My clarinet/piano piece American Standard will be performed in London next week…
Peter Furniss (clarinet) and David Leiher Jones (piano) will be holding a recital to celebrate the recent Clarinet Classics CD release, Time Pieces, 60 years of American music for clarinet and piano. The recital will take place on Wednesday, 24th October at 7:30pm. The Warehouse, 13 Theed Street, London, SE1 8ST.
Over the weekend we rode out the rest of the Budapest heat wave in an idyllic town (village? jury’s out.) in Slovenia, where my old friend, conductor Steven Loy has lived for the past ten years. It’s a heavenly place, particularly after two 100-degree weeks in one of Budapest’s more polluted and noisy districts.
Not only that, but Steven and Slovene composer Urška Pompe have a delightful daughter just about Philo’s age, and it was great to see them become friends.
This town we were in is about forty minutes north of the capital city Ljubljana at the edge of the mountains and near much natural splendor, such as Lake Bled.
Ljubljana itself is a very charming city I would like to see more of. I had an unexpected opportunity to walk around for about two hours…
…because we stayed an extra day so that I could go see Steven conduct a concert of new music presented by the new music ensemble MD7. This is an interesting ensemble indeed, founded by Slovene composer Pavel Mihelčič. They only play music written expressly for them, and the instrumentation is as follows: flute, clarinet, trombone, percussion, piano, viola, cello. It’s actually a pretty good combination. A little weird, but not bad. I wonder about the trombone, but it worked well in the pieces on this concert. Highlights were “Pas de Sept - Hommage à Stravinsky” by Belarus composer Dmitri Lybin and particularly for me, “The Team from the Flower Shop” by Slovene composer David Beovič.
As promised, I’ve put up some excerpts of last week’s performance of Letter To Hungary. You’ll find them on this page.
Enjoy.
Letter to Hungary received it’s U.S. premiere in San Jose last Saturday. A brilliant performance by the Mission Chamber Orchestra.
It has been many years since I’ve enjoyed hearing my own music performed this much. Part of it has to do with it being a second performance, as opposed to a premiere. I’m historically (hysterically) too nervous and stressed out at premieres to actually enjoy them.
But mainly, it’s about confidence. Most of my premieres have been under-rehearsed. That’s just the way it is with the new piece on the concert. I’ve gotten used to that. I’m usually happy with the performance anyway, because I care about the overall effect of a piece more than whether the violas cut off right on the downbeat. But when something’s under-rehearsed, everyone knows it, and everyone wonders where the big train wreck is going to happen, and they know it’s going to happen. So, it’s tense. I don’t like tense.
I was thrilled with the Budapest premiere of this piece, which was carried largely by nervous energy. It was exciting and well-received, but just a little rough around the edges, only because of a simple lack of rehearsal time.
In this case, rehearsal time was ample. I had been to one of the later rehearsals, which knocked my socks off, and I witnessed conductor Emily Ray sweating details of the sort that normally go unaddressed in premieres. A tricky rhythm; an interesting-but-correct pitch clash that needs to be tuned; etcetera. So, during the performance, I was oddly relaxed, and just able to enjoy the performance like a regular person.
The brand new San Jose City Hall Rotunda turned out to be a great concert venue. (I’d never heard of it. I live under a rock.) It’s basically a giant (3-4 storey?) glass dome, which looks out onto the street. It’s a little like the Today Show, with the street just sort of “happening” out there behind the orchestra. Actually, during the Shostakovich Cello Concerto, an ambulance went by, which was a drag, but also kind of cool and surreal. But the sound was good, and the atmosphere was elegant.
A couple of excerpts of the performance can be heard here. If you want to hear the whole thing, let me know.
Thanks again to Emily Ray and the Mission Chamber Orchestra. If you’re in the South Bay, you must check them out. Coming up in April they’ve got pianist Jon Nakamatsu. See their site for details.
I don’t normally ask to attend first rehearsals of my pieces, because a) I feel I would be a distraction, and b) they’re just really hard to listen to. As much slack as you cut for it being a first rehearsal, it’s just hard to be there while they’re sorting things out for the first time.
On the other hand, there’s nothing like that moment when you hear a tutti chord that doesn’t sound quite right, and before you can figure out what the problem is, you hear the conductor say, “can I have a little more from the seconds?”, and then they play it again and it’s perfect.
It’s becoming apparent to me now that I’m not as picky as some composers. This is based on the surprised reaction when I don’t have a strong opinion about some detail of bowing or articulation. Maybe I should be more exacting. Basically, all I care about is the overall effect of the piece. I’m R&D and the orchestra is Sales. Are they adequately selling the piece to the audience? That’s what really matters. I trust conductors with the nitty gritty stuff. (Someday I may learn not to, but not this month.)
Letter to Hungary receives its U.S. premiere on January 27th in the San Jose City Hall rotunda, thanks to conductor Emily Ray and the Mission Chamber Orchestra. Please consult their web site for details.
How I’ve been neglecting the blog! Haven’t had time or energy recently, but there’s a slew of items in the works.
The upcoming performance of my new fanfare for the Washington International School, it turns out, will not only be a premiere, but a very rare conducting appearance for me. I was asked yesterday if I would do it, and, flattered, I agreed.
If my memory is correct, I haven’t conducted in public since 1998, and before that only rarely. For a long time it was something I really wanted to do, but that interest waned as I gained experience. Turns out, I may have the ear training and other musical skills that are required, but not the others: leadership, time management, sparkling personality, floppy hair.
Maybe it hasn’t sunk in yet, but I’m alarmingly calm about the whole thing. It’s only a two-minute piece for a small brass and percussion ensemble, and someone else is doing the real work of running the rehearsals. Also, it’s my old school, so I’ll be among friends.
The fanfare will be performed during WIS’s 40th Anniversary celebration at the shiny new Roundhouse Theater in Bethesda, Maryland on May 12th and 13th.
I’m back home for good now, and have finally had time to put my thoughts together around my latest premiere, which took place on November 18th in Budapest.
About the Event
The American Composers’ Podium is the brainchild of conductor Alberto Santana, stemming from the odd reality that American music is largely unknown in Hungary. This is something I observed there in the early 90’s, and I was surprised to learn that it is still the case. When I lived there the only American music people seemed to know about was John Cage and Steve Reich. So, as an American composer, I naturally welcome this idea.
This year’s Podium included world premieres of three newly commissioned works (mine included), plus the Hungarian premiere (!) of Barber’s Symphony No. 2. In addition to my Letter to Hungary, which opened the concert, we had the priviledge of hearing Sara Doncaster’s very beautiful Song of Nature and Three Maidens, an impressive horn concerto by Malcolm Hawkins. Alberto closed the concert with Barber’s Adagio for Strings. We three composers had never met before. I was glad to meet both of them and thoroughly enjoyed both of their company during the days leading up to the concert.
Sara’s work was for soprano and string orchestra, and featured a young American soprano, Nanci Weneck, who’s lived in Budapest for five years now. Remember that name. Trust me. Although we’d never met before, Nanci and I have in common the same Philadelphia mentor, Sean Deibler, who was responsible for both of us studying in Budapest, albeit during different eras.
Many thanks to the American Embassy in Budapest, who gave this event its full support. Not only did the embassy provide a lovely reception, but the ambassador himself was present and made a speech before the concert.
About the Venue
The building now used by the Italian Culture Institute in Budapest was the home of the Hungarian Parliament from 1867-1902. When I lived in Budapest, the Italian Institute either didn’t exist, or was not used as a concert venue, so I originally responded with a shrug to the news that this would be the venue. In the time since, however, it has become not only one of the main classical concert venues, but also a sought-after recording space. The acoustics in the concert hall are phenomenal. Except for a mural on the wall behind the stage (which I did not take the time to study), it’s a relatively plain room with an extremely high ceiling.
How did my piece go?
As far as I can tell, Letter To Hungary was very warmly received. I mean, no one was going to come up to me and tell me the piece was terrible, so I only got positive feedback. Of course, a couple of things were working in its favor. For one thing, since it was specifically written as a concert opener, it’s a bit of a crowd pleaser, on top of which the basis on Hungarian folk music was sure to endear it to a Hungarian audience. Also, in my brief talk before the piece was performed, I opened with a bit of Hungarian, which is something Hungarians always appreciate. In fact, I’d gotten as far as “jó estét” (good evening) before they erupted into applause, to my delight and embarrassment.
Alberto Santana led a spirited and emotional performance. It was particularly gratifying to hear his reading of the slow opening, which had been particularly hard to listen to on my Sibelius playback. His approach to the scherzo at the end was suitably energetic — swashbuckling even, and the orchestra responded with vigor. So regardless of what the audience may have thought, I was a happy camper.
The orchestra was quite a bit smaller than what I was picturing while writing the piece, so there were some spots that didn’t quite work as desired. There are some places in the piece where the sections divide into as many as four parts. But these guys were pros, and they figured out how to make it work. So, while some of it wasn’t as robust as what I was picturing, the overall effect was just fine.
The only real sad news is that no recording was made of the concert. I’ll now be working on some minor revisions and seeking out future performances, so hopefully it will be recorded someday.
