Monkey and Suite Dreams in Jasper, Indiana

Just returned from several days in Jasper, Indiana, where James Goodhue and the rather extraordinary Jasper High School band premiered my new work, Suite Dreams, and followed that up with a performance of Monkey.

The premiere went very well, and I'm extremely excited by the new piece. It went through a major round of revisions in the process, including the addition of humming by most of the band, and I appreciate the band's willingness to adapt and experiment with me. They'd never premiered a new work before or worked with a composer, but they didn't flinch, and even seemed to enjoy themselves.

The work was commissioned in appreciation of Linda Sermersheim, the band 'secretary' (I don't know if she has an official title, since she works entirely on a volunteer basis!!), and director James Goodhue and I kept it a surprise until the concert itself. He'd talked about how valuable she is to the program since we first discussed this commission, and how he wanted to surprise her with something of lasting value. After finally getting to meet her this weekend, I can see how the whole program is indebted to her. It was wonderful to meet she and her husband Pete and their family - great folks!

Now, as I said, the premiere was wonderful, and I'm very proud of the new piece, but I was just blown away by their performance of Monkey. I haven't heard this piece live since the premiere back in November of 1998, and I think maybe five (not more than 10) groups on the planet have played it. And never a high school. And they pulled it off. Amazingly well. And it made me realize I've been writing that piece off too easily - it *is* playable. These kids proved that, and I have to say it was really, really satisfying to hear it again after all these years. Despite the frivolity of the title and underlying 'program' to the piece, I'm proud of the craftmanship, and a little surprised at what I pulled off nearly a decade ago. Makes me wonder if I actually had better ideas back then than I do now...

Anyway, V and I had a great weekend down there - beautiful weather, nice folks, and great meals at the Schnitzelbank (the area has extensive German heritage) with James and his lovely wife, Heather. For a town of 10k people, they have an amazing band program, which obviously requires a lot of community enthusiasm and involvement.

A few pictures:


Me with Linda Sermersheim and James Goodhue


A gaggle of Jasper band students after the concert. I believe at least two of them are named Sara[h].


With Ross, the Bass Drummer for Monkey. Seriously - it's a huge and active part. He rocked it.


And finally, I HAD to get a photograph of this:


James' truck, with gun rack. Weapon of choice: clarinet. Awesome.

Labels: Jasper, Monkey, Suite Dreams

BG Bryant-o-rama, Grantham premiere, Austin

This past Saturday night, Bruce Moss and the Bowling Green Wind Symphony presented a concert featuring several of my works, including the parody pieces and their corresponding originals. I think I occupied over 50% of the concert, which is a bizarre (and wonderful) feeling. The only difficult thing in this situation is that, instead of just getting nervous once, it was a repeated rollercoaster of nervousness-exhilaration-exhalation. But I'm NOT complaining... :)

HUGE thanks to the Bowling Green Wind Symphony (and Bruce Moss!) for being my willing guinea pigs over the past couple of months, and for letting me peer over their shoulders at almost all of the rehearsals (and for pointing out some errata I'd never discovered before!). This has been an immensely gratifying and valuable part of my residency at BGSU. THANK YOU!!

Not to rest, I rode back up to Michigan State along with Verena and the MSU grad. conducting gang (sbout-out to Vivian, Doug, Bill, and Tim for coming to the concert at BG!) for their big premiere with the MSU Wind Symphony of Donald Grantham's new "Starry Crown" last evening. It was commissioned by Kevin Sedatole and a consortium of schools in honor of director emeritus John Whitwell, who was also in attendance and conducting last evening. The piece was great fun to listen to - it quotes three old gospel songs, and essentially recreates the atmosphere of a revival with the trombone section standing up to "preach". It's also orchestrated flawlessly, and was another of those humbling "I really need to go get schooled in orchestration" moments. I also got to meet Grantham and his wife Suzanne, who were both incredibly pleasant and lovely to talk to. He even invited me to speak to the UT Austin composers' forum next year!

Which brings me to something I have neglected to announce: I'm moving to Austin, TX this fall! Verena will begin her DMA in conducting with Jerry Junkin at UT, and I will hang out, composing music, and working at Taco Cabana in order to pay the bills (that's a joke...I hope).

So, if you're a director in Texas and you are interested in having me to your school as a guest composer / Taco Cabana PR spokesman*, please let me know! I'm also really looking forward less snow in April (it snowed heavily in BG on Saturday night. Bleh.).

Lastly, tonight, Ken Thompson and the BG New Music Ensemble will be performing Loose Id for brass ensemble at 8pm in the Union Ballroom on the BGSU campus. This is the same version I just finished for SoundINN Brass for Midwest this past December. Hard as nails...hope the brass players still have chops left... :)

Oh, and we're off this weekend to Jasper, Indiana, for the world premiere of Suite Dreams. Really looking forward to meeting the band and director James Goodhue in person, and to hearing the piece, of course!

* not affiliated with Taco Cabana in any way whatsoever, and in fact have never eaten there

Labels: BGSU, Bowling Green, Bruce Moss, Donald Grantham, Ken Thompson, Suite Dreams, Taco Cabana

St. Charles East HS success!

I neglected to take any pictures while I was there, but the St. Charles East HS Wind Ensemble did a fine job with Bloom and Radiant Joy. I conducted Bloom, and even though I totally got lost for two or three bars (and did the round "I'm lost" pattern until I got back on the horse), they played right on through without the slightest hiccup. I really enjoyed conducting the group, but also really enjoyed letting Maestro Jim Kull conduct Radiant Joy... :)

Also enjoyed speaking to the Music Theory classes. Best question: "Do you have anything that sounds ... epic...you know, like something that makes you want to punch a dragon?". Awesome.

(I had no idea how to answer that. Anyone out there ever think of punching a dragon after hearing any of my music?).

Huge thanks to Jim Kull for his persistent support of my (and all of BCM's) music.

Labels: Bloom, dragon punching, Radiant Joy, St. Charles East

St. Charles East HS, All a-twitter

Today, I made the drive to St. Charles, IL through the relentless rain (with some sludgy ice mixed in over the western portion of Indiana), and am happy to finally be firmly ensconced in the Holiday Inn Express. Looking forward to tomorrow's rehearsals and concert. Probably should run through Bloom again... you'd think I'd know my music in detail, but I actually prefer to forget many of those when possible, and 'step back' from the music. It's the closest I'll ever get to an objective view of my own music, and it's great for getting a better sense of what works and what doesn't, but it's not so good when I actually have to conduct...

Anyway, after I arrived tonight, I sauntered over to the Colonial Cafe for dinner, and realized how weird I probably seemed: some dude in a black wool trenchoat and hat, walking (not driving, mind you - walking, which is almost frowned upon in suburbia) up to a family restaurant from some undisclosed location, by myself. I get seated across from a family of 7 (including grandparents, I'm guessing) celebrating a birthday. And what do I order? A vanilla strawberry milkshake. With whipped cream and a cherry on top. Great. Now I'm that suspicious looking guy sitting uncomfortably by himself in a family restaurant in American Suburbia...with a big fruity milkshake. Far from making me seem more normal and friendly, I envisioned myself looking like some psycho serial-killer who also happens to really like vanilla strawberry milkshakes while stalking his prey.

So I ate my turkey salad avocado croissant and left (and no, I didn't take pictures of the food - they would've probably kicked me out if I'd whipped out a camera).

-----

It appears Newm has been sucked into Twitter, Daniel Montoya was right behind him, and now Jim insists he's only observing from the sidelines, but I can tell he's teetering on the edge of twittering his life away...

All I can say is I won't be jumping in the pool. The idea of publically answering the question "What are you doing now?" every few hours, all day long, every day, seems...impossible for me to achieve. I can barely update this blog with any sort of regularity, I forget to check MySpace for lengthy spans of time, I often miss posts (or even entire threads) on the BCM Forum, and I can sometimes barely even keep up with my e-mail.

Besides, my twitter updates would be something like "driving 5 hours through rain-soaked Indiana" or "practicing my conducting" or "stalking children in a family restaurant while enjoying a delightful milkshake" - how much of that do you really want to read?

Labels: bcm forum, myspace, twitter

Off to St. Charles East HS

I'm off to St. Charles, IL, where Jim Kull and the STCE HS Wind Ensemble will perform Radiant Joy and Bloom. I get to conduct the latter (which reminds me, I need to pack my baton and score...).

Looks like a fun 5-hour drive through snow and rain to the Chicago area tomorrow. Looking forward to being there, but not the trip itself...

Labels: Bloom, Radiant Joy, St. Charles East

For Sale: PowerMacintosh Quad G5, PowerBook, etc.

FOR SALE: Most of my computer / music studio gear. I'm going totally portable with a new MacBook Pro, and cleaning house in the process. If you're looking to build a powerful music studio, this is your ticket. I hate to let this stuff go - this is the gear I've used for years to make all my greatest hits... ;)

Full list, details, prices.

Labels: for sale, laptop, macintosh