vox musica - part 1

I had an amazing time this past weekend working with Sacramento's resident choir, Vox Musica, and their director, Daniel Paulson. He first contacted me about a year ago to let me know that he and Vox performed my work for SSAA and piano, Three Nightsongs. He sent me a wonderful recording and, for all intents and purposes, that was it.

A few months later he emailed to find out whether or not I could make it out to Sacramento on a certain weekend because his choir was going to perform a few of my works for their April concert. We worked this out and all was well.

I then came to find out that, not only was this amazing choir of women going to add tenors and basses in a "one time only" event for this concert, but that the program was going to be made up of only my pieces. I was over the moon. The concert was going to be all my works. Then I completely freaked out because the concert was going to be all my works.

It's hard to describe the sensation of sitting for 2 hours and hearing only things you have written. Since a composer will often "give of themselves" (I'm sorry there isn't a better way to put that) when they write a piece, it was sort of like being confronted with all my insecurities about certain pieces for a solid and enormous block of time. If an audience member didn't like something about the concert then I would have no escape because I wrote all of it.

I'm not sure I'd like to do it again. On the one hand it was an incredible honor and very humbling and exciting but it was also extremely nerve wracking. I usually get really nervous right before a choir performs something that I wrote and this was like experiencing that for 2 straight hours. My adrenaline reserves were completely burnt out by the end.

All that being said, Dan somehow took one composer's catalog of works and made a very eclectic concert out of it. He did a piece with the men and women in different spots inside the church, a piece with cello, a piece with soprano sax, 2 with a soli quartet, 2 folksong arrangements and one arrangement of a Broadway tune with piano. And the pieces span from one of my earliest works to last year's Color Madrigals. Here's the program (just because it takes up space):

Musica animam tangens (2001)

Two Songs of Release (2003)
1. Promise
2. Reconciliation

Wynken, Blynken and Nod (2004)

Autumn (2004)

winter (2003)

Go, Tell It on the Mountain (2004)

Gabriel's Message (2005)

Color Madrigals (2007)
1. Serpents in Red Roses Hissing
2. Blue! 'Tis the Life of Heavens
3. Purple-Stained Mouth
4. Yellow Brooms and Cold Mushrooms
5. A Grass-Green Pillow
6. Orange-Mounts of More Soft Ascent

when god decided to invent (2004)

Where is Love? (2004)

It was a special concert in a lot of ways:

-The women of Vox were joined by men for the first time ever.

-I made my concert debut as a finger cymbal player on when god decided to invent. I'm sure the audience was a little weirded out by this but, when they asked who wanted to play the cymbals at the dress rehearsal, I volunteered. FYI: I charge union rates for repeat performances.

-The last piece was the only song I conducted. Dan wanted it as an encore so he didn't list it in the program. It was a great way to end the concert.

-I heard the Two Songs of Release for only the second time. I'm fairly certain it was only the second performance of the second movement, Reconciliation. It's probably my most difficult and extended work for choir. Dan performed a piece that opens to a 16-part, forearms-on-the-keyboard tone cluster with a choir of 26. It was absolutely insane. They must have had to meticulously figure out who was going to breath where.

-The Color Madrigals were performed as a complete work for the first time. Way cool!

-I was unable to attend the premiere of Wynken, Blynken and Nod so it was the first time I ever saw the cello part performed. I wrote it the year I had a cellist as a roommate and it's fairly difficult. It uses pretty much the entire range of the instrument as well as almost every color available. According to one of the choir members, I sat through most of the piece with a huge smile on my face.

-I gave pre-concert lectures at both the Friday and Saturday shows which had some really, really interesting questions.

Vox and Co. performed the hell out of that program. I really don't know how such a small ensemble could perform some of those pieces and I can't thank Dan Paulson enough (even if I tried for the rest of my life) for being brave enough to do something like that. I am so completely undeserving of that experience and, even though it's cliche to say this, words cannot express my gratitude.

I can't wait to collaborate with them again! If you're a choral music fan and you live in Sacramento you have to go to a Vox concert.

But that's just the musical aspect of the whole trip. I took a ton of blog-worthy pictures which I'll post in segments during the next few days. Thanks for getting through this verbose diatribe.