Go Buffaloes!

I just accepted a generous offer from the graduate school at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Starting in August, I will be an MM candidate in the composition program at CU. Look for more details here later.

Cover Art

I just got a copy of the cover for Greg Banaszak's new album Romances for Saxophone and Orchestra (above). Look for the album, which includes my arrangement of the Bozza Aria, from Centaur Records in Summer 2007.

Commission and Video

Here are two small pieces of news that I'm going to lump together.

1) I just accepted a new commission from flautist Rachel Azrak for a solo flute piece. She has promised to give me a recording from her recital (May 19th) here on campus.

2) Many of the conductors / contest panelists I have approached regarding 01001101 have expressed curiosity about the "interactive video" element to the piece. To that end, I have uploaded the video of the first movement along with the part that the performer is expected to play. Using both of these, one can duplicate (and experiment with) the projected video that is to be used in the performance. This should yield a better understanding of what I did and why I did it. Enjoy.

Upcoming Concerts

For those of you in the Cleveland area, I'm playing in two groups at the Severance Hall concert tonight (3/5/07). The show starts at 7:30.

Also, I will be in Austin Texas on March 24th, performing my new Laplace Transformers with percussionist Graeme Francis. The performance is part of the GammaUT graduate conference at the University of Texas.

Theory Time

I know a lot of Case students check this website (and now I have the news articles routing through facebook), so this is a good place to announce this. For the next two weeks, I'm going to be taking over all of Dr. Rainsong's CASE theory classes (theory 2 and theory 4). I'll hand out an updated syllabus monday, but the focus of my lectures is going to be midterm review for MUSC 108 and introducing new elements which may help in the MUSC 208 final compositions. Everyone wish Dr. Rainsong good luck with her hand surgery tomorrow.

Update 3/4: I saw Dr. Rainsong this morning, and she said that the recovery is going really well. Her range of motion is much better, and she mentioned that playing the keyboard (in limited amounts) should be fine starting next week! We are all relieved that it went well, and everyone is wishing you a quick recovery.

GammaUT Award

Today I learned that I was a winner in the GammaUT 2007 Conference call for scores for Laplace Transformers. My sincere gratitude goes out to the panel that selected me--as well as Ben Rose and Marc Plotkin (the percussionist and recording engineer associated with the demo recording). If you're going to be in the Austin Texas area at the end of March, stay tuned as I will be posting more details about the conference and the performance as they become available.

Hamelin at Severance

Look for a performance of movement five (March of the Lost Souls) from Hamelin, After the Rats tomorrow, 5:45 at Severance Hall. For tickets, call the Severance box office at (216) 231-1111.

Double the Saxes = Double the Fun?

Before you ask--yes, I am playing two saxophones at once (and it's not overdubbed).

There are three recordings floating around of my new piece Laplace Transformers, a duet for saxophone and percussion. The links above are for the full recording (14 Mb, mp3) and a short portion of the score. If this file-size is too big, there is a shorter clip on the compositions page. This particular recording features Ben Rose on percussion and myself on saxophone.

One thing I really like about this piece is that every time it's performed, it sounds different. Music (at least my music) shouldn't be played the same way twice; I want to allow the performers a hand in crafting their own unique interpretation. The piece itself is a time capsule that draws its diverse styles from the rich history of the saxophone. More than that, it is an opportunity for two people to get together and have a great time making music.

One final note: I feel obligated to warn curious saxophonists that it is quite risky to play two horns at once. After seeing the premiere of this piece, a saxophone student from Baldwin Wallace managed to put a large dent in his Selmer Paris Soprano...

New Mouthpiece

The private screening of the new line of mouthpieces (designed by Jacob Crandall and myself) took place today. Though this is an engineering project, it is music-related, so I thought it would be appropriate to mention. I can't speak about the specific design elements on this website, as it could jeopardize the international patent; however, I can say that the project was well received. There was even time for a live demonstration of one new model!! If this designed is published in the Case magazine, or anywhere else, I will post a link. If not, this is probably the final word.

New Projects

Due to the success and popularity of the solo bassoon project Key Buxom Kamikaze @ H.Q., I have decided to debut the "User Interface" for the second piece in that series. For those of you who weren't following Key Buxom Kamikaze @ H.Q., the premise was that people purchased notes (through this website) and the proceeds went to charity. You chose the pitch, duration, and measure number, and I chose the octave and ordering in the measure. For that project, the user interface was setup like an online retail store. For this (second) project, the user interface is setup like a flash introduction. There are 100+ boxes displayed on the screen--you pick one, and the corresponding note becomes the next note in the piece.

The third new project in this series is a computer generated string quintet entitled Cantilène & Caprice. This piece is in the early stages of development, but the idea for the user interface comes from online forms. You fill out the form, and a randomly generated piece is sent to you (pdf and midi) via email. I plan to upload C++ snippets as they become available (and hopefully get some good feedback from computer engineers or CompSci people).