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!