Steven Bryant

I'm the "TBA 2013 Featured Composer" this week at the convention in San Antonio, TX, and having a great time! The Greater Dallas Youth Orchestras Wind Ensemble gave a fantastic performance of "Suite Dreams" yesterday, and this afternoon the Cedar Park Winds are about to open their concert with "", and tonight, the USAF Band of the West will perform "Wings That Work". Finally, I'll give a clinic...

It's only three weeks until I'm in Chicago for the 2012 Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic! I haven't been to Midwest since 2009, so I'm particularly excited return this year and see everyone's haggard-drank-too-much-last-night-8am-concert-music-soaked visages! I'm fortunate and honored to have four performances this year, including the USAF Band performing two movements of my Concerto for Wind...

My newest work for large ensemble and electronics, Solace, is now in rehearsals at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Yesterday was the first rehearsal with electronics, and the first time I've gotten to hear the piece - always an overwhelming experience. The band sounded great, especially since it's still early in the process, yet. The electronics... worked. Mostly. For this piece,...

SHORT VERSION: Music education is important Writing "easy" music is hard Add electronics: The Machine Awakes, for young band + electronics, premieres this Thursday night, May 10th, at Cedar Ridge High School in Hillsboro, NC! Score and Recording (MIDI) MUCH LONGER VERSION: A vital component of my mission as a composer is music education. My father was a band director and...

Another full semester of guest composer residencies, world premieres, and even a little conducting in Orchestra Hall in Chicago. The festivities begin... NOW!

JANUARY 28-29 [Baltimore, MD]: Peabody Conservatory - David Vickerman's Digital Embrace, featuring Christopher Stark's Augenblick, Jason Gerraughty's TWEAK, and my Ecstatic Waters - a full concert of works for winds, percussion, and...

THREE WORLD PREMIERES in Spring 2012: I'm fortunate to have yet another very busy season to kick off 2012, including the world premieres of three new works: FEBRUARY 19th (Ball State Univ.), MARCH 1st (ABA Convention), MARCH 16th (Orchestra Hall, Chicago): Paean: Chant and Triumph, a new work for the Ball State University Wind Ensemble in a consortium with John Hersey HS, Lockport Township...

Once again, I'm fortunate to have a lot of groups performing my music (particularly Ecstatic Waters and the Concerto for Wind Ensemble) and bringing me in to work with them this Fall. Below is the party bus tour schedule. If you're in any of these areas, please come by! SEPTEMBER 12-14 [Athens, GA]: University of Georgia - John Lynch's group continues the consortium premiere series of my 

Anthem is finally posted! This is the live premiere at Purdue University, conducted by Jay Gephart, last April. I conducted 6 of my other works with their bands while I was there, but told Jay I couldn't conduct the premiere of a brand new piece - I really wanted to sit in the audience and hear it. :) BTW, if it sounds like there's an excessive amount of reverb, that's because they perform in...

I finished two new pieces last week. That makes three in the past month. This can't be good for me... The first, Anthem, is a brand new work for Jay Gephart and the Purdue University Wind Ensemble, commissioned to celebrate the Purdue Bands' 125th anniversary. It's 7'30" of joy, featuring twittering flutes, vibraphone, glockenspiel, crotales, piano, etc., finally culminating in a big rock...

Crazy weekend of performances ahead! (Late) tonight, Verena and I drive down to Columbia, SC, for the University of South Carolina Band Clinic, featuring the three USC bands, the Palmetto Concert Band, and hundreds of high school students in 4 honor bands. And almost all of them are doing at least one piece of mine. Scott Weiss and the Univ. of So. Carolina Wind Ensemble kicks the whole thing...

Back in May, 2010, my dear friend Hila Plitmann performed her own concert of songs at the Boston Court Theater in LA. In addition to her own amazing originals, she asked a number of people to arrange some popular songs for her. I was honored to arrange Nine Inch Nails' "All the Love in the World," but her rendition of my own Hummingbrrd was perhaps the most astonishing thing to hear. The

Rod Schueller and the Texas State University Wind Ensemble will perform Ecstatic Waters for Wind Ensemble + Electronics at TMEA (San Antonio, TX) this Thursday afternoon, at 2pm. I'll be there dropping the mad beatz (i.e., pressing the laptop buttons). The program includes first movement of Jonathan Newman's Symphony No.1, and we'll both be in attendance. If you're there, please come up and...