“The grand pause . . . a brief, silent pause, during which time is not counted.” (courtesy of Music Terms at artoplum.com)

In music, this symbol, a fermata over a rest, indicates the “grand pause” – a break in the forward motion of music. The beginning of this semester has created an unexpected backlog of work, so I am inserting a “grand pause” in my blog for a brief pause. Once I have “caught my breath” in that quiet time, I will return with some new music and images to share.

In the hiatus, I offer links to a few favorite posts from when I first began this blog, a reprise of past reflections on music and gardening.

Autumn Minimalism: the Constancy of Change has a video of life and movement in my garden set to orchestral music that I composed a few years ago (Sketches of America).

Anatomy of a Thunderstorm is a first person experience of recording the sound of a thunderstorm.  This is close to my heart, as I continue working on a piece, August in Penn’s Woods, in which recordings of the sounds of nature lie at the core of the music.  An edited soundtrack of the thunderstorm recorded that day is included in this post, a recording that will become part of the new piece in progress. May rain come to all who need it.

Reprise ~ in music . . . the repetition or reiteration of the opening material later in a composition (Wikipedia)