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” 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.

Slices of Slovenia

Over the weekend we rode out the rest of the Budapest heat wave in an idyllic town (village? jury’s out.) in Slovenia, where my old friend, conductor Steven Loy has lived for the past ten years. It’s a heavenly place, particularly after two 100-degree weeks in one of Budapest’s more polluted and noisy districts.

Excerpts Posted

As promised, I’ve put up some excerpts of last week’s performance of Letter To Hungary. You’ll find them on this page.

Enjoy.

Performance Report

Letter to Hungary received it’s U.S. premiere in San Jose last Saturday. A brilliant performance by the Mission Chamber Orchestra.

It has been many years since I’ve enjoyed hearing my own music performed this much. Part of it has to do with it being a second performance, as opposed to a premiere. I’m historically (hysterically) too nervous and stressed out at premieres to actually enjoy them.

But mainly, it’s about confidence. Most of my premieres have been under-rehearsed. That’s just the way it is with the new piece on the concert. I’ve gotten used to that. I’m usually happy with the performance anyway, because I care about the overall effect of a piece more than whether the violas cut off right on the downbeat. But when something’s under-rehearsed, everyone knows it, and everyone wonders where the big train wreck is going to happen, and they know it’s going to happen. So, it’s tense. I don’t like tense.

I was thrilled with the Budapest premiere of this piece, which was carried largely by nervous energy. It was exciting and well-received, but just a little rough around the edges, only because of a simple lack of rehearsal time.

In this case, rehearsal time was ample. I had been to one of the later rehearsals, which knocked my socks off, and I witnessed conductor Emily Ray sweating details of the sort that normally go unaddressed in premieres. A tricky rhythm; an interesting-but-correct pitch clash that needs to be tuned; etcetera. So, during the performance, I was oddly relaxed, and just able to enjoy the performance like a regular person.

The brand new San Jose City Hall Rotunda turned out to be a great concert venue. (I’d never heard of it. I live under a rock.) It’s basically a giant (3-4 storey?) glass dome, which looks out onto the street. It’s a little like the Today Show, with the street just sort of “happening” out there behind the orchestra. Actually, during the Shostakovich Cello Concerto, an ambulance went by, which was a drag, but also kind of cool and surreal. But the sound was good, and the atmosphere was elegant.

A couple of excerpts of the performance can be heard here. If you want to hear the whole thing, let me know.

Thanks again to Emily Ray and the Mission Chamber Orchestra. If you’re in the South Bay, you must check them out. Coming up in April they’ve got pianist Jon Nakamatsu. See their site for details.

Rehearsal Report

I don’t normally ask to attend first rehearsals of my pieces, because a) I feel I would be a distraction, and b) they’re just really hard to listen to. As much slack as you cut for it being a first rehearsal, it’s just hard to be there while they’re sorting things out for the first time.

On the other hand, there’s nothing like that moment when you hear a tutti chord that doesn’t sound quite right, and before you can figure out what the problem is, you hear the conductor say, “can I have a little more from the seconds?”, and then they play it again and it’s perfect.

It’s becoming apparent to me now that I’m not as picky as some composers. This is based on the surprised reaction when I don’t have a strong opinion about some detail of bowing or articulation. Maybe I should be more exacting. Basically, all I care about is the overall effect of the piece. I’m R&D and the orchestra is Sales. Are they adequately selling the piece to the audience? That’s what really matters. I trust conductors with the nitty gritty stuff. (Someday I may learn not to, but not this month.)

Letter to Hungary receives its U.S. premiere on January 27th in the San Jose City Hall rotunda, thanks to conductor Emily Ray and the Mission Chamber Orchestra. Please consult their web site for details.

Conducting Again.

How I’ve been neglecting the blog! Haven’t had time or energy recently, but there’s a slew of items in the works.

The upcoming performance of my new fanfare for the Washington International School, it turns out, will not only be a premiere, but a very rare conducting appearance for me. I was asked yesterday if I would do it, and, flattered, I agreed.

If my memory is correct, I haven’t conducted in public since 1998, and before that only rarely. For a long time it was something I really wanted to do, but that interest waned as I gained experience. Turns out, I may have the ear training and other musical skills that are required, but not the others: leadership, time management, sparkling personality, floppy hair.

Maybe it hasn’t sunk in yet, but I’m alarmingly calm about the whole thing. It’s only a two-minute piece for a small brass and percussion ensemble, and someone else is doing the real work of running the rehearsals. Also, it’s my old school, so I’ll be among friends.

The fanfare will be performed during WIS’s 40th Anniversary celebration at the shiny new Roundhouse Theater in Bethesda, Maryland on May 12th and 13th.