I just watched this great interview with CSO oboist Alex Klein, who talks about his struggles living with focal dystonia. Well worth your time!
Short update. Giving the ol' site a little love and have added a new section for composition and brass related articles and resources.
A handful of new works are currently in the fires, including: a tuba concerto, a euphonium concerto, piccolo and tuba duet, tuba and cd, tuba and piano, as well as a new work for concert band. Should be a busy finish to the year! Stay tuned for MUZAK!
I'm very excited to be having 2 premieres this April by three extremely talented student musicians! First on April 6th at Tennessee Tech University, Steve Darling and Preston Light will be performing Dualities for euphonium, tuba, and piano. They are both fantastic performers and it is sure to be a great concert. Then on April 23 at Appalachian State University, Mark Collins II and Preston Light will premiere Rituals and Awakenings, a very challenging work for tuba and timpani.
In other news, work continues on a massive tuba concerto for Tim Northcut of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Commissioned as part of a consortium effort, Dualities is a three-movement duet for euphonium and tuba, with piano accompaniment. I'm really excited for the premiere of this, as the two lead commissioners, Preston Light and Steve Darling, are two very talented up-and-comers in the tuba-euphonium community, AND the premiere performance will be at my undergrad college Tennessee Tech University.
To geek out a little, I wound up going with Dualities as the title because of my interest in the subject as a spiritual philosophy, as well as the fit with the instrumentation—a duet. I also chose two-part subtitles for each movement. And if that wasn't geeky enough, each movement generally has two sections, though they're not exactly clear cut. Look for it from Cimarron Music sometime this spring or early summer! 2016 has been a great year for me as a composer, finally bridging the gulf between independent writing and being more regularly approached by my colleagues to write for them. Currently I'm in the early stages of beginning two new commissions, and both are quite exciting projects. Each involves a pair of absolutely fantastic musicians!
The first is for two up-and-coming talents in the tuba-euphonium world: Steve Darling (euphonium) and Preston Light (tuba) are both currently students at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music. Both are winners of multiple solo competitions, so a duet between them is going to be phenomenal; they can handle anything I throw at them! The second project will feature a tuba duet between two hugely talented artists who need no introductions: Sergio Carolino and Gene Pokorny. With so much potential, I'm looking forward to jumping in and seeing what I can come u up with. In both of these projects, I'm hoping to provide something challenging but accessible for both performers and audiences, and to fill the relative gap of literature available for tuba/euph duets. More info on these as they come along! Recently I finished a new work for tuba and timpani titled, "Rituals and Awakenings." This piece was commissioned by Mark Collins, II and Phi Mu Alpha, for the 50th anniversary of the Rho Tau chapter, located at Appalachian State University. It will be premiered in April of 2017 by Mark Collins, II (timpani) and Preston Light (tuba). I'm very happy with how this piece turned out, after some self-doubts halfway through the writing process. I had to learn a lot about timpani and how they're played in order to write something that would be fun, but challenging for Mark and future performers. Mark was a huge help answering my questions and giving suggestions throughout the birthing of the piece. I'm already very familiar with writing for tuba, and the very talented Preston Light can handle anything I throw at him, so the tuba side was never an issue. Learning to fit both instruments together was a challenge, but ultimately I feel it expanded my horizons as a composer. To get beneath the surface of the timpani, beyond the *BUM BUM BUM BUM* clichés you normally hear, and into more of the true capabilities of the instrument was something that gradually revealed itself the more I stretched. I hope to be able to write for them again, maybe in a solo capacity, and take that exploration even further! It's a very challenging work for both performers, and I cannot wait to hear it once they've worked it up. Here's a screenshot of one of my favorite sections: Stay tuned!
Phillip C. Black - Tomes of the Wanderer
"Black opened with “Tomes of the Wanderer,” (2014) by Benjamin McMillan a newer selection with prerecorded accompaniment. Described by the composer as having the “sounds of a film score,” the work was presented with staged actions by the performer. He acted out traveling “Over the Mountains” with his trusty walking stick, seeing the high peaks and deep vales. In the “Old Forest,” he passed through tangled woods with twisted limbs, keeping an eye out for fierce wildlife. In the “Cursed Mire” he met the terrifying “Leviathan.” Black’s performance elicited laughter from the audience in this very interesting and accessible theatre piece." - Carole Nowicke, Indiana University I'm very excited to be having 8 performances of my music at the International Tuba Euphonium Conference this year! I'm also a finalist in the Harvey Phillips Awards for Excellence in Composition for my new work for unaccompanied euphonium, Paracosms, available from Cimarron Music!
Also, I'm pleased to be working with Mark Collins, II and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, Rho Tau on a new work for tuba and timpani. It's sure to be a unique challenge, and will hopefully be something as fun to hear as it is to perform. To be premiered in April of 2017! Stay tuned for more info! |
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