Month: August 2018

Before boarding my flight back to Hong Kong (Is there a bigger contrast than small college town-Ohio and neon-clad Asian supercity?), I have time to report that the Albany Records recording session was an excellent experience, and it was a pleasure to work with some of the best in the business during our intensive week of rehearsals and recordings. I am very much forward to the next stages of making this CD come to life and confident that the final product—musically and sonically—will be something we can all be proud of. I would like to thank all my musicians—soprano Tony Arnold, conductor Tim Weiss, and the members of Zohn Collective—for their time and talents in making this week possible. Great thanks are also due to recording engineer Paul Eachus and the entire staff in recording services at Oberlin for their incredible ears and for making the process run smoothly from start to finish. “And that’s a wrap!”

Now on to dim sum.

My three weeks at Copland House have passed with the usual flash of residencies around the world.  The opening weeks seem slow—each hour of quiet and solitude sinking in as we slowly remember there was a world before the internet and the constant interruption of e-mail.  Then, little by little, the pace speeds up until—all at once and without warning—there are two or three days left.  Time to repack!  But where am I bound?

In this case, the answer is Oberlin, Ohio, where I will spend a week recording my portrait CD for Albany Records.  The musicians are travelling from near and far.  Tony Arnold, the star soprano with whom I have been blessed to work from the beginning on my Sandburg Songs, will be finishing up her teaching and performances at Tanglewood.  Members of Zohn Collective will be hitting the road (or air?) from Chicago, Cincinnati, Lexington, Nashville, Seattle, Georgia (the state), and Germany (the country).  Let’s not forget my own diversion-filled round-trip from Hong Kong!  Meanwhile, the intrepid conductor Tim Weiss will be at coming home to Oberlin Conservatory immediately following his work at Aspen.  How lucky am I to have found a time and place that works for all of us?

While my work Celebrations  was included in a recent CD of contemporary kayagŭm compositions in Korea, this Albany CD will be the first devoted solely to my work.  Thus, I am excited and—I’ll admit here if you promise not to tell anyone—a bit overwhelmed about the task before me.  With rehearsals and recording sessions fairly nonstop for the following week, my ears will be used to their max.  But I trust that with these musicians the effort will be worth it!

I hesitate to write too much for fear of interrupting the cool focus of my residency here at Copland House. However, I wanted to report progress on revisions of my guitar work, They Say, as well as my recent piano work, Inner Truth. While hindsight may not always be 20/20, there is something to be said for viewing a work from some distance, perhaps more objectively than in the heat of the creative moment.

I am enjoying the quiet, positive pressure of working at Aaron Copland’s piano and sturdy wood desk, not to mention listening to unexpected finds in the CD collection. A recording of the works of Henry Brandt has struck me quite strongly. I remember playing one of his works as a young violinist in the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony and thinking how interesting it was to have winds placed throughout the hall. Outside that experience as a performer, however, I’ve had little exposure to his music. The sheer force and color of some of what I’m hearing on this disc is enough to warrant further listening and study.

In addition to my listening activities, I have appreciated the many scores of previous residents (not to mention Copland’s own work), which are always readily available for those times when I’m wondering where to turn or what else is possible. With a little under a week left, I’m looking forward to further inspiration and discoveries here in this historic landmark and living testament to the continued influence of Copland as a titan of American music.