So it has been a while since I have written here. Life has been busy.
While I was away I had some exciting things go down...
I played a couple of new piano cycles here and also in my brother's art gallery Nox Contemporary in Salt Lake City. I think they were fairly successful. They are definitely becoming more indicative of my new process of composing. Well, I don't know if it is a process so much as a frame of mind in my approach to writing.
I finally got a piece for Trumpet and Piano done (Winds of Another Planet) but the recording was.... interrupted by massive squeaking of doors. So hopefully it can get done again some day to get a recording of it. I think it was pretty successful.
One of the new piano cycles is a work based on ideas and/or techniques from Morton Feldman. You can give that a listen HERE. (scroll down a bit to Because of Morton Feldman). I thought it appropriate since a lot of my new ideas and approaches to writing came from reading his essays and interviews on his own approach. Mainly, the intensity with which he wrote. Making every minute of composition time productive, or walk away. Between this, and a the necessity of it with a new baby 18 months ago, it has been the best writing experiences of my life these last 2 years.
The second one was an interesting project. I took 5 of my brother's latest works that he has been working on in charcoal and graphite. These were really interesting to deal with as, in talking with him, I felt that we are beginning to approach creation in a very similar way, or more to the point, I am coming into more of his way of approaching these things. you can listen to that HERE, as well as see the drawings that accompany them.
I have worked with his paintings and other pictorial subjects before, but this one was different somehow. I don't know if it was the paintings themselves being so different then what I have worked with before, or maybe it's me and I feel like I am finally reaching some relative level of maturity in my work. I am not sure, and I am not really dwelling on it too much, just enjoying the end product.
Of course then school starts and my productivity comes to a slow crawl. But I was able to get an a cappella solo voice song done, which is interesting in itself. I hope to get it done some day.
I also had a "new" solo cello piece (A Voice Within) premiered, finally after 2 years of several performances that fell through, at the first annual OCU Alumni concert in November. Unfortunately I was unable to attend but I am looking forward to hearing the recording. It's a strange piece I wonder how it turned out?
