Steven Bryant

Tonight, Lt. Commander (ret.) John Pastin and the Rowan University Wind Ensemble played the sh*t out of RedLine for winds. I'm floored. I'm honored that he and the band devoted so much of their time and energy into pulling this piece off. To everyone in the band: you're awesome. THANK YOU. You all played a great program - RedLine alone was more than enough to chew on. That fact that you...

I have a way-too-early flight in the morning to New York (well, New Jersey), to attend the CBDNA Eastern Division Conference, where the Rowan University Wind Ensemble is performing RedLine under John Pastin, and the Univ. of MA-Amherst Wind Ensemble (whom I recently visited) will perform Alchemy in Silent Spaces: I, under the direction of Laura Rexroth. The Rowan Univ. concert is Thursday...

Last night. Loud. Liked it. Satisfying.

Led me to some deep thought about the visceral vs. the intellectual.

This will come back later. If present nebulous plans come to fruition, in just over a year.

Back to doing my taxes...

It's taken me far too long, but I've finally posted a PDF study score and streaming mp3 file for Dusk on the website. If you're interested, go check it out (the links are in the green inset box).

While I'm on the topic, here's a sketch I found for the climax of the piece. I have no idea when I wrote this, but it's essentially what ended up becoming bars 32-41. Nothing particularly...

Yesterday morning I had the privilege of working on Dusk with the Fayetteville HS Band. Their director, Barry Harper, generously let me have the entire hour to sightread the piece with the group.



There was an audible amount of fear and trepidation when we started, but by the end of the period I could tell the band had begun to get into the piece a bit. I'm not sure whether or not the crazy...

Last night I heard the Univ. of Arkansas - Fayetteville Concert Band and Wind Symphony perform, and they chewed through a LOT of music! I only have a second this morning, but suffice it to say I thought both groups were really solid, and I'm looking forward to hearing one of them do some of my music (nudge, nudge :)! The whole evening had a nice musical progression to it, and I thought the...

I'm driving up to Fayetteville for the University of Arkansas Wind Symphony and Concert Band concert tonight. On the program is John Mackey's new Turbine (UA was one of the members of the commissioning consortium for the piece). Looking forward to hearing it live!

Tomorrow morning I'll be at the local high school band's rehearsal - we're going to sightread Dusk. I might then be going to...

The Blue Monkey, Memphis, TN:

Last night, James A., Walter, and I got to see Human Radio. Human Radio (Ross Rice, vocals and keyboards, Peter Hyrka, violin and assorted electric string instruments, Kye Kennedy, guitar, Steve Arnold, bass, and Steve Ebe, drums) existed from 1989-1992, so this was an unexpected and most welcome opportunity to hear them in a one-time reunion concert. They rocked....

Saturday afternoon, Rob Franzblau and I headed back up from Providence to Amherst, MA to hear Laura Rexroth's joint Wind Ensemble / Symphony Band concert that night. First up was the Symphony Band, taking on Copland's "Outdoor Overture" - I think they were a little nervous at first, but after it got going, they opened up and played quite well. My own Dusk was second, and by this point, they...

Just have a few minutes before I head back to Amherst for tonight's concert up there. Around 6pm, I met with the Brown University Wind Ensemble, and the director, Matthew McGarrell, surprised me and asked if I would like to conduct Dusk that night! Being completely unprepared, I of course said "yes," and off we went! Had some good run-throughs, rescored a couple of things to make up for only...

This Saturday, March 4th, fellow composer and UNT alum Christopher Tucker will do his next-to-final Main Event program on WRR 101 Classical. His guest will be Eugene Corporon, renowned wind band conductor at the University of North Texas, and the program will feature various pieces from UNT's most recent CDs "Poetics" and "Passions", including my very own Stampede and Eric's October. Chris...

I'm off this morning to work with Laura Rexroth's wind ensemble at UMass Amherst on the first movement of Alchemy in Silent Spaces, followed by two days at Rhode Island College in Providence speaking to classes and working with Rob Franzblau's group, culminating in a joint concert with Brown University's wind ensemble (led by Matthew McGarrell) on Friday night (Brown is performing Dusk and RIC...