Lieberson's New Songs of Love and Sorrow

[Kelley O'Connor singing the Neruda Songs with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra]

Peter Lieberson wrote a follow-up cycle to the Neruda Songs (winner of the 2008 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition) called Songs of Love and Sorrow for baritone (Gerald Finley) and orchestra. They were premiered last week by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. NPR wrote a poignant piece about this new cycle.

Because I wasn't there, here are a couple more articles about the work.

Peter Lieberson's "Songs of Love and Sorrow"
Lieberson expresses 'Love and Sorrow' in BSO premiere

Recording with concert:nova

Last week concert:nova quickly recorded the new movements of Carnival of the Animals for the Cincinnati Ballet dancers. I can't wait to see  how the dancers interpret each of our new movements. Dim sum afterward was delightful. (Thanks, Ixi!) Now I have to give the edited CD to Ixi so the dancers can actually hear the music. The whole week I had Douglas Knehans's Coucou movement stuck in my head.

Maybe Recitals Have Some Use

Music donors could come to recitals; this is potentially doable for an older graduate student. A student could book the nicer recital halls on campus and have a catered reception afterward to mingle with these donors. A student can have the "If you like what you heard, do you mind funding my dissertation?" discussion with these people. Here's how this could be accomplished at my school.

Composition Recitals are Dead

My friend Jonn Sokol will be having his DM recital this Sunday in Bloomington, IN. I wish him the best of luck, especially because composition recitals are so reliant on other musicians you ultimately have no control over. I will have to produce another one myself very shortly, but I believe this outdated degree requirement is completely dead: it stunts a student composer's growth to function as a real (money-making) composer.

Combining LEGOs and Sequencers

Holy cow. I found one YouTube video of someone's LEGO sequencer and didn't realize there is a whole slew of LEGO sequencers out there. Is there a name for these LEGO sequencers?

Sibelius Beta Testing

A few days ago I signed up to be a Sibelius Beta Tester, which, considering my love for Sibelius products (I purchased my first copy of Sibelius in 1999), I should have done years ago.

Some of my friends have asked how they can sign up, so I will tell you that you can register by clicking here. NB: You must be a registered Sibelius user to fill out this form. And, by registered user, you must remember the email address they have for you on file. Unfortunately I didn't have my current gmail email address on file, so I went through the painful process of having to remember almost every email address I ever had, and when this didn't work, I had to recall different street addresses. Fortunately the Vermont address worked, and since then I have updated my contact information. I also realized that in 10+ years, I've moved around a bit.

On a side note, I'm rooting for Xavier's basketball team during the NCAA tournament for obvious reasons. Matt Westgate is with the pep band, and even though I haven't seen him on television, I did see his band perform The Final Countdown. Does their win salvage my bracket? Eh, well, didn't we all pick Kansas?

Silly Costumes

[Here is the Thai Elvis who performs at the Palm Thai Restaurant in Los Angeles (off Hollywood Blvd.)]

A few weeks ago I went shopping with my good friend Rebecca Danard (whom I've mentioned a few times) because she needed an outfit to perform a certain R. Murray Schafer piece. (N.B. She is performing this TONIGHT as part of a Musica Nova Ottawa concert. If you're in the Ottawa area, please go! Here's the information.) This made me think: exactly how many composers insist that a performer wear a costume during a certain piece?

I can think of two:

Recordings Part 2 (Motordom)

Last week my recording of Motordom came in the mail. Due to popular request (2!), here's the recording. My critique follows after the jump. [N.B. This recording lasts 9'30"; plan accordingly.]

Composer FAIL #4

Here's another one I received yesterday:

I'm not feeling bad about this one. Free tuition PLUS write a piece that Alarm Will Sound will perform? Yeah, this one is pretty competitive. Also, I don't want to figure out how to pay for flight+room & board AND flight+room & board+tuition to Blonay. Hm, that being said, I guess I should have posted my acceptance letter to MusicX.

Recordings Part 1

I have two new recordings: How to be a Deep Thinker in Los Angeles is now posted and Motordom will be up shortly.

I'm sad you can't see the performance of How to be a Deep Thinker; it is more of a theatrical piece. The percussionist begins by rolling a bocce ball, watching it as it rolls offstage. Also, it's fun to watch the percussionist recite text while striking instruments that enclose him/her in a circle. Anyway, the performance was video taped; hopefully I will be posting that video shortly. Until then, here is Tyler Niemeyer performing.

eighth blackbird postponed

eighth blackbird is suspending their comp comp. More details here.

And a Baci for Two!

This weekend my spouse and I went to Target to purchase a bocce ball set. The picture above shows a set that looks almost like the ones we purchased at Target, except our balls are green and black. (I attempted to take a picture of our actual bocce ball set, but this one looks so perfect and...sunny.)

Rzewski in Cincinnati

Frederic Rzewski has been coming to Cincinnati since 1986 (I think) when he filled in for Joel Hoffman during his sabbatical at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He has been coming to Cincinnati consistently as a guest composer at CCM's MusicX festivals (until they moved it to Blonay, Switzerland). He was here this past weekend.

Rzewski is somewhat cool and crotchety, being an ex-pat (he has lived in Belgium since the 70s) and being a person IN his 70s. He's an opinionated fellow; he shoots down ideas he disagrees with.

Augusta Read Thomas Shows Me MY LIFE in Pictures

I had a lesson with Augusta Read Thomas last week. Here's how it went.

ART likes to write tips or suggestions on paper during your lessons. I actually think this is a great idea, and I've already incorporated it into my private teaching practice.

Composer FAIL #3

This one kinda hurt.

I thought my Emoticons had a chance, but c'est la vie. I think my horn quartet is a pretty decent piece, although I recently realized I've only had it performed twice. Should I have it performed again in April for the MTMS Conference, or should I go with How to be a Deep Thinker in Los Angeles?

Xavier Residency and Premiere

I met with the Xavier composers last Tuesday to have an hour-long discussion about composer stuff like how to begin a piece, how I compose, how do you judge if something is good/bad, etc. We had a great discussion, and I wish I could have stayed longer. I hope they invite me back, especially because the students were asked to bring scores and recordings, and we didn't have time for that. Maybe next time.

On Thursday, the Xavier Symphonic Wind Ensemble premiered my piece Motordom. Before the performance, there were some issues with stopping a piano note because the piano lid was only halfway open. (Of course, I'm glad the piano lid was only halfway open because then I would have had major balance issues. More on that later.) The solution: use the pianist's scarf (+ binder) to mute the piano strings.

[If I were John Mackey, I would have a picture that shows the green scarf inside the piano HERE.]