Are Friends Delight or Pain for Double SATB Chorus A Cappella

This setting of Emily Dickinson’s short poem is an excerpt from my 1996 piece Cycle of Friends for soprano solo, chorus and chamber orchestra.  This video perusal score features the premiere performance by the Music Group of Philadelphia, conducted by Seán Deibler in May, 1996.

“Are Friends Delight or Pain” is now available as a stand-alone piece in octavo format from Swirly Music.

Upcoming Performances for Summer 2012

June 9, 10 and 16 - San Francisco Choral Artists

The SF Choral Artists, conducted by Magen Solomon, will give the world premiere of my very short (and very, very silly) a cappella madrigal Ducks in the Garden, which was composed in 1991. Details…

July 27 – Kodály Summer Institute, Holy Names University, Oakland

The chorus of the Kodály Summer Institute Chorus, conducted by visiting professor Judit Hartyányi, will give the premiere of a new, commissioned work.  The a cappella piece is based on John Milton’s poem “Surge, age surge“.  (Did you know he’d written in Latin?  I didn’t.)

August 5 – HellHot Festival, Hong Kong

Details are sketchy, but my string quartet City Walks will be performed at this summer’s HellHot festival in Hong Kong. (Last year’s info still on that site.)

Video: American Standard at Old First

Filmmaker Mark Altenberg did a lovely video interpretation of my clarinet/piano piece American Standard that was displayed live during a recent performance at Old First Concerts in San Francisco. Using footage taken of clarinetist Karla Avila and pianist Regina Schaffer in rehearsal, the video is interesting and evocative.

Now, for posterity, Mark has synchronized the video with the recording of Karla and Regina’s live performance that evening and made it available for sharing.

City Walks at SFO “You Are Hear” Festival

Some composer friends and I have been kicking around the idea of getting our music played in unconventional venues. The idea is that if music is only played in concert halls, then the audience is limited to people who take time out of their busy schedules to seek it out, to say nothing of willingness to spend money on tickets. Surely we can find new ways of bringing new music to audiences that don’t require them to be so proactive.

Video: “American Standard” for Clarinet and Piano

American Standard was premiered in Shrewsbury, England in 1993, but the U.S. premiere was given the following year as part of the New Music Delaware Festival at the University of Delaware.

Last week pianist Julie Nishimura, who participated in that 1994 performance, gave me the honor of including the piece in a concert celebrating her 20 years as faculty accompanist at the university.  This time she was joined by the wonderful clarinetist Marianne Gythfeldt, also of the U. Delaware music faculty.

Here’s a high-definition video of the performance.

“City Walks” Recording Posted

I’ve posted the recording of last week’s premiere of my new string quartet piece City Walks.  Please visit this page to hear excerpts or the entire piece.

“City Walks” for String Quartet: A short program note

The following is a program note for my new string quartet work City Walks, which receives its premiere this weekend in Berkeley, California.

Upcoming String Quartet Premiere

My new piece, City Walks for string quartet, will be premiered by the Eidolon Quartet next month in Berkeley, California.  If you’re in the Bay Area, please come and check it out!  The concert also features new works by my very talented colleagues Alexis Alrich, Clark Suprynowicz and Clare Twohy.

The concert is on Saturday, May 9th at 8:00pm in the Dalby Room at the Crowden Music Center, 1475 Rose Street, Berkeley, Ca.

More details are posted on San Francisco Classical Voice.

Upcoming London Performance

My clarinet/piano piece American Standard will be performed in London next week…

Peter Furniss (clarinet) and David Leiher Jones (piano) will be holding a recital to celebrate the recent Clarinet Classics CD release, Time Pieces, 60 years of American music for clarinet and piano. The recital will take place on Wednesday, 24th October at 7:30pm. The Warehouse, 13 Theed Street, London, SE1 8ST.