I’ve been bad: I haven’t updated my blog since 2013. Every now and then I’d peek at it and feel guilty; it was looking like a barren wasteland. My only excuse is that I’ve been busy with commissions, American Modern Ensemble, and at least this summer, acting as the Director of the Composition Program at the Atlantic Music Festival.

But let’s get real: I’m not one of those “bloggers,” those people who post every week or even every day, for little more than exposure for the sake of vanity. Furthermore, everyone knows that blogs are now passé and have given way to Vine, Twitter and other platforms that don’t involve sentences.

Anyway, I promise to keep my blog more up to date. I am sitting on few ideas that I’ve been thinking about for quite a while regarding other people’s music, my music, and a mountain of other topics that you’ll hopefully find interesting.

So… what’s up? I’m working on a variety of pieces, a few of which I’ll highlight later on with more specific posts.

I recently finished a new brass quintet entitled Shine that was commissioned by the American Brass Quintet that was premiered at Aspen (and received a standing ovation and a really nice review), and that will be performed at The Juilliard School on October 19. It was an absolute blast to work with ABQ, and I’m crossing my fingers that they’ll perform my piece a bunch of other times, and hopefully even record it.

At the moment, I’m working on a new piece for the Claremont Trio, entitled Moon Trio. This piece is the sister piece (or brother piece! It can go either way) for another work I wrote a long time ago entitled Sun Trio. Same instrumentation, but this trio is much shorter, and will be ca. 16 minutes in duration. The trio will premiere this work in Boston on November 26, and perform and record it in NYC in December. More on that later.

Sun Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano. Duration: 35'. Written for Helen O'Brien on the occasion of her 98th Birthday Sunset: Winner of the First Annual Finger Lakes Chamber Ensemble New Music Competition Publisher: Bill Holab Music: http://www.billholabmusic.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=103_137&products_id=908 PROGRAM NOTE Sun Trio originated when I first started the film score for a documentary entitled Journey Into Courage. After writing opening music to the film, director Bess O’Brien and I concluded that it was best to change some parts in order to properly compliment the film. The theme was kept, but some of the other sections were changed and/or edited. I never discarded the original sketches, even though much of it remained on the cutting room floor. Thankfully, it came to good use later in this work. The first movement, Sun Day, begins with the theme from the Journey Into Courage introduction. This movement is meant to evoke the feelings you get when summer, mid-day sunbeams appear from between the clouds and warm your skin. Sunset, the second movement, was inspired by Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont and my wife Victoria. I envisioned us embraced, doing a Tango–like dance under a multi–colored sunset—at times, to themes from Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat. Victoria is a much better dancer than I, and in this movement, she teaches me the steps. I fumble around and finally get it right, and then the sun sets. The third movement, Absence of Sun, is connected from beginning to end by one long melodic line. The cello melody is modeled after a classical Indian Sitar raga, specifically the traditional, slow introductory section of a classical Indian composition. The bass piano part supplies the drone while a high-pitched tone row supplies a "starry night" texture. This texture gradually melds into a wind chime accompaniment. The movement peaks in the middle with an intense cello line. At this point, the violin intervallically supports the cello line. Each instrument—and in the case of the piano, each stave—represents a specific, individual texture. This movement intended to sound somewhat improvised. Sunrise, is meant to evoke the feeling you get when watching the sun rise. There is a "Sun" peak of an octave, a bright yellow ‘E’, symbolizing the first, intense, bright sunbeam peaking over the horizon. In the middle of the movement, a string of rising chords mimics a "fast-forward" of the sun rising in the sky. Later in the movement, the violin and cello play decelerated bird motives. I wrote the bird songs down on the morning of April 17, 1995, while watching the sun rise behind the University of Vermont music building. I use the "mystic chord" by Alexander Skryabin as melodic and chordal material for the anticipation of the rising of the sun. While I was waiting for the sun to rise, I watched the mountains intensely. I finally was about to give up, thinking that the sun tricked me and rose behind some clouds when I wasn’t looking. As soon as I turned around to walk away, I felt an intense heat hit the back of my neck. I turned around and there it was! The sun was there, in all of its glory and splendor, lighting up the mountains. As well as evoking a sunrise, this movement also uses themes from the previous three movements. The sprightly Sun Dance is a closure movement written to provide a vibrant contrast to the other four. The initial piano motive is taken from Five Movements for string quartet by Anton Webern. The first section introduces the themes, motives and patterns which are then used in subsequent sections. The second and fourth sections are percussive, while the third section is more placid and melodic. The finale is hard and driving, utilizing both snap pizzicati (plucking the string so it bounces against the fingerboard) and loud four-note chords in the strings. Sun Trio was commissioned by Dennis O’Brien to commemorate the 98th birthday.

While I’m working on the Moon Trio, I’ll be revising the chamber opera I wrote with Mark Campbell entitled The Whole Truth, based on a short story by Stephen McCauley. This will be premiered in a new, orchestrated form in New York in January during Opera America’s New Works Forum in NYC on January 16. This work was originally commissioned by Bob Wood and Urban Arias and was premiered as a vocal piano work, so I’m really excited to be able to present it fully-orchestrated. The program will also include the world premiere of a new orchestration of a chamber opera by Stewart Copeland (drummer for The Police), entitled The Cask of Amontillado. If you’re in NYC that week, please stop by. The operas are being presented by American Modern Ensemble at Dixon Place, a really cool venue on the Lower East Side in NYC.

Other commissions on the horizon include a new work for the Gulf Coast Symphony for orchestra and chorus and a new work for Volti entitled Graffiti Canons, for a cappella choir. The text for this work will be based on aphoristic graffiti sayings from around the world. I’ll be holding a competition for graffiti images for this work. Any images I use will be included in a slide show that will accompany the work. More details on both of these works will be posted early this fall.

I have other projects that I’m dying to write about, but for now, I’ll keep this fairly short. If you’re curious what else I am up to, I have a page on my site of works that are In-Progress or Upcoming, and I usually post in-progress program notes that detail what the works are about.

So, that’s it for now. My goal is to add a post at least four times a year. Let’s see if I can hold to that! I’ll begin incorporating videos and audio as well, to make everything more interesting.