johncorigliano.com

I've long had links to my teachers' sites on my links page, but until now, John Corigliano's was simply a link to the Schirmer site. That's finally been rectified: www.johncorigliano.com is up!

BTW, the opening splash music is a fragment from his Altered States soundtrack. This might still be my favorite of all his creations, and the concert suite, Three Hallucinations, is my orchestration bible.

Photos: WYWOP/Mid Europe 2009

WYWOP 2009 / Mid Europe 2009 photos

WYWOP 2009

Had yet another great week in Schladming, Austria, at Mid Europe 2009. The World Youth Wind Orchestra Project, or WYWOP, gave a great concert this past Saturday night to close the festival. The concert was shared among four conductors: Gary Green from the Univ. of Miami, Joseph Horovitz from Great Britain, Johann Moesenbichler, president of Mid Europe, and for the first time, Verena Moesenbichler, Executive Director of the WYWOP and Director of Bands at Duke University (and my soon to be wife!). Gary did several tunes, including a new piece by Austin-based composer Ryan George, which is a really solid, fun piece, and I expect it will get a lot of performances. Ryan and his wife Sara(h?) came out to Austria just for this performance, and turned out to be truly delightful people to hang out with.

Gary also did my Radiant Joy with the group, which was a little scary in rehearsals, but all-but-flawless in performance (special shout-out to John Di Egidio and Nicola Martini for the Sop. and Bari. sax solos, and the percussion section for laying down a completely solid groove the entire time). Green closed the concert with the second movement of Mackey's Kingfishers Catch Fire, which, as always, brought the house down. This year's band had a particularly strong and large trumpet section, which was a perfect fit for John's piece.

Verena did a masterful job with the piece she was tasked with conducting (which was itself NOT a masterfully transcribed work from the original brass band version, but that's another story). The sheer energy and presence she has on the podium is breathtaking. I can't wait to hear her conduct Alchemy in Silent Spaces someday. :)



Now we're spending the remainder of our time in Austria, where she's preparing for her first year as Director of Bands at Duke University, and I'm finishing the new piece for the Nebraska consortium. I had finished it before I left for WASBE a few weeks ago, but have decided it needs a better climax section and ending, so I'm back to being unfinished. Then we fly back to the US, where we load up all of our stuff in a big truck, and drive 14 hours to our new home in Durham, NC!

WASBE to MidEurope

UNT's performance of Ecstatic Waters at WASBE was a big success. This is the first time I've heard it in performance without running the electronics (did some rehearsals at OSU where I got to listen, but not the performance), and WOW is it exhausting to listen to - in a good way. The group played wonderfully (as always), and I had a great time really hanging out with everyone over the past week - nothing like a 19-hour bus ride to encourage bonding. Thanks to Eugene Corporon for programming it, and to Bob Schwartz and David Robinson for running the electronics, and last but most of all, to Shannon and Jen Kitelinger for going above and beyond in taking care of, and entertaining, me during the entire week, as well as basically running the whole show behind the scenes.

So, WASBE was a lot of fun, and I believe I managed not to sound stupid on either composer panel I was on, so I consider the whole adventure a great success! I even managed to end up riding a mechanical bull at the Cadillac Ranch in Cincinnati after the concert. And yes, there are pictures. No, they're not going to show up here.

Saturday morning I took off for Austria, which involved planes, trains, and automobiles, and now am happily enjoying the cool mountain air of Schladming. The Mid-Europe festival starts this week, and the WYWOP (World Youth Wind Orchestra Project - which defines youth as ages 15-30) will be playing Radiant Joy as part of their concert on Saturday night. Also on the program is John Mackey's Kingfishers Catch Fire, Mvt. II, which I believe will close the concert (as it always should - no one in their right mind would want to follow it on a program). Both works will be conducted by Gary Green, and it should be a great week and a great concert.

Time to eat soon. I want some schnitzel.

The Big Day at WASBE

Been in Cincinnati the past few days doing run-out concerts with the UNT Wind Symphony (with a side adventure last night on the way back from Athens, OH, in which the bus broke down on the side of the highway - fun times!). The concerts have been great, though, and I think tonight will be extraordinary. Made a few more small changes (have removed the bassoon mics and used Bassoon 3&4 as live echos instead of a digital delay, though I don't know what I'll do for groups that don't have 4 bassoons - gotta figure that one out next week). Also some cool stuff with the trumpets (Rob Murray is playing lead and has been very helpful with some suggestions. He also took the very end of Mvt. IV up an octave - can you say high screamin' F? - and it sounds FANTASTIC. Definitely adding that to the score...as an optional part, of course).

I'm off to a composers panel moderated by Martin Ellerby. Just found out yesterday that it's me, Gary Carpenter, and Jennifer Higdon. This is a little higher profile than I had realized...

After that, Jack Stamp and the Keystone Winds play their concert at 3:30, which includes my Radiant Joy and my friend Jim Colonna's 7, which I've never heard live. I hear the group is playing REALLY well, so very much looking forward to that. This will be followed by setup and sound check with UNT, then a quick pre-concert talk with Andy Trachsel and the composers on the UNT concert (Bruce Yurko, David Sampson, Scott McAllister, and myself) at 7pm, and the concert itself at 8pm. Full day!