Troy Peters will be leaving the VYO

News from the Green Mountain State: Troy Peters, music director of the Vermont Youth Orchestra, will be leaving his post in August 2009 to be the new music director of the Youth Orchestras of San Antonio (YOSA).

I know this may not seem like big news to you, but it should be. Not only did he help grow the youth orchestra, but he also placed the VYO on the map with a few ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming. Not too shabby, I say!

Here is Troy Peters conducting the Voodoo Violin Concerto No. 1 by Daniel Bernard Roumain with the VYO and DBR, violinist.

RIP Maurice Jarre

Maurice Jarre, Oscar-Winning Composer, Dies at 84.

One Fish, Two Fish

Quick links to a couple of articles.

1. Long Beach Opera will stage the US Premiere of Vivaldi's Montezuma, libretto by Luigi Giusti (first opera about the Americas, lost for many years).
2. Interesting article by Greg Sandow about the Le Poisson Rouge and staging young & hip classical music shows. Man, does this guy go on a rant, but it is something to think about, considering that sometimes I think classical music audiences are somewhat...geriatric.

Cincinnati Symphony Plays New *American* Music

Tonight and tomorrow night the CSO will perform a couple of new *American* works in order of newness: a world premiere of an orchestra piece by Jeffrey Mumford (very new, very American, and even local - I think he taught at Oberlin), Jennifer Higdon's Percussion Concerto with Colin Curie (quite new, very American), and Beethoven's 5th Symphony. (Not new, not American, but gosh, it's the promotional title of the concert! With a title like this, who would know that we have new American works on this concert?)

Anyway, for lack of Paavo's Notes (Paavo will not be conducting - James Gaffigan will be), I've assembled some pre-concert reading/listening for you.

Cincinnati Enquirer's coverage of tonight's concert
Podcast of Jennifer Higdon's Percussion Concerto by Stuart Malina (If you have kids or want to use this podcast for educational purposes, start at the beginning. Otherwise, start roughly a third into the podcast.)
And, a video of Beethoven's 5th (first movement)

IKEA + Me = Michel Gondry?

So, again, killing time on Andrew's blog, and I found a link to Instant Music Video and went to this IKEA link. All I can say is, I heart IKEA. You can pick a room, play music, and watch the characters twirl. OR, as my super composer self discovered, you can also bang on the keyboard and create your own percussion tracks AND you can even upload a piece of yours.

Which I did. It's probably best to upload something of yours with drastic subito dynamic markings.



For my viewing public to see, I taped this with my digital camera (who knows how to tape what is being played on your computer in real time?). Hey, I can't afford Michel Gondry, but they can. Enjoy!

Where's my scribe?

Have you ever written a piece that is taking forever to write? Literally? Like, you know where the piece is going, but you want to be DONE with it, and the only thing that is holding you back is the...NOTATION?

I started this voice+percussion piece at the beginning of the year, and I really wish I had a scribe right now. You know, the ones that would draw intricate pictures of the Virgin Mary in your manuscript in *color* or maybe even draw hidden faces in the first huge letter of the first word of my piece...that would be nice.

Instead, I really couldn't decide whether I should use Sibelius or write out my piece by hand. I ultimately decided on going to the local art store, purchasing another 6-inch clear graphic ruler and surgically attaching it to my hand. I then decided to use some manuscript paper that I purchased from Valle Music years ago. My only concern is that the paper size is larger than 11x17, so xeroxing it might be a little...tricky.

I hope I finish a draft of this by the end of this week. I have other projects to think about.

Note: Things that tech people tell you to do

(and you simply brush them aside. I didn't do this on purpose!)

Long story short: I was planning on posting the final videos to my recital today. I successfully edited clip 1. Clip 2 was also trimmed down to size. When I got to clip 3, I realized that the video didn't completely download to my computer.

Why? I ran out of free space on my hard drive. I should have noticed this when I looked at my hard drive usage, said to myself, "Dang. I *barely* had enough space for the video to be transferred onto my computer," and realized that maybe this scenario would be too good to be true. It certainly was.

What did I learn from this incident? Get an external hard drive. And, actually, I have one now (it showed up 5 days after I transferred most of the video from my recital.

So, I think I have to wait until I get back from spring break (SPRING BREAK! WOOOO!) and beg Inez to let me use her DV camera again. In the meantime, should I only post *two* of the three movements of the last piece?

All Grief Empty

As I tend to my wilting blog (I blame exams week), here is the video for "All Grief Empty, the Clear Night Passes." This is a chamber version of an orchestra piece I wrote last summer.

MM Recital Part IIb

Here is the rest of my horn quartet.

Happy Birthday, Bernard Haitink

Guess who else turns 80 today? I have only seen Bernard Haitink conduct once when I saw him with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. There he conducted the best performance of Mahler 1 I have ever heard. They owned that piece.

The only thing that was not perfect about the performance was an annoying cough that was heard during the 3rd movement. Mr. Haitink knew this, and used his left hand to motion to the person to *stop coughing* WHILE he was conducting the rest of the movement.

GENIUS.

MM Recital Part IIa

Here are two movements of my horn quartet Emoticons. With Jimmy Fricker, Anna Leverenz, Cecilia Kozlowski, and Andy Moon. Enjoy!

Why didn't they have this when I was in high school?

Props to Leah for posting this story about a new program that the LA Phil and Steven Stucky started in Los Angeles.

These kids get to write chamber, choral, and orchestral pieces and have world-class musicians perform them?! Dang. They seriously didn't have this when I was in high school.

Am I jealous? Yes. But the LA Phil did have an interesting program when I was in high school. To promote the new Tobias Pickler opera "Fantastic Mr. Fox," they asked a select group of high school composers/performers to meet once a week and write a group composition reflecting the Roald Dahl story. We performed our group piece during intermission at a matinee performance.

What did I learn?
1. The LA Phil is awesome.
2. Group compositions DO NOT WORK.
3. Fantastic Mr. Fox as an opera...um...dunno.
(N.B. If you play Fantastic Mr. Fox, you will eventually grow up to play J. Robert Oppenheimer. Did I recognize the singer few years later on PBS? Um, well, it's hard to recognize a singer who's covered in thick fox fur.)
4. Most importantly, as any composer would learn, you learn instantly what works and what doesn't.

LA Phil, please keep this up. This is fantastic.

(Last note - who knew Wes Anderson is directing the film version with Cate Blanchett, George Clooney and Bill Murray?)

Happy Birthday, Frank Gehry

Yesterday Frank Gehry turned 80. I wasn't aware of this until I read Alex Ross's blog, but I've been looking for different news articles online covering this. The LA Times has this article, and it mentions how the recession has been affecting Frank Gehry and other architects (all firms had to cut down their employees).

Considering that I'm from LA (and Fight On, Mr. Gehry), I must admit that I'm thrilled that Mr. Ross calls Disney Hall the "greatest concert hall of the modern era," but I must also admit that I have never attended a concert there (I left Los Angeles right before the new LA Phil season began). I can say that I saw it being built - I saw the small-scale model of the inside years before they started construction, and I also saw the place where they blocked off the home of "future Disney Hall." Also, I had a friend who was obsessed with this building (and rightfully so!) and he insisted that his friends pop over to view the completed building while the LA Phil had their intermissions at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

I leave you with a picture I took of this friend of mine (and Disney Hall).