Radiant Joy rehearsals / Ultra-hunk
I’ve been delinquent in posting here, and not for a lack of interesting things going on. After all, a car crashed into the house next to me about 5:45 this morning. No one was hurt, and I was too groggy (and it was too cold) for me to go outside and start taking pictures. Sure was loud, though.
Anyway, Radiant Joy rehearsals have begin here at Bowling Green (and already well underway at IUP), and even at this early stage, I think the piece is going to sound pretty good. It has some four-part big-band style voicings in a couple of sections – saxes, clarinets, and later trumpets, and it actually works. Cool. The vibes and piano parts are, well, critical, and exposed, and the marimba part has some killer licks, and the bassoons and bass clarinet get to shine, and don’t forget the Bari/Sop Sax duet. But it’s not a hard piece. Really. I think.
Here’s the BGSU Wind Symphony after rehearsal on Tuesday – they were short on time so I took this picture very quickly (also, I’m a crappy photographer):
Yes, it’s small. Sorry. I need a wider website, I guess.
Anyway, I can tell they’ll have no problem with the piece, and they even seem to like it, which is always a plus! The saxes in particular are eating up their parts (the sax studio here at BGSU, led by John Sampen, is smokin’, from what I hear, and have heard). The percussion are getting a workout, and I’m getting schooled on hi-hat writing, too – many thanks to Greg Brown for that!
Ok, now that I have all that out of the way, here’s the big reason to post. Eric Whitacre has been proclaimed an ‘ultra-hunk’ by ESPN. See for yourself!. Scroll way down past halfway. Since this probably won’t last forever, here’s a screenshot. This is absolutely hilarious.
As the kids say these days, that’s “teh awesome.”