I know, I know, I'm still not doing too well on this whole "weekly posting" schtick. That's mostly due to my forgetful nature and also the nature of the last few weeks, which have been anything but CRAZY!
For the whole month of July I've been in a music history class at CMU, learning from the great Dr. Keith Clifton. We've gone over everything from Beethoven to Brahms to Babbitt, and it's been a great time getting to know more about these important figures in music (even Babbitt, whose music I personally don't care much for, but still has good things to offer).
My term project for the class has been on the Estonian composer Arvo Part, who invented his own personal musical language, called tintinnabuli, in the late 1970's. This style, along with giving Part the label of a sacred minimalist (which he hates), also seems to have captured the attention of nearly every musicologist and theorist in the Northern Hemisphere! SO much has been written about Part and his music already, an impressive feat given he was almost unheard of outside Estonia until the mid 80's. He's also given me a number of ideas about how to approach my own music. I'm eager to try them out in the next pieces that I write!
Speaking of which, part of my blog silence has been due to finishing up a few pieces begun earlier this summer, the first of which is Persephone. This is a trombone/vibraphone duet written for the fantastic trombonist and good friend Nate Brown and myself. The story of Persephone is not a happy one: she was the Greek goddess of the underworld, but not by choice. Legend says that Hades abducted her, then tricked her into eating fruit from the underworld, dooming her to remain there nine months of the year. The other three months she returns to the earth as a goddess of vegetation, giving the earth its harvest season.
This was a rather difficult piece to write, mainly because I prefer the stories I set to be of the happy variety. I tried to counteract the awfulness of the "underworld" sections by making the "overworld" parts as bright as possible (AKA I used B major). When heavy subject matter is involved I also try and end the piece on a happy note (pun intended) and hopefully that came across in this piece.
The other project involves a dance collaboration for the Amirah Women's Shelter in Boston with Ana Lossing, an amazing undergraduate choreographer at CMU. She assembled a collection of quotes from six women at the shelter detailing their stories of being involved with sex trafficking and forced prostitution. I then set those stories to music, an even more difficult task considering these are REAL people, not some mythological figure.
I also brought on some friends to help tell these stories, mainly bassist Jacob Webster. the first section of the piece has him performing alone, with aleatoric (free-form) music supporting the recitation of the stories. the second half is a bit more "traditional" and uses a string quartet plus a piano. While some of the players I do not know yet, my good friend Kelly Vander Molen will be leading the quartet and pianist Miguel Sousa will be stepping in to play that particular part. There's also the dancers Ana will be leading, as well as whoever we get to narrate the stories. It's great to have so many awesome people to work with telling these stories. They NEED to be told.
Finally there's the second movement of the Crystal Ballet to wrap up. This mainly involves adjusting the electronic background to my liking and recording some additional material the next week. I'm going to be keeping my mouth shut now about the rest of it, wouldn't want to spoil the premiere in December now, would I?
Of course there are other pieces on the horizon, but right now I have enough to keep me busy!
For the whole month of July I've been in a music history class at CMU, learning from the great Dr. Keith Clifton. We've gone over everything from Beethoven to Brahms to Babbitt, and it's been a great time getting to know more about these important figures in music (even Babbitt, whose music I personally don't care much for, but still has good things to offer).
My term project for the class has been on the Estonian composer Arvo Part, who invented his own personal musical language, called tintinnabuli, in the late 1970's. This style, along with giving Part the label of a sacred minimalist (which he hates), also seems to have captured the attention of nearly every musicologist and theorist in the Northern Hemisphere! SO much has been written about Part and his music already, an impressive feat given he was almost unheard of outside Estonia until the mid 80's. He's also given me a number of ideas about how to approach my own music. I'm eager to try them out in the next pieces that I write!
Speaking of which, part of my blog silence has been due to finishing up a few pieces begun earlier this summer, the first of which is Persephone. This is a trombone/vibraphone duet written for the fantastic trombonist and good friend Nate Brown and myself. The story of Persephone is not a happy one: she was the Greek goddess of the underworld, but not by choice. Legend says that Hades abducted her, then tricked her into eating fruit from the underworld, dooming her to remain there nine months of the year. The other three months she returns to the earth as a goddess of vegetation, giving the earth its harvest season.
This was a rather difficult piece to write, mainly because I prefer the stories I set to be of the happy variety. I tried to counteract the awfulness of the "underworld" sections by making the "overworld" parts as bright as possible (AKA I used B major). When heavy subject matter is involved I also try and end the piece on a happy note (pun intended) and hopefully that came across in this piece.
The other project involves a dance collaboration for the Amirah Women's Shelter in Boston with Ana Lossing, an amazing undergraduate choreographer at CMU. She assembled a collection of quotes from six women at the shelter detailing their stories of being involved with sex trafficking and forced prostitution. I then set those stories to music, an even more difficult task considering these are REAL people, not some mythological figure.
I also brought on some friends to help tell these stories, mainly bassist Jacob Webster. the first section of the piece has him performing alone, with aleatoric (free-form) music supporting the recitation of the stories. the second half is a bit more "traditional" and uses a string quartet plus a piano. While some of the players I do not know yet, my good friend Kelly Vander Molen will be leading the quartet and pianist Miguel Sousa will be stepping in to play that particular part. There's also the dancers Ana will be leading, as well as whoever we get to narrate the stories. It's great to have so many awesome people to work with telling these stories. They NEED to be told.
Finally there's the second movement of the Crystal Ballet to wrap up. This mainly involves adjusting the electronic background to my liking and recording some additional material the next week. I'm going to be keeping my mouth shut now about the rest of it, wouldn't want to spoil the premiere in December now, would I?
Of course there are other pieces on the horizon, but right now I have enough to keep me busy!