New Performances: International Edition

The vast majority of my published music is sold in the US, but a small percentage of my total sales comes from international buyers. Not all countries have American-style school music programs, so the demand for student-level string orchestra music is much lower.  Occasionally, though, I hear about performances of my music outside the US.  Here are two I stumbled across recently.

First up, we journey to the mysterious land of kangaroos and Vegemite: Australia.  Here's the Sydney Youth Orchestra performing Lemon Twist:

Wasn't that great?  You can really tell how much those young musicians really enjoyed playing it.  Watching the Violin II's and Violas bopping along to the rhythm makes my heart swell.  That's what it's all about

Up next is the Orquesta de Cuerdas de Grado in Córdoba. That's Córdoba SPAIN, y'all.  I've heard of performances in Australia and Canada, but this is the first time I've heard of a performance of my music in Europe.  I'm a little awed.  They do a great job with Gargoyles:

Professor D. Gabriel A. leads a fantastic orchestra and it looks like he has a well-balanced program there at the Córdoba Professional Conservatory of Music.  Good tempo, great sense of style.

At this point I should remind readers that I'm available as guest conductor, so if anyone in Europe wants to fly me out and pay my expenses to visit their program, please drop me a line.

Too Difficult?

Here's a quandry I thought I'd express to you, interwebs: when it comes to music for student orchestras, how difficult is too difficult?

In the past I've written music with rhythms that makes students' eyes cross.  Despite taking it slow, counting it out, teaching by rote, and being very methodical, I find that these rhythms are completely un-performable. And yet, the same students have no problem singing the exact same rhythms when they appear in pop songs.  It must be something about the written music. Needless to say that I'll either simplify it before submitting it to my publisher or just abandon it altogether.

On the other hand, when I write a purposely challenging piece (like Agincourt in 7/8 time) I hear kids say "Pffft.  That's totally easy.  We could play that in sixth grade."  (Though how well remains to be seen.)

Shifting is challenging, part independence can be challenging, and so can triplets against duplets, fast technical passages, key changes, and good old-fashioned expressive musicianship.  I've thrown all of those things into various pieces and kids blow it off like it's nothing and my publisher rates the difficulty 2.5 out of 4. These are all things that students should be able to do at some point as they advance at their instrument.

Question #1: Where's the line?  Does it depend on the individual player or group? Or am I being lied to when it comes to how challenging to make a piece of music?

Question #2: Are students being pushed too far too soon? Are teachers pushing advanced music and techniques too soon at the expense of fundamentals and basic technique? 

This also brings up the controversy of "teaching to the music," to which I am opposed.  My philosophy is to use music to reinforce the lessons, but many teachers choose the music first and then teach students the techniques they need in order to play it.  In my mind, when you teach to the music it sets up a very specific context for the technique and students find it harder to apply that technique to another piece of music.  Teaching the lesson first and then applying it to a piece ensures that students understand the fundamentals first - the whys and hows - before trying it out.

The reason I ask is because I'm working on a challenging piece that I intend for high school groups.  I'm including all the challenging techniques listed above and if I've done my job right, the orchestra, director, and audience should be completely exhausted by the end of the piece.  But is is too hard?  Am I writing myself out of an audience?  What say you, interwebs?

New Recordings Available!

Recordings of my three newly-published pieces are now available online!  Just go to alfred-music.com and do a search for my name and you can get recordings of any (or all) of my published music for just $.99 per song.

Click on these links for online samples:

Sneaking Suspicion  •  Star of Valor  •  Storm Trail

Yes, it's the year of the "S's."  I totally didn't plan it, the selection committee just happened to select three pieces whose titles start with "S."  People would kid me years ago because three of my first four published pieces started with "G."  As I'm sure you know from exhaustively reading all the posts on this blog and committing them to memory, titles are tough for me.  If I were smart, all my titles would only start with letters A through M, so they always appear in the first half of alphabetically-organized lists of titles.

But I digress.

I'm really happy with how the recordings turned out. Some of my pieces are really designed for larger forces than the nine or ten studio musicians assembled to record the Alfred catalog, but the musicianship is of such high quality that I can't complain.

Consider this when listening to Star of Valor: I had a lot of trouble with counterpoint in college. All the rules just confounded me and I'd freeze up when asked to write out a simple chorale. My fugues were musical atrocities.  And here I am years later, juggling simultaneous melodies and lyrical accompaniment parts like it's nothing.  In fact, it was a lot of work to get it right and the studio musicians make it sound easy and natural.

Anyway, follow those links, enjoy the new music, and please buy it if you like it.  Thanks!

1260 North Weatherly Drive

I was fortunate enough to take a trip to Los Angeles, California, recently - my first trip to California - and had a long list of things to see.  The Getty Center? Sure. Universal Studios?  Okay.  Grauman's Chinese Theater? Check.  But do you know what was at the top of the list? The one thing I wanted to see above all else?  This quiet two-bedroom three-bath home on a hill in West Hollywood.

This, Ladies and Gents, is 1260 North Weatherly Drive, once home to Mr. and Mrs. Igor Stravinsky.  That's right - the greatest composer of the 20th century and my favorite composer and chief influence lived and worked right here.  My favorite opera, The Rake's Progress, was written within these walls, as were countless other masterpieces.  This is the headquarters for the mid-century musical avant-garde.  Igor probably entertained W. H. Auden, Toscanini, and Oscar Levant right on that balcony.

The house is off the beaten path, but is throwing distance from the famous Sunset Strip, where bands like Motly Crue and Guns N' Roses were discovered at the Roxy, the Viper Room, and the Rainbow. It's minutes away from the spot where Andy Kauffman first took the stage and where River Phoenix shuffled off his mortal coil.

Of course, it's still someone's house, so I didn't get to spend a lot of time there.  I found the house, got out of the car, snapped two photos through the iron fence, and got out of there.  I didn't see any activity, and I'm not sure the owners even know the importance of their address.  I didn't want to bother anyone.

A few days later, I sought out another important address: 6340 Hollywood Boulevard (between Ivar and Vine).  It's the location of a burger restaurant, but I was more interested in what's just outside.

That's right - he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  In fact, Igor is the only classical composer to have a star on Hollywood Boulevard.  Suck on that, Beethoven.

I saw other stuff in Los Angeles and had a great time, but these stood out as two major highlights in an exceptional week.

A New Opera

I'm proud to announce that I've started in earnest on my second opera!  It will be called "Heart Mountain" and, like my first opera, "Mata Hari," it will be an original story based around historical events.

What about the first opera, you ask?  Well, it seems I was a little too ambitious with that one.  It's a big three-act production with lots of roles, a chorus, and a big orchestra in the pit and no opera company wanted to/was able to risk the expense for a brand-new, untested opera.  Their loss.

So I've planned this new opera to be the complete opposite in nearly every way:

Mata Hari: 4 main roles, 6 minor roles, plus a chorus (20 singers total)
Heart Mountain: 4 singers total

Mata Hari: 35 to 40-piece orchestra in the pit
Heart Mountain: Piano, 'Cello, Clarinet, all on stage with the singers

Mata Hari: Three acts, two hours
Heart Mountain: One act, 60 minutes (80 tops)

Mata Hari: Three sets
Heart Mountain: A wall.  Otherwise, no sets.

Mata Hari: Declamatory style, with singing throughout. Basically a sung play.
Heart Mountain: A "number" opera with some talking between songs. The same idea as "The Magic Flute"

My idea is to make it as economical as possible, with only eight to ten people involved: four singers, three musicians, a director, and one or two technical personnel to handle lighting and stage manage.  I'm writing the clarinet part for myself and it's possible that one of the singers or musicians could direct.  Or the director could be a stagehand.  It's something we could bring to schools or to the Cincinnati Fringe Festival in a few years. My hope is that Heart Mountain will open some doors that will lead to Mata Hari getting produced.

So far, I've done a lot of research, created the story, planned everything in an outline, and have written the introduction music and one of the songs.  Instead of polishing the libretto and then adding music like I did with Mata Hari, I'm going to write the music and lyrics together, letting one inform the other as I go.  I've only just begun and I'm a long way from finishing, but the first steps in a very long journey are laid out and I'm on my way!