pieces). Also added 3 new publishers and have been or soon to be released, 20 pieces.

Like most composers, I’m sure, I have a list of pieces that I want in my catalogue. I now have a Septet and an Octet – but there are still many others. High on that list was a piece for wind symphony – this year I added it.

Immediately after writing the wind symphony piece (Infinity – being premiered next year at UNH) I was asked to write a brass quintet (The Reading Room) for the Portsmouth Brass Quintet. I’d been considering writing a brass trio and the vacillating between a quintet and trio and the request pushed it to quintet. However, immediately after finishing the quintet I wrote the trio (Kaleidoscope) anyway.

For a long time I’ve wanted to write a piece for flute choir and finally got going a few Fridays ago (A Walk in the Park) – I wrote the whole 1^st movement and was about to leave the piano but another brass quintet piece suddenly started falling out of my fingers so I wrote the entire piece (At Winter’s Edge) – it was a long day, but certainly a good one.

A Walk in the Park is finished, but not orchestrated because, once again, I sidetracked myself with the Soliloquy for Solo English Horn.

And I’m already thinking about what’s next… Maybe a piece for string orchestra, a pair of pieces for oboe and English Horn or a Monologue for contrabassoon…

I’ve decided, and am resigned to the fact, that inputting the Symphony will have to be put off until the summer when there’s no school.