Nowick is an optimist, however. And when talking with him in the dim light of his concert barn, that optimism is infectious. It's a chilly spring morning. Someone is hammering intermittently as shingles are restored to a gable end that was leaking. Inside the barn, the blows boom.
Steam rises from coffee mugs on a gas heater and light pours in through dusty six-pane windows.
Three ponderous grand pianos under dust covers fill the middle of the floor and Nowick has to rush around them to get to a ringing telephone at the back of the barn. Calls come in from Paris and New York, from other musicians hoping to join the Russians in Surry. Nowick responds in English, French and Japanese. I don't know the dates yet. Apparently, the dates don't matter.