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So, last night Laura took me to see The Bricklayer, the opera based on a short story about Iranian refugees' psychological issues wither emigration after the torture and execution of their son/brother. It seems relatively autobiographical, as it's by this Iranian-American author, Farnoosh Moshiri. I don't remember who wrote the music, though it was all right; five-or-six-piece chamber ensemble, clarinet/bass clarinet, harp, flute, cello, violin, and sometimes ney. The ney was really only used for effect, which is sad, but if you're a Western composer with no solid grasp of its traditional use and capabilities, then that's what you can do, and it was a good effect. The opera itself was quite serviceable, though my absence form the genre for the time I've been away has lowered my vibrato tolerance to nearly nothing, so almost everyone seemed unable to match pitch most of the time. However, the tenor playing the Bricklayer himself had a beautiful clear tone, and the little girl playing the granddaughter obviously didn't have operatic vibrato. So that was nice. It was a frightening story and a good exposition of the circumstances a lot of Iranians are left with, and I appreciated it and even liked it.

However, after intermission, the Persian rock stars played. Wow, man. The band is called Tehranosaurus, which is adorable, and the frontman, Fared Shafinury, did a much better job of integrating musical styles than the composer of the opera. He opened with a slightly stoned-sounding speech about fraternity and equality, with a bonus vague explanation of dastgah that I only understood because I studied Persian modal systems at NEC, and then went straight into a solo setar exploration of the given mode. It was really quite good as an elaboration of the radif, by my only-slightly-informed standards, but it was also an excellent piece of coherent and developed improvisation by Western standards. I think some reviews have used the term "jazzy", which seems misleading to me, but it was definitely Western-Ear-Accessible. He went in and out of that solo space and traded with his colleagues, playing ney and daf respectively, and in some pieces he also sang. Extremely well, again by both Persian and Western standards. He had stupendous control over the glottal shake ornament, which I think (waiting on Peter Row confirmation for this) is called taqrir. So good. I was so impressed, and so was Laura. Apparently these guys are fairly known here, because they got giant rockstar screams when they came onstage. Well-deserved.

Laura sort of kind of snuck us into the green room for the reception, which we then learned to our chagrin was invite-only. But the PR lady knows Laura, and invited her in! So I didn't feel too bad. We ate an awful lot of reception, food, though. It was so good. Pistachio-rosewater-cardamom cupcakes, tiny lamb popsicles on long bones (so tender and juicy), saffron rice, tabouli to die for, it was amazing. We were sort of waiting around for Tehranosaurus so I could glee at them, but we got more and more antsy about eating the food and not being the right people, so we skipped out right as they were coming in and being congratulated. Whatever, I'll internet-stalk them. I hope they do more live shows.

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My first day of official Rice-temp work is done. I did a lot of work in a row, guys. I was in Dan's office for six hours, Doing Things the whole time. And I went to meetings. Meetings! And Rich threw a present at me. It's a nice little 2gig flash drive. I already needed it for putting stuff from my macbook to the work one I get to use. So many monitors.

More tomorrow!