|
Like An Altar With Nine Thousand Robot Attendants has been selected as a winner in USC's annual New Music for Orchestra Competition and will be performed in Bovard Auditorium on October 16 by the USC Thornton Symphony under the baton of Donald Crockett. More info: https://music.usc.edu/events/details/?event=916986 Facebook event 
1 Comment
After a reading session with the USC Thornton Wind Ensemble, Spinning Yarns was selected as a winner of the USC New Music for Wind Ensemble Competition adjudicated by conductors H. Robert Reynolds and Sharon Lavery and Thornton composition faculty members Donald Crockett and Frank Ticheli. The USC Thornton Wind Ensemble will perform the piece sometime during the 2015-2016 academic year on one of the regularly scheduled wind ensemble concerts in Bovard Auditorium at the University of Southern California.  H. Robert Reynolds conducting the USC Thornton Wind Ensemble in Bovard Auditorium I was one of three composers invited to participate in the 2015 National Band Association Young Composer Mentor Project, which will be held in mid-June at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. During the program, "The President's Own" United States Marine Band and a talented young conductor (TBA) will rehearse and premiere Spinning Yarns on a concert on June 16 in Washington, DC. I'm elated.  Lt. Col. Jason K. Fettig conducting "The President's Own" United States Marine Band I've just finished up a terrific four days at the RED NOTE New Music Festival Composers Workshop held at Illinois State University in Normal, IL. As one of eight participants, I had a lesson with Steven Stucky, gave a presentation on Short Stories, and had a piece rehearsed and premiered by the fabulous City of Tomorrow Wind Quintet. A big thank you to Carl Schimmel for running a very smooth festival. The City of Tomorrow performed Word Salads Wednesday night on a joint recital with the Momenta Quartet. (Half the composer participants wrote string quartets, and half wrote wind quintets.) The wind quintet is a tricky yet awesome ensemble, and these guys gave a wonderful performance of my music. I can't wait to share the recording.  On Friday, December 12, 2014, the Donald Sinta Quartet gave the premiere of the saxophone quartet version of Exuberant Turns at Kerrytown Concert House in the lovely city of Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was one of the best premieres I've ever had. These guys are phenomenal. 
DSQ Dress Rehearsal at Kerrytown Concert House 12/12/14
 I'm totally stoked that FearNoMusic's live recording of Exuberant Turns from the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium this summer was played on Portland's 89.9 All Classical radio station last Sunday as part of their Played In Oregon show! You can listen to the whole show here to hear FearNoMusic and Duo Damiana play wonderful music by Chen Yi, Toru Takemitsu and more. To listen: http://player.allclassical.org/ondemand/lastWeek/89956.mp3 I just got back from an almost two-week stay at the University of Oregon, where I participated in the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium. This was a very cool experience. There were several diverse opportunities: performances of composers works, playing your instrument, singing in the choir, improvisation, gamelan, and conducting. This unsurprisingly attracted a really diverse group of people from all over the country, each of whom had their own distinctive compositional voices and personalities. It's fun to hang out with composers. Undoubtedly, the highlight of the program was getting to work with the Portland-based new music group FearNoMusic. They played my string quartet Exuberant Turns, and boy did they play the hell out of it! They programmed it last on their recital because it's big and loud and fast, and that's how they wanted to end their show. They rock!  Me with FearNoMusic members (l-r) Paloma, Ines, Nancy, and Joel Because I didn't want to schlep my euph to Oregon, I did not perform. Instead, I conducted Jakub Polaczyk's clever trio for flute, bassoon, and piano called J-ete. The piece called for the performers to blow bubbles and drop ping pong balls.  Bobby Chastain (bassoon), Jakub Polaczyk (piano & composer), Grace Lai (flute), and me (conductor) performing "J-ete" I also participated in the Balinese Gamelan ensemble on a really beautiful instrument called the Reyong. I had heard a lot about Gamelan before, as it has been especially influential on 20th and 21st century composers in the west, but this was my first time to experience it fully. Gamelan is VERY loud, but it is also quite pretty and transcendent. As Rob Kyr says, Gamelan is a way of life.  Dan Caputo took an artsy shot of the reyong. I am a self-proclaimed concert addict. (I've been to over 140 concerts since August 2012, when I started counting). However, in this regard the OBF Composers Symposium might have been a bit much, even for me. I went to 14 concerts while I was there: American Creators Chorus, American Creators Ensemble, three Open Ears Workshops, Performer Showcase, Duo Damiana recital, FearNoMusic recital, four Wild Nights Cafe concerts (starting after 10pm!), His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, and the Canadian Brass. #yaynewmusic  The mountainous Hult Center in Eugene, OR, where I saw the Canadian Brass Overall, the OBF Composers Symposium was a great experience. Every participant got a master class with Chen Yi, which was really cool. Dr. Chen is a bundle of energy and is very knowledgeable. The indomitable spirit of Robert Kyr, the director of OBFCS, kept all of us going through several consecutive days of sleep deprivation. I would recommend this program to other composers looking for a way to spend their summers productively. It's not too long, and there are a ton of opportunities. Also, Oregon has big trees.  
Here is yet another score given out for free by the USC Music Library: Ingolf Dahl's copy of Stravinsky's Piano Concerto. 
The USC Music Library has a rack of free stuff, which is usually filled with viola parts to obscure string quartets. Sometimes you can find noteworthy items, though. I've gotten scores to Copland 3, Symphonie Fantastique, some Schubert symphonies, Carnival of the Animals, and others. Notably, I found this score of Berio's "Circles" owned formerly by Ingolf Dahl, himself. |