Month: October 2021

Last night I enjoyed the premiere of my new work, Parallel Lives, by ensemble mise-en at their venue in Brooklyn.  The performance was wonderful, and it was especially meaningful to hear my work live for the first time since the pandemic began.  

As long as I have been doing this (around 31 years since I set pencil to paper), I always encounter some doubt as to whether what I heard in my mind will succeed in the corporeal realm.  Lucky for me, I seem to have pulled it off again with the support of the excellent musicians of mise-en and their conductor, Moon Young Ha. 

Having heard the work and the reaction from some of the musicians, I am considering extending it or writing a companion piece.  It seems the Parallel Lives of the title may have just been a Parallel Life after all.  Sometimes the sounds we create leave us wanting more.  So it will be back to pencil and paper at some point soon.  And likely an eraser, too.

Very happy that Sandburg Songs, my 2016 song cycle on texts from Carl Sandburg’s Chicago Poems, is on the first ballot for Best Contemporary Composition in this year’s Grammy Awards. Making this recording on Albany Records was a real labor of love, and I was blessed to collaborate with soprano Tony Arnold and members of Zohn Collective, conducted by Tim Weiss. Thanks to my friends and colleagues in the Recording Academy for your listening and support!

I’ve spent the last two months at the Library of Congress going through the Steven Stucky Papers as part of a 2-year funded research project from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council.  What began as a planned one-month visit turned into two, and now it’s clear that there’s enough material to warrant at least one return trip later this spring.  My goal going into this was to write about Stucky’s orchestrational technique and the scope and limits of compositional influence.  I still plan to do that, as well as bring some of these materials to a wider public.  

But what I want to reflect on here is my personal response to my time with these materials.  It has been a privilege to spend time with the artifacts of my former teacher’s professional life—scores, sketches, correspondence, programs, teaching materials, and so much more.  Having known Steve for twenty years, I knew he was smart, organized, committed, and, of course, an incredibly talented artist.  But what these materials crystalize for me is the extent of these traits and how hard a worker he was.  The breadth of his skills—artistic, academic, and interpersonal—is not something we all possess.  Not every excellent composer is also a great writer and public speaker and skilled in the art of interpersonal diplomacy.  An important part of Steve’s legacy must be the scope of his influence, from whole series like the Green Umbrella with L.A. Phil to discussions of harmony with lesser-knowns like myself.  Through my work, I hope I can illuminate some of the myriad means of expression that remain Steve’s lasting work.  

I’m looking forward to speaking with students at Kent State University this coming Monday, October 3! When speaking with students, I find it useful to think a bit about how we learn to compose and how our backgrounds and early experiences influence us. I also plan to share some of my recent works from my Albany Records portrait CD. Thanks to composer Adam Roberts for the invitation.