Steven Bryant

The blog takes a back seat...

Since I'm not particularly consistent at actual blogging, and in recent times posts have dwindled to simple "here's what I'm up to" (and not even that, in the last two months I've had two premieres and nary a word here!!), I've restructured the front page of my site to pull together my Twitter feed, upcoming performances, and a random photo from my Flickr page, and...

The Cedar Ridge HS Wind Symphony and Symphony Bands are playing my MetaMarch and Radiant Joy tonight, in Hillsborough, NC. I'll be working with both bands in rehearsal today, and at the concert tonight. Triangle people, come on out!

Catching up...

Had a great trip to Michigan for the Univ. Michigan Symphony Band's performance of Ecstatic Waters. Hill Auditorium makes the electronics crystal clear - it was easy (to my ears) to pick out the acoustic vs. the electronics elements, which made the blending more difficult than usual. The band did a great job, made all the more astonishing by conductor Michael Haithcock doing the...

If you're in The Triangle (that'd be Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill for you non-locals), you should check out the Duke University Wind Symphony's first concert of the year tonight at 8pm in Baldwin Auditorium (East Campus). Verena has done a fantastic job with the group, and when I heard the dress rehearsal on Tues. night, it was evident they've worked really hard on this concert. Verena is an...

Arrived in Ann Arbor, MI today for the Univ. Michigan's upcoming performance of Ecstatic Waters. Tomorrow I give a seminar, then we do the dress rehearsal in the evening. The group will sound fantastic - can't wait to hear them in Hill Auditorium: Friday night (8pm; pre-concert lecture at 7:15).

Saturday, we're off to the Mich./MSU game. And lest a week go by without BBQ, I hear Kevin Sedatole...

Some observations from last week at UMKC:

1) The band is HOT. The 7 horns in the back row sounded like they were in my lap...and I liked it. It was a fantastic performance, and I can't thank conductor Steve Davis, and his TAs Hayes Bunch and Michelle Van Unen enough for inviting me out and making the whole thing run so well.

2) The BBQ ribs at Oklahoma Joe's are a taste treat, and the Crown Prime...

Lots of performances coming up, and I'm happy to say I'll be at a number of them. The madness begins this coming Tuesday, as I make my very first trip to Kansas City (eager for BBQ - I've been to Memphis many times, lived in Austin, now live in NC, so KC is the last of the big 4 BBQ holy lands I have yet to visit). Here's a rundown of my travels this Fall:

Sept. 22-25: UMKC Wind Symphony (

Verena and I are now happy residents of Durham, NC. We've finally gotten unpacked and are moved in - no more climbing around boxes and eating at the kitchen bar. She's in full swing with the Duke University Wind Symphony, preparing for their first concert on October 1st, and I'm preparing for an academic year full of Ecstatic Waters performances (somewhere above the 25 mark at the moment, I...

I've long had links to my teachers' sites on my links page, but until now, John Corigliano's was simply a link to the Schirmer site. That's finally been rectified: www.johncorigliano.com is up!

BTW, the opening splash music is a fragment from his Altered States soundtrack. This might still be my favorite of all his creations, and the concert suite, Three Hallucinations, is my orchestration bible.

WYWOP 2009 / Mid Europe 2009 photos

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...

UNT's performance of Ecstatic Waters at WASBE was a big success. This is the first time I've heard it in performance without running the electronics (did some rehearsals at OSU where I got to listen, but not the performance), and WOW is it exhausting to listen to - in a good way. The group played wonderfully (as always), and I had a great time really hanging out with everyone over the past week...