PA Arts Sunday - Celebrating the End of Zappadan 2009

Zappadan, the annual festival that commemorates the period between December 4th and December 21st - the interval between composer Frank Zappa's birth and death dates (in reverse order) - may not be as widely celebrated as the far shorter Festivus, but it does break the tedium of the regular holiday schedule, and is an important part of the War on the Commercialization of Christmas.

I celebrated the penultimate day of Zappadan by finishing composition of Bamyan Voids for orchestra, a piece Zappa might have enjoyed.

Here's Zappa conducting a cover of Maurice Ravel's Bolero, during his famously disastrous unfinished 1988 tour. This performance was on May 17, 1988 in Barcelona, Spain: