Not Going to Omaha

(WiFi BAKED Fresh)

My initial plans were to attend the Omaha Symphony's New Music Symposium. My piece was not one of the top five chosen (composer fail?), but I was asked to audit (composer win?). Problem was, I would have to miss the world premiere of Bullet Time! And, how could you possibly miss a piece for NINE violas? I mean, seriously.

So, I went on a road trip instead. An eating road trip. One that also involved a stop at a baseball game in Augusta, Georgia. Here's the itinerary.

Musicians and Health Insurance

Interesting study about musicians and health insurance.
May 27, 2010

Washington, D.C.— Musician education, research and advocacy non-profit organization Future of Music Coalition (FMC) has published its findings from a survey of musicians’ access to health insurance, which was conducted in March 2010.

The “Taking the Pulse” survey found that, of the 1,451 respondents, 33 percent said they do not have health insurance. This is nearly twice the national average of 17 percent uninsured, as estimated by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Executive summary and full report available here:
 http://www.futureofmusic.org/article/research/taking-pulse-survey-health-insurance-and-musicians

This was an opportune moment to gauge musicians’ access to health insurance. While FMC was running this survey, Congress passed the Affordable Health Care Act, which instituted a number of new protections, tax credits and safety nets for citizens. But, because of this law, health insurance is no longer an option — by 2014, most Americans will be required to secure coverage.

Pictures from the Carnival, Part 3

Here are a few more pictures. If you want to see more, click here. (Again, pictures courtesy of Neb Macura.)

Pictures from the Carnival, Part 2

This was at the very end of the performance. They asked us composers to come on stage and take a bow. I think we're more accustomed to being offstage.

(From left to right: Douglas Pew, Inez S. deDeugd-McComas, me, Jerod Sommerfeldt, Joel Hoffman)

Pictures from the Carnival, Part 1

Wow. I am still blown away by the amazing show concert:nova and members of the Cincinnati Ballet produced. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read the review here. In the meantime, here are some photos from the events. (Almost all photos taken by Neb Macura.)

Here is Ixi Chen, artistic director, with Annunziata Tomorrow, conductor.

What Rushmore Needs is an Aquarium

If you are in Cincinnati, you absolutely should see concert:nova's Carnival of the Animals; it's going to be a real treat. Tonight's performance is at 7 PM at the Mickey Jarson Kaplan Performance Studio at the Cincinnati Ballet (1555 Central Parkway @ Liberty). Tickets are $25 general/$15 student.


When I was asked to write the companion movement to The Aquarium, I was trying to figure out how to translate the visual awesomeness of an aquarium into something musical.


Saint-Saëns does this so well it's intimidating. How am I supposed to write something as magical? Admittedly, I stole Saint-Saëns's instrumentation. My companion movement is also written for flute, glockenspiel, two pianos, two violins, viola and cello.

That's What She Said

I swear I'm not wasting my time. This was for a class. Really.

Click here to see the result. (Scroll down to "Catch.")

Support New Opera! (You know you want to.)

You can support new opera! My friend Dennis Bathory-Kitsz is trying to raise $12,000, and he has 28 more days to go to reach his goal.

--------->To contribute to his project, click here.<-----------

To subscribe to the listserv, click here.
To learn more about the opera, click here.
To visit the Facebook page, click here.

See the promotional video after the jump.

New Projects

I have a couple updated project descriptions on my website: Bullet Time for 9 violas will be performed June 1 at the Viola Atrium concert at CCM, and Flight 710 to Cabo San Lucas for flute, cello, and piano will be performed during the MusicX festival in Blonay, Switzerland. More details about these upcoming performances will be posted soon.

Patchwork Quilters

Catch Me If You Can

Things are a little hectic right now: my piece for MusicX is due this Friday AND I'm giving a presentation on how to establish a marketable internet presence to composers. In the meantime I'm also supposed to...write a catch canon!

I will post the results tomorrow. Hopefully.

Surrounded by Tights

[During the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting about my project with concert:nova.]

Naturally, I'm pretty excited about this upcoming Carnival of the Animals project with concert:nova. Not only do I have fantastic musicians performing my piece, but I will also have the piece choreographed and performed by the Cincinnati Ballet (!).

This is fortuitous: when I was interviewing for the composition program at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, they had us composers interview in the dance wing. Admittedly, this was odd and I quickly felt displaced amongst the multiple dancers. Why?

I've never seen so many tights in my life.

I also realized that I'm not as flexible, poised, or pink as these dancers were.

Compose Your Own Adventure

I found this post in the Opinionator by composer Jason Freeman. He noticed that only 12.6 percent of Americans play a musical instrument once a year, and he suspects that people create music with less frequency. I don't know if that's true, especially with the advent of digital technologies enabling the layman to compose something via Garageband, etc., but he created a new way to experience one of his compositions.

Jason wrote a piece entitled Piano Etudes (2009) that uses a similar open-score cell format that Terry Riley used in In C.