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!

WYWOP 2008

The World Youth Wind Orchestra Project gave their concert last Saturday night to a packed house and a well-deserved standing ovation. They rocked Stampede and brought the house down by closing with Maslanka's Give Us This Day.

To everyone in the WYWOP - I really enjoyed working with you and thank you for working so hard on Stampede - it was a blast to hang with all of you. Here are the photos from the week, as promised!

WYWOP 2008 photos

If you weren't in the band, these will mostly be meaningless and boring. If you want to see more pictures from my time in Europe, go here. I will be adding more as the summer continues. For now, I'm 'underground' composing, so no updates for a little while.

Circus Maximus and more

The UT Wind Ensemble arrives today for their concert at MidEurope. They'll be performing Corigliano's "Circus Maximus" - can't wait to hear it again! After that, the WYWOP will give their concert, which includes my piece, Stampede. The band is sounding fantastic this year, and it should be a great concert.

Also, I've added more pictures from the past week.

Hohenwerfen und Dachstein

The last few days we've visited Hohenwerfen Castle (outside of Salzburg) and the top of the Dachstein mountain (well, almost the top - you have to have ropes and gear to go the last 300 meters). Saw a fantastic falconry and bird demonstration at Hohenwerfen (they were flying right over our heads at insane speeds - none of the pictures I took are cropped - there were *that* close). Then we drove up to a traditional restaurant for lunch - the sign at the bottom of the hill said 4km, but they neglected to explain that they meant *straight UP*.

On Saturday, Michael Hancock (conductor, clarinetist, and all-around great guy) and I headed up to the Dachstein, which is one of the large mountains in the area (being in the Alps, it's not alone). The bus ride was nearly an hour up the mountain, and *then* we took the cable car the rest of the way - up to 2700 meters (that's 8850 ft). There's a glacier up there, with year-round skiing and snowboarding. It was also slightly chilly and windy (i.e. freezing). And spectacular.

Pictures are here.

Summer workshop(s) information

As I mentioned in the last post, I'm giving two masterclasses in composition this summer, the first (with Otto M. Schwarz) at MidEurope in Schladming Austria (July 8th-10th), and the second at the Bayerischen Musickakademie (Bavarian Music Academy) in Marktoberdorf, Germany (August 2nd-10th). If you're in Europe this summer, and feel the urge to study composition with me, by all means sign up! :)