Friends,
If you’re local to Detroit and your nervous system needs a reset, consider joining myself and Zara Teicher tomorrow. RETREAT, collaborative performance in four parts:
I. Resign
II. Realign
III. Reseed/Recede
IV. Repeat
We’ve been planning this one for almost a year, and dreaming of it for much longer. We’ve been feeling the sounds melt into our bones during rehearsals in the lush reverb of St. Anthony’s Cathedral. I want you to feel that, too.
Saturday November 11 3:00pm
St. Anthony’s Catholic Cathedral
5247 Sheridan St., Detroit MI
$10
Michael Malis: pipe organ, piano, melodica
Zara Teicher: French horn, harmonium, melodica
Tickets available at the door, or you can preorder at the link below:
Earlier this week,
I had the distinct honor of giving a masterclass to Harvard University’s New Music Ensemble. They are performing my piece Nourishment under the direction of Prof. Claire Chase, the groundbreaking flutist and cultural icon. The students performed the piece with incredible precision and heart, and had insightful questions and reflections. Spending an hour with them was a rare joy.
They’ll be performing it on a concert in December, and I can’t wait to hear the final result.
In other recent news,
I was asked to write an article for the online journal Ergon: Greek/American & Diaspora Arts and Letters. It’s a peer-reviewed journal that promotes the arts, letters, and scholarship of Greek/America.
I was asked to contribute a piece of music that speaks to my position as a member of the Greek diaspora, and write an essay reflecting on it. I decided to use my solo piano composition, Hold Tightly Your Vision of How Things Could Be, as the lens through which to view this prompt. The piece was initially composed in response to the political upheaval that ensued when Roe V. Wade was overturned. I use that moment as a jumping off point to reflect on the Greek diaspora, my personal history, and my musical objectives.
Thanks to the patient and careful editing of Dr. Yona Stamatis, I’m really pleased with how this essay came out.
You can read it below, while listening to the music and taking a look at the score.
I write you today with love, peace, anger, fear, joy, longing, and sadness in my heart. I wish I had inspiring words to share, but instead I find myself paralyzed by grief. Right now I’m working on holding my community close, allowing room for sorrow, cultivating peace, and modeling radical belonging. It feels both monumentally challenging and woefully insignificant.
Sending you all love,
-Michael
