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Thursday, November 30, 2006
Today's Internets
There's only so many hours one can juxtapose 1920's French chamber music with bluesy grooves, so I've often headed to my overflowing Google Reader page, which constantly overfloweth with friend's blogs, RSS feeds, and aggregated information both worthy and useless. Today I recommend 3 distractions:
1) An excellent NewMusicBox piece on metal and minimalism. Clicking through some subsequent links yields a Myspace page for the band Essentialist, where the Guitar Trio is worth a listen. Thaaat's right ... I just linked to a Myspace page.
2) The Wild Koba is spot-on about Prince's cover of Cheryl Crow's Everyday is a Winding Road. Steaming Hot Funk, that is... on the 1999 Arista CD. Koba is only suspect about, you know, the file-sharing thing going on in that post. (That's an online-finger-wag, Dave.)
3) Google's Image Labeler. It's a game ... or maybe it's a brilliant method for taming their ginormous database. But mostly it's cooperative, fun, and helpful to our new Internet Overlords while they Don't Be Evil.
Friday, November 24, 2006
Sine Waves
I enjoyed quite a bit of flute listening over the last couple months, during my so-called process of writing That Concertino. It's my due diligence, of course, and for a non-flute-o-phile, I believe I've done a fair job of negotiating quite a variety of Flute Features. My several trips to the NYPL score library were fruitful, yet results were mixed. Nothing ever come close to the recent pleasure of discovering Diana Krall's Joni Mitchell cover on her Live in Paris CD, but I did find some very good stuff.
Rated very high on my listening list are Toru Takemitsu-san's I hear the water dreaming, Henry Brant's Angels and Devils for "massed" flutes, and Maestro Corigliano's Voyage for flute and string quintet. The Corigliano is stunningly beautiful of course, but that's no big surprise. If John were incapable of anything, it would be writing bad music. The Takemitsu brought me right back to my days of inhaling his music like it was glue, and the piece is just as gorgeous as everything else. His stuff is always jam-packed with compositional goodies, and this one does not disappoint. I found myself taking this score with me while I travelled, just to keep referring to it and maybe soak up some of the loveliness. The Brant is a well-known work—it often comes up when his name is mentioned—but I had never actually heard it. It's a fascinating thing, this piece, but it might be one of those where the idea of the work is more enjoyable than the music itself.
Unfortunately, the Melinda Wagner Concerto for Flute, Strings, and Percussion, the Nielsen Flute Concerto (best with the Norwegian title of Koncert for fløjte og orkester), and Bernstein's Halil, all left me underwhelmed. The Nielsen sports a gorgeous section around the B-theme area in the first movement, but it's very very brief, and as far as I could tell never comes back, and I found those 30 seconds or so to be the only ear-raising moments of the piece. I became aware of Wagner's concerto when it won the Pulitzer a few years ago, but this was my first listen, and (probably) because of its pedigree I gave it a good go. A solid piece, definitely. Some excellent orchestration, good pacing on the flute solo. But I never fell in love, which, y'know, happens. As far as Halil goes ... suffice to say ... not his best piece, nope.
The clear winner of all Flute Listening was the Dutilleux 1943 Sonatine. If I wasn't already attached, I'd marry this piece. Simply. Perfect. The score never left my piano for 2 months straight.
Then there were the obvious re-listens, of course. The ubiquitous Varese Density 21.5, and Debussy's Syrinx ... two works seared in my brain after years of required analysis (it's Music School Law), but for this project they demanded a return visit. A friend posits a theory that every solo flute piece written today ends up sounding like Density, and he's kind of not wrong about that. The patented original is definitely hard to top.
In fact, when prepping for this piece, I was actually thinking that I'd warm up first with a solo flute piece. (One of the first pieces I ever wrote was a solo flute piece. They like you to write solo flute pieces when you're 18. It's kind of like stretching when you first get to the gym.) My intentions were good on that, but the execution was poor. The idea was that I'd start Thinking Flute, but the results were thick and harmonic, vertical rather than horizontal, and after struggling with it for a couple of weeks I realized that what I was writing was the concertino itself. Work not wasted, of course, but it goes to show. Just Do It, as The Man says.
Monday, November 20, 2006
The ATL giveth
After touring Atlanta this week for my short visit to Georgia State University, where Robert Ambrose and his excellent GSU Symphonic Wind Ensemble shouted out OK Feel Good with skill and aplomb, I returned home all jazzed up and full of musical spirit, ready to finish work on the Concertino (actual title pending), take the world by storm, and generally bask in my genius. Not only were Robert and Sarah wonderful hosts, helping me eat my way through Atlanta via Hibachi hotspots and the stunningly delicious heroin-on-a-bun that is Chick-Fil-A, but the Music School at Georgia State is an inspiring place, bursting with energy and growth. I even got to spend some time talking shop with GSU resident composer Nick Demos, after enjoying a terrific Composers Forum with his students. So I was generally abuzz with good will when I returned home.
And he shoots he scores! There were 2 waiting envelopes from my Performing Rights Agency of Choice, containing Writer and Publisher royalty distribution checks. I tear them open, ready to pat myself on the back for successfully swimming the waters of Writing Music Professionally ... only to find statements in the amounts of $0.12, and $0.90.
Seriously? C'mon, man. You're killin' me over here.
They of course didn't even bother to cut a check for either amount (which somehow feels even more degrading), and it turns out this is some kind of "International Distribution" so it's not like this is my final set of performance royalties for the year. But with no explanation or informational listing of what this could possibly be, my high crashed to the ground, and I'm back to struggling with the glaring perception that this might actually be what I'm worth. The life of a professional composer is a bumpy business, worth the ride in every way, of course, but I tell ya ... the balance is of yin and yang is cruel. I prefer the parts where I enjoy the glow of support and collaboration from brilliant musicians and colleagues—but I get the sense that the cosmos demands balance. OK, fine. But can't the balance be over $1.02?
Friday, November 10, 2006
Kansouri
Last week's Midwest adventures featured back to back performances of OK Feel Good, in both savory flavors. And next week I visit Georgia State University for Robert Ambrose and his ensemble's OK Feel Good, and by my count that makes three. In a row. If I could dance right now I would. In 7/16.
The first OKFG cropped up in Springfield Missouri, where the good Drs. Christopher Koch and Carlyle Sharpe inaugurated a fantastic new music ensemble (I maintain they make the world a slightly better place) out of Drury University called Ensemble 21. Christopher obviously put serious sweat and effort into rehearsing the piece, and it showed—it was a tight groovy performance, and the sextet players were terrific. Carlyle (call him "D-flat", he loves it) was the main force in bringing me in for the performance—an old friend from BU, he was my first theory and ear training teacher, and unofficial composer mentor. The trip gave us a chance to catch up on each other's music, and so I spent a couple days immersing myself in his recent chamber and orchestra works, but especially his gorgeous choral anthems, the kind of stuff that puts me right back in the arms of all those tweed-wearing Victorian men inside big Anglican churches ... Bridge, Parry, Harris, Stanford, Vaughn Williams. Indeed it was Carlyle, along with the Voice and Opera Professor at Drury, Dr. Stephen Bomgardner, who, 16 years ago when I declared that I didn't think I liked Benjamin Britten (but probably hadn't heard any), sat me down in a room with the Britten-Pears recording of The War Requiem along with a full score, and closed the door. When I emerged, I was a zealous convert, and so blame/credit for my much of my musical-taste education should be directed in their direction.
While in Springfield I also got to meet one of Carlyle's students, Andrew Paul Jackson (a good, 3-name composer name), who shared the program with us on the E21 concert. This young pup is seriously talented—I was floored by his septet, A Tout le Monde un Emigre. The piece is absolutely lovely, paced well and beautifully colored, and I look forward to more from him. He's off to get a dash of grad-school seasoning, so watch out for his stuff, and if you've got a septet in the meantime, play that piece, 'cause it's a stunner.
The very next morning I had to rush up to KU, but not before getting a speeding ticket in my Texas-tagged rental SUV (clearly I deserved it) to join the fun in The NeXt Festival, a Do put together by Maestro John Lynch and the University of Kansas. Dr. Lynch's design for the festival was simple enough: bring in four brilliant guys and play their stuff really really well. Since the other guys in the quartet were John Mackey, Carter Pann, and Joel Puckett, let's designate me Brilliant by Association and give John L the benefit of the doubt for inviting me. Indeed, we all had a blast with the Maestro, the KU GA's (I'm betting JM's photo blog will provide the necessary 1000 words), and the fantastic wind ensemble, which played the BeJeebus out of everyone's pieces.
JL also set us up for a pre-game discussion, complete with pre-poured glasses of water, table draping, and name cards, moderated quite skillfully by KU's Jake Wallace (a conductor of As the scent of spring rain... from his days at Baylor). I have to admit at harboring some skepticism that the format would be any more exciting or illuminating than that kind of thing usually is, that is, kind of like repeatedly smashing a hammer over one's head. But it turned out to be quite fun, and we rolled with it and had a great time up there pontificating. It even felt a bit like I was channelling the expert Panel Expert, for which I'm hoping I get a free pass.
Carter's piece, a new one called The Wrangler: Cowboy Dances, is all ingenious craft and invention. While the four of us sat in the audience during the dress, following along with the score, I'm pretty sure Mackey and Joel and I were all wondering how we could beat the skill and talent out of Carter as to maybe leave some for the rest of us. Someone tell him to stop it. I have a career to think of here.
I've been hearing about Joel's piece Ping, Pang, Pong for a while now, but hadn't yet heard it, so at the performance I was astounded. This piece goes deep, and its expert explorations into the opera overture in general, and Turandot specifically, are meticulous and grand—the piece totally clicked for me. One can probably tell, I dig that kind of intense style-immersion. Joel has a new fan.
And simply put, Mackey's new work Turbine is his best piece to date. I am giddy over this thing. It's exciting, it's smart, it's sexy, and it's louder than you can possibly imagine. Until last Sunday, Pines of Rome was the reigning Loudest. Piece. Ever. Well, we have a new contender, and it's a glorious noise. I knew it was good when I was getting sneak peaks at the score and midi realizations a year ago, but now after finally hearing it live, the piece has officially made me want to climb into a hole and give up. But it does forward my theory that pieces we all write for band end up being better than the transcriptions we do of our old stuff...
The KU Wind Ensemble is an amazing group—one hears about their Mojo, but I kind of had no idea. And I love what John L does with OKFG—the performance had the energy of a steamroller, yet the balance was tasteful and smart, the articulations swinging, and all the colors shined like a laser. A wonderful performance, and the best possible way to hear the piece live again after 2 years. A big thanks to John, the Ensemble, Amy, Jake, all the GA's there in Lawrence for their generosity and excitement. That was a fun day. More of those, please.