hindsight!

I had an awesome time today working with the students at White Bear Lake High School's north campus on The Arrow & The Song. I packed my camera especially for this trip but promptly forgot to bring it in so, unfortunately, I have no pictures of the blessed event. Needless to say, they did amazing! Go, Bears!

Despite that, a really interesting musical event presented itself in place of said workshop: I stopped through Bloomington on the way home to do some spring break jamming with a friend who is not only an insane guitar player, but an amazing middle school music educator as well. (Nobody would disagree that the world needs more of them, right?)

Brian has an incredible music library and, in this treasure trove, is a leather-bound book that a colleague apparently gave him a little while ago called Manual of Music.













The copyright on this thing is 1888. Yeah. That's right. I can't believe somebody would give it away! I doubt he has any plans to do so in the near future.













At the time of the publication of this book, Brahms was still alive! They even have an entry on him. The picture of him is definitely not one of the few we associate him with most often.













Here's a portion of the entry they have for him (click on it to make it larger...and read for yourself).













My favorite part is when it introduces him by saying, "Probably the most talented German composer since Wagner, and ranking far in advance of all his own contemporaries, save Rubinstein only..." Who's Rubinstein, right? Is he included in The Three B's?

They go on about "Edward" Grieg for a while...with an obvious prejudice against Scandinavia: "The development of the fine arts seems to be the peculiar province of those people who are climatically favored."













Minnesota kind of proves that wrong, right? A Pulitzer/Grammy winner, an internationally-recognized theatre as well as an s-load of classical music organizations. Of course it might be a little different now than it was 120 years ago.

But the Norway-haters don't stop there: "The cold and frigid North has not been prolific in the production of men of rank in the world's aristocracy of art. Passion and sentiment, which are the spontaneous characteristics of those who are favored by the genial influences of sunny southern skies, flourish amid the less congenial conditions of the North with feeble intensity..."

Verbose, much? I realize that the English language was a little different back in 1888 but they could have easily just have said, "People who live in cold climates spend less time creating art." The authors really know how to kick someone when they're down. I've been to Grieg's home in Bergen, by the way, so whatever...

And then there is the assertion, "Can America produce an artist?" Apparently, circa 1888, Louis Moreau Gottschalk warranted inclusion to answer this question.













My favorite part about Gottschalk is that he spent the majority of his life working as a virtuoso pianist in Europe until his death in 1869...almost 20 years before the book was published!

Aaron Copland was born 12 years later. So, think what you will.

Oh well, right? I suppose it's what you'd expect from a book put out in 1888. And, lest we forget, this was 2 years after Liszt died, 5 years after Wagner did the same and both Brahms and Tchaikovsky were still alive! So, all criticism aside, it was interesting to see just how temporary some people apparently became in terms of how the Western musical tradition teaches "classical" music. It proved that being a footnote in somebody's curio can be fun.

started...finally! YEE-HAW!

After talking about it for a long time (over 4 months ago, to be exact), I'm happy to report that I've finally started writing We, The Boys. Today I wrote the pseudo-quartet between Howard (the old man at the end of his life), Carl (the "man's man" football-watching dude), Robby (the "thoughtful guy") and James (the "boyfriend-about-to-guiltily-leave-his-terminally-ill-girlfriend"). Holy crap, it felt good.

I did a fairly heavy singer/songwriter stint after I finished my latest "classical" piece in early November, so it was incredibly nice to start work on something like this. I did a ton of research during November/December last year and it seemed like a great opportunity.

This is one of those dream projects that composers start in on only a few times in their life so I really, really hope I finish it. My "deadline" for getting everything into manuscript is June 10 (for a grant) but I can push it as far as September if I disregard that and just want to get it done (grants come and go...a hiatus for the first time in 5 years doesn't).

Here's a little sample. The rehearsal piano/chamber orchestra part is in-my-head-and-to-be-fleshed-out-at-a-later-date. It's a baritone/tenor dialogue that switches scenes and results in a tenor/tenor duet into the heights above the staff.

It's such a powerful script. I really hope I can do justice to it. Starting out on something like this is incredibly humbling and exhilarating at the same time.

the halen

I know I've blogged about Van Halen before but I only just recently started listening to them again and I am daily floored. My mother brought me up in the Suzuki violin tradition but, at the same time, my dad used to constantly quiz me as to what classic rock band was on the radio. AC/DC anyone? Needless to say, it increased my appreciation of every kind of music a thousandfold (or something melodramatic like that). My dad had the original Van Halen LP (which my brother got along with the record player and a kajillion vinyls when el padre went CD a few years back...damn!) and I used to set that little bastard on repeat. Every song on that album is amazing and it's still fresh to this day!

...and I could never play it.

But whatever...

Three of the original/defining members of VH went on tour last year (sorry bassist Michael Anthony...after working with the band for 30 of its 34 years so far, you've been replaced by 16-year-old Wolfgang Van Halen...nepotism much?) for essentially the first time since 1985. Here's Eddie demonstrating why he became one of the most influential guitar players ever. Imagine if you had never heard this before (i.e. the 80s hadn't been saturated with stuff like this). What if nobody had ever abused an electric guitar like that? He puts to shame all those guitar players who think they can "play" just because they know 9 chords. Totally different...


Of course, that's not to say you can't do a lot with those 9 chords (Beatles?), but it's inspiring, right? You don't even have to be a guitar player to go, "holy effing Moses, that's amazing!" Maybe it's a good lesson to see people that humble you like this: musicians that make you go, "I know nothing." It's across the board, right? Good composers do this to me all the time. Just listen to Abbie Betinis' Bar xizam or Jocelyn Hagen's Gloria or Tim Takach's As the Sunflower Turns on Her God.

p.s. If you're not a fan of amplified instruments you'll at least appreciate this. It's not much to look at, but EVH has fortunately/unfortunately assaulted acoustic instruments as well.

blue

I uploaded the Singers' recording of Blue! 'Tis the Life of Heaven onto the MySpace page. If you're looking for the song that I deleted so I could put it there (Sleeping Out: Full Moon) you can still find it on the Young New Yorkers' Chorus MySpace page or at my homepage.

Denver's Kantorei has also included a stunning performance of Musica animam tangens on their MySpace page. That piece has been performed by countless choirs around the US (including the US government's own Air Force Singing Sergeants) as well as South Africa and Australia but I think, hands down, Kantorei takes it. They always bite off enormous chunks of repertoire and perform them with such integrity. Check out their reading of Ravel's Ronde if you're there. It's really friggin' difficult.

And since I'm in the mood to talk about MySpace pages you should immediately go and check out the Twin Cities' own Spaghetti Western String Co. for some of the most amazing music being written today. I rehearsed their Ellesmere Island in preparation to make the recording that is featured there but had to drop out at the last minute...much to my exasperation when I heard the (extraordinary!) final cut. Luckily I was able to work and record with composer Nicholas Lemme again when I sang bass for his ballet score, The Silents. He is brilliant!

Here's a pic from that experience.

diamond dave

A friend just sent me an mp3 of Van Halen's Runnin' With the Devil with the vocal track isolated. It is unbelievably and inexplicably hilarious. Very blog-worthy. Check it out.

ch ch ch changes

There are a ton of composers who make a lot of changes to their pieces once they hear them. Fortunately, I'm not one of them and I don't usually have a lot of new things to do to a piece once I hear it. The types of changes I tend to make are more cosmetic (accents here and there, changing a breath from an eighth rest to a quarter rest, different dynamic, etc.) so going through Color Madrigals hasn't been too laborious despite the fact that it clocks in at over 40 pages.

Next it's off to Kinko's to make a full book of the score to send to directors around the country. It will be the first release of my publishing imprint so we'll see what happens...

the (un)COOLEST thing I've ever done

I went to a Tom Jones concert last Saturday.

Yeah, that's right. I'm not proud...but I'm certainly not ashamed. A friend of mine came to town last weekend and TJ just happened to be playing only 20 miles away at Mystic Lake Casino. In an effort to make the visit memorable, I grabbed us some fairly-priced-but-possibly-lame tickets. Let's just say it turned out to be a combination of both.

Mystic (whose vibe the website doesn't even come close to...casinos are weird places) is an experience. It's essentially the biggest (and therefore only) casino in the entire Twin Cities and it's a crazy place to witness. I'll just let Doctor Gonzo sum it up:

This was Bob Hope's turf. Frank Sinatra's. Spiro Agnew's. The place fairly reeked of high-grade Formica and plastic palm trees. Clearly, a high-class refuge for Big Spenders.

...not exactly true (i.e. not Vegas high rollers) but the spirit of weirdness that exists in one of the only smokers' refuges left in the state is there. I forgot what that smelled like. It was just weird.

So, it's not like it was the most glamorous place to see a 60s icon. He wasn't as good of a performer as he probably used to be but, in his case, that didn't matter. His pre-show PowerPoint-esque presentation summed it up. It stated, simply, this:

The Voice: Imminent

His voice is what makes him an icon and, from this knowledgeable singer's standpoint, it's actually a fairly unique instrument. He didn't really have to be a good dancer or sing the latest, greatest hit or be an electric circa-1970s-Robert-Plant performer. TJ just had to throw down a few songs for sure:

-She's a Lady (listen to it if you don't know it...because you do already)
-What's New, Pussycat? (I can't believe this song hasn't been covered recently by Prince or something)
-It's Not Unusual (same as the first one...you know it even if you don't)

He sang some other stuff really well but that doesn't really matter. For good measure, here's the stage.

I didn't' know this was going to happen but, apparently, during a Tom Jones concert, women just throw their underwear up onto the stage. Seriously, there were like 2 dozen pairs up there by the end. Granny pants (huge, in this case), etc. Some guy even took his wife/mother/sister/girlfriend-or-whatever up to the stage in a wheelchair so she could toss hers on stage. It was crazy!

I feel like it would be flattering for a while and then just disgusting very soon after that. To be honest, when they threw them towards him he would feign surprise and then just dodge them (I wonder why!). Who has/gets to sweep them all up at the end of the concert, by the way? Does he store them somewhere?

Either way, not bad for a blog entry. At least it's exciting, right? He was no David Lee Roth but, damn, the guy can sing the hell out of about anything he sets his voice on. And his band (drums, bass, guitar, piano, 3 backup singers, 2 trumpets, sax and trombone) was amazing. I would imagine they're probably paid really well...

So, that's what I did with my Saturday night: I had a great time.

Happy St. Patty's Day

"Images that don't deserve our attention litter our lives. We need some that enrich our gaze and, thus, our lives."
---Will Bunge

Transfer that sentiment to music and you've got it.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

the most wonderful time of the year

The spring thaw has set in here in Minnesota...and not a moment too soon. Anybody who says that the holiday season is "the most wonderful time of the year" has never had to drive in blizzard conditions. Here's a picture of the cool ice formation right outside the window.

Since I started this blog to keep people informed on my latest compositional nonsense (a lot more is coming down the pipeline...March is busy), I thought I might include a cool quote I found while reading Ned Rorem's diaries (they're published...I didn't steal them or anything):

Artists and the agonizing midnight brainstorm that keeps them awake and constantly turning the light back on so as to notate notions in notebooks by the bed, mind on fire and far from sleep, prey to the ugly necessity of inspiration.

But the pang of no inspiration! How do we change? Need we? Each new work is undertaken not from experience but from scratch. The last work, like the last love affair, teaches us only what not to practice in the next; too late we learn that precisely the new avoidance of what then went wrong makes things go wronger now.

He hits on both aspects of being a composer. I had a great conversation with Stephen Hatfield a few years ago about this same thing. As a composer, you sometimes feel like a fraud when you have to start on a new piece. You jump at the commission, of course, but when it comes time to actually put the pencil to paper, you can find just about anything else that needs doing. It's a terrible risk to start on a new piece of music and you feel every bit of that weight as it starts.

Here's some more ice.

oh my

Sorry to post another YouTube video but I just had to. This might unintentionally be the funniest video ever made.

up nort yah-hey

Last Thursday I traveled up to Fargo, North Dakota with the Singers to perform for the North Central ACDA Division convention on the campus of North Dakota State University. The only time I've ever been that far north was when I went to Fargo's sister city (Moorhead, MN) to attend the Rene Clausen Choral School (which I highly recommend). It was cold.

And the scenery was beautiful...













This was taken over and hour later. The drive is all like this. It's a straight, 4-hour burn up I-94 and there is nothing to look at.













Here's a change of scenery.













We left the Cities at 7:30am for our 4:30 curtain call. The Singers were asked by the national ACDA office to perform the premiere of the Raymond W. Brock Commission for this year. In the past 17 years, ACDA has commissioned some pretty amazing composers (Gian Carlo Menotti, Z. Randall Stroope, Samuel Adler, Morten Lauridsen, Rene Clausen are a few that I love and they've commissioned Dominick Argento for their 50th anniversary in 2009) and this year they chose Canadian, Eleanor Daley. She took a text by Madeline Bridges and wrote a piece called Life's Mirror for mixed choir, piano and oboe.

For the curious choral nerds out there, The Singers performed the following:
Sing Joyfully (William Byrd)
Coelos Ascendit Hodie (Charles Villers Stanford)
Carmina mei Cordis (Abbie Betinis)
1. Aeterna lux, divinitas
2. Angele Dei
Life's Mirror (Eleanor Daley)
Trois chansons de Charles d'Oleans (Claude Debussy)
1. Dieu! qu'il la fait bon regarder
2. Quant j'ay ouy le tabourin
3. Yver, vous n'estes qu'un villain
Wanting Memories (Ysaye Barnwell)

In the rehearsal space at NDSU.













The performances took place in the Stern Music Wing. I've never been to NDSU before but I'm told the students will oftentimes gather in the Laid-Back Memorial Union.













Fellow composers Abbie Betinis and J. David Moore set up a booth and exhibited some of their wares. Both of these cats teach me daily about being an artist/vendor and I totally need to do this at some point (hopefully with them to split the cost). Fellow Singers Composer-in-Residence Jocelyn Hagen had one for Graphite Publishing as well but I didn't get a picture of it.













The only downside was that the exhibition hall was in this place. (Insert joke here.)













Seriously, the naming committee for this college just can't catch a break. First the Stern Music Wing then this. Next up: the Bharph family of Ohio donates 3.2 million for a gourmet cafeteria.

Here, JDM shows what a large sum of money looks like to a professional artist. Yep, those are ones, folks. If anyone is considering getting rich by being a composer just look at your future.













That being said it's a happy future, despite the psycho peepers look on JDM's face, because you get to mine your imagination on a regular basis.

Also in the Butte Lounge is a semi-life size statue of NDSU's mascot, the Bison. You can't really see it in the picture (unless you click to make it larger) but this thing actually has little iPod earbuds coming from its fake mp3 player (along with its enormous hemp necklace).

The Fargo-Moorhead Curling Club. The moment I made fun of this institution one of our basses turned around and schooled me on curling. I trust his judgement and, apparently, curling is an extremely athletic sport. You be the judge.

Alto Mindy Mennicke. She and I didn't know each other until we both performed with the Singers but, apparently, we go way back. We both graduated from Faribault High School (10 years apart) and went to Luther College (10 years apart). I was also in an area community theatre production of Oliver! with her dad, Hub. Welcome to Minnesota, folks.

Soprano Liz Gullick. We attended Luther College together and, aside from the 2003-2004 concert season, we've performed together every year since 1999. I sang her wedding last fall and fully intend on writing a solo for her voice at some point. She's the best.

I've blogged about The Singers often but one thing I've never said is how grateful I am to have been a member of this choir since its founding in 2004. My life as a composer and teacher is enriched every time I set foot into that rehearsal room because of the repertoire we tackle. It's like eating a gourmet dinner once a week (Poulenc, Bach, Howells, Paulus, Argento, Britten, Pärt, Mendelssohn...not to mention all the languages I've had to learn). It's definitely not easy cooking but, if you do it right, it's nutritious and delicious at the same time. Mahalo.

some really good choirs

I don't want to make posting YouTube videos a habit but three more of my choral works popped up a couple weeks ago. It's a YouTube embarassment of choral riches!

The Owatonna (MN) High School Concert Choir performs Go, Tell It on the Mountain at the Dorian Vocal Festival at Luther College. Last time I had a performance at Dorian was when Weston Noble conducted the mass choir of 1,200 singers through The Boy Who Picked Up His Feet to Fly. I listened from backstage and I don't think I'll ever forget that sound.

The Kingwood (TX) High School Chorale performs Gabriel's Message in Houston's Chapel de Villa De Matel. They handle the Basque language really well.

The Northwest Missouri State University Tower Choir performs Musica animam tangens. Go Bearcats!

color madrigals order

I recently got the recording for the final volume of Color Madrigals and had the opportunity to listen to all 6 movements together. One of the downsides of writing a choral song cycle piecemeal over a year is that it can be difficult to conceive of the entire cycle as a whole. In this case they had to work both as 3 different, 2-movement suites as well as then fit together somehow in their entirety once all 6 movements were done. As this is the first time I've had to hold a creative focus for such a long time (they were composed over 9 months) I thought I'd write about how it all went down.

Originally, Matthew Culloton had asked me to write something for The Singers: Minnesota Choral Artists for their May concert that had a "spring theme" to it. I had recently started reading the complete works of John Keats and found a great text that I really wanted to set but, once I started out, it seemed too short to just sit by itself. I asked Matt if I could write a companion piece and he graciously agreed.

I set out on a search for a text that might compliment the one I had already selected and, as this initial text was the seed that started the entire thing, it bears listing here:

Where be ye going, you Devon maid?
And what have ye there i’ the basket?
Ye tight little fairy, just fresh from the dairy,
Will ye give me some cream if I ask it?

I love your meads, and I love your flowers,
And I love your junkets mainly,
Bit ’hind the door I love kissing more,
O look not so disdainly.

I love your hills, and I love your dales,
And I love your flocks a-bleating—
But O, on the heather to lie together,
With both our hearts a-beating!

I’ll put your basket all safe in a nook,
And your shawl I hang up on this willow,
And we will sigh in the daisy’s eye
And kiss on a grass-green pillow.

This led to all sorts of ideas as to how to add to what I already had. Should it be another text on spring? Something to do with young love? Lust? Shepherding? Milking, maybe?

I had recently been listening to a lot of Michael Torke's works (his Book of Proverbs will remain one of my favorite choral/orchestral works of all time) and, although I still haven't had the chance to hear his popular orchestral color pieces yet (Green, Purple, Ash, Ecstatic Orange and Bright Blue Music) I had heard of them before. This led me to think of the title I had already chosen for the piece I was writing: A Grass-GREEN Pillow. Once I touched on that, I was off and running. The "madrigals" part of the title happened because I wanted the original piece to have that sort of feel: optimistic with a quicker tempo. I'm also a huge fan of Morten Lauridsen's Madrigali: Six Firesongs on Italian Renaissance Poems (they are his most eclectic cycle) so it seemed natural.

Since I started out with a John Keats text I decided to make his poetry the unifying factor for the song cycle as a whole. I read his collected works (it took forever!) and found 5 more texts that mentioned colors. Matt listened to my idea of a 6-movement choral song cycle and agreed to premiere the first 2 during their May concert.

Volume 1
1. Serpents in Red Roses Hissing
2. A Grass-Green Pillow

Since there really isn't a choir out there that commissions 25-minute choral cycles (and Matt eluded to performing another volume with The Singers next season) I decided to find another ensemble who might premiere at least another volume at some point. Enter Vicki Peters and The Summer Singers (who are not actually affiliated with The Singers: Minnesota Choral Artists in any way other than sharing a few members). We had been talking about doing something together for a while and, when I asked her about premiering another 2 pieces, she jumped at the chance.

Volume 2
1. Purple-Stained Mouth
2. Yellow Brooms and Cold Mushrooms

This was the only volume that I knew would be performed "as is" in the final product since the purple one ends on the same unison note that the yellow one begins on. I chose the poetry for the Summer Singers' pieces because that choir loves to have a good time (both texts have to do with being drunk). I'm not saying they sit around and get loaded all the time but, because this choir meets during the summer, they have a generally more laid-back attitude than a lot of other ensembles and really enjoy each other's company. Add to that the fact that they put out a great sound and you have a possible Combustible Edison. Premiering these pieces was a whole lot of fun.

I had never intended all the volumes to be made up of a primary color and its opposite on the color wheel but, by the time Volume 2 was done, that was just how it turned out: red with green, purple with yellow and, for the final set, blue with orange.









Volume 3
1. Blue! 'Tis the Life of Heaven
2. Orange-Mounts of More Soft Ascent

The Singers performed the final volume last January along with a whole bunch of Minnesota music in honor of the state's 150th birthday and, last week, I got the recording. I could finally listen to all 6 pieces and see how they fit together with actual voices performing them. I had a few ideas but didn't actually settle on the final arrangement until very recently. That being said:

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

The set is 20 minutes and change, the keys flow pretty well...

1. A major
2. C major
3. D major
4. F major/A Lydian (E major)
5. E major
6. F# minor/B minor

...and the harmonic language is unified.

I'm really happy with all 6 pieces and I've already received orders for them from choirs around the country (including the world premiere of the entire set in a concert of my choral music with Vox Musica next month!). The orange piece was featured on Minnesota Public Radio and the green madrigal went on to win a choral award from the Cambridge Chamber Singers. In fact, they will be the first release from my new publishing company (which has yet to be named...I'm juggling a few options).

And that's that. 9 months of composition in the can.

Since you've made it this far I thought I might throw in some completely unnecessary pictures from the archives that have said colors in them and, in the spirit of this little screed, they're in the final order of Color Madrigals: Six Songs on Texts by John Keats. Enjoy!














































































For the curious...
Red: cherries from Pike's Place market in Seattle
Blue: Guster in performance at the MN Zoo
Purple: the house Chiante from a restaurant in Florence, Italy
Yellow: flowers on Culloden Moor near Inverness, Scotland
Green: a pool table in Ashland, Wisconsin
Orange: fruit in a punchbowl at a New Year's party

in like a lion

I was going through the pictorial archives the other day and stumbled across these two. I took them exactly a year ago (March 1, 2007) when the sky fell on the Twin Cities. The school district I work for almost never cancels school because of snow (it's Minnesota, right!) and they ended up having two snow days in a row.

This was out of my apartment window.













Here's the other one from that day. The picture's quite different now. It's clear skies and there are actually workers re-siding the building in the pictures as I type this.