Research Seminar at Southampton University

Phew! Just done my Research Seminar yesterday afternoon at Southampton University. My Title was Sisyphus and the Curse Of the Re-write in which I used the myth of Sisyphus (the Greek protagonist who was doomed to roll a boulder up a mountainside to its peak, only to fail, and watch it roll down the mountain to the vallet below) as a metaphor for a compser who has to re-write the same material over again, as I have done with my musical Jazzed Tales. I cited Camus' 1942 essay on Sisyphus as well, but didn't agree with his rather bleak 'life-is-futile' conclusion. Perhaps I resist gloomy existential paradigms. The glass is half full....
The session went okay, I think: discussion afterwards centred on the verisimilitude of my satire of Amercian culture, and the identity of jazz. My colleague Tom Irvine even bought a CD, bless him. Lovely fella.
I will be orchestrating for Superstorm today, and off to do the Greenwich theatre 10 minute Musical event tomorrow, before I plug into more orchestration for episode 2 and the Abbey Road session #2 next week. Busy!