Festival of Winds Concert, Conway, Arkansas

I'm heading to Arkansas this weekend for the Festival of Winds Honor Band and concert on Saturday night (May 2nd). This is a joint concert between the honor band and the Little Rock Wind Symphony, both of whom will be performing my music (with me conducting!). In addition, I'm conducting Eric Whitacre's Sleep with the honor band - my first time to conduct someone else's music! The festival is organized by Karen Fannin, director of bands at Hendrix College, and the conductor of the LRWS. Showtime is 7:30pm, Saturday night, at Staples Auditorium on the Hendrix campus in Conway, AR. Come out if you're around!

Midwest 2008!

I'm in Chicago this week for the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic. On Wednesday, at 1:00pm, the Penn High School Symphonic Band will be performing Radiant Joy. And on Thursday at 11:30am, the Lockport Township High School Wind Symphony will premiere Eric's Libertas Imperio for symphonic winds and electronics. I'm particularly eager to hear this in light of all my recent work on Ecstatic Waters. Lastly, the USAF Band of Flight will play a portion of my First Light on their reading session Thursday evening at 5:30.

So, if you're at the convention, please say 'hello' and I look forward to seeing you there. Also, I strongly encourage you to go by the MidEurope booth and speak with Johann, Sieglinde, or Verena Moesenbichler about their festival. Imagine Midwest, but instead of Chicago in the winter, it's in the Austrian Alps in summer...

Mackey Sax, TMEA catch-up

As promised, a few pics from Mackey's visit and TMEA:

John Mackey, Harvey Pittel, and AEJ, immediately after the fantastic UT concert with Mackey's Sax Concerto. Read more about it here. This man's circular breathing is indeed spectacular - I never could master that back in my saxamaphone-playin' days. And of course the ensemble was excellent as usual - they also played a well-done new "West Side Story" arrangement with particular 'verve.'




V and I headed to TMEA for a couple of days - now that it's just down the road, how could we not go? We spent some quality time with EW for the first time in far too long. He gave a clinic on his choral music with the Texas Tech Choir that was rather well-attended:



The choir was great, and ready for anything - Eric threw some new music at them just before the clinic, and they gobbled it up easily. I'm so inspired by hearing them that I've gone and dug up my one and only choral work from circa 1994. As I feared, it needs some serious work before it sees the light of day (even then, still not sure it's worthy of being heard in public). Hearing them did remind me how much I love choral sound.

As usual, E was besieged by fans asking him to sign anything and everything. Including the fans themselves:



At one point the crowd was bordering on the dangerous - almost crushing E and his manager, KC, against the wall. I'm sure that's a normal amount of attention for choral composers, though...

Unfortunately, we had to head home on Friday, and missed Mackey's numerous concerts, but we did make it to a rehearsal of the 5A Symphonic Band with Tom Lee. Holy hell - I'm jealous of all those high C's in the horns. They did indeed sound awesome. This piece was for the JWECC consortium in Japan, which Newman's doing this year, and I'll be composing a work for them next year. They ate up the high C's with no problem, so I figure I'll write some high D's. Why not, right? It's just a whole step... (For the sarcasm impaired, I'm not serious - rabid horn teachers need not write in indignation).


Since I woke up at 3am this morning and couldn't sleep anymore, I figure I'll go and transcribe Dusk for orchestra. Enjoy your day, wherever you are!

TMEA

V and I are at TMEA for a couple of days this week. Mackey (who was in Austin last weekend for a performance of the Sax Concerto with the UT Austin Wind Ensemble) has a couple of big performances with the All-State bands, and Eric will be giving a clinic on some of his choral music with the Texas Tech choir at 6:30 this evening.

Fun times! More later, perhaps with pictures!