Blog Hits the Big Time

I have been blogging for a bit more than a month…

Yet, my blog has reached the gossip column for a major newspaper. It turns out the San Diego Union Tribune has picked up my account of being spotted at the Zoo by a Zoo tour guide who sings in the San Diego Master Chorale. You simply can’t pay for this kind of publicity.

Thanks to Ellen from the sopranos who will soon join the service and give up zoo touring, as well as singing in the San Diego Master Chorale.

I truly enjoyed my day at the San Diego Zoo. Beyond the brief moment when I was recognized, I spent hours of anonymous animal gazing while listening to my precious mp3 player. Beyond the music of local composer Joseph Waters, I listened to some late Beethoven. There is no place like lengthy solitary listening to absorb late Beethoven. The sum of all the parts come together and I am usually moved to tears at one point or another. Probably the last three piano sonatas catch me the most. I used to say that Op 111 hit me the most. These days I would definitely say that op 109 & 110 hit me most.

Do you think Beethoven ever imagined I would hear near perfect recordings of his piano works in remarkable fidelity while watching the San Diego gorillas interact with children for near 25 minutes? If the children are unaware of the profound impact of late Beethoven, have they missed something as they watch the gorillas?

What a difference a century makes…

Can you super size my circus?

Tonight my wife and I joined over a thousand at Boettcher Concert Hall in Denver to hear John Corigliano’s latest symphony: Circus Maximus. In recent memory, very few new pieces have ever received the kind of attention as this one (John Adams new opera is another). Apparently this piece was commissioned by the University of Texas at Austin for a scandalously large sum of money. It was supposed to be a large work for band – it is that.

The defining element of this piece is the incredible use of spatial writing. Perhaps half the performers in this giant work were spread around the hall. Boettcher was particularly fantastic as it is a completely round hall with unlimited possibilities for staging true surround sound.

This was truly an amazing spectacle. Allan McMurray (celebrated wind conductor) described this as a theatrical piece of music. Quite true… The complexity of textures that were delivered to the ears from so many vantage points offered a truly unique experience. This could not be duplicated with any surround sound system I have ever heard.

I really loved the piece. It had a raw power that I rarely hear outside of Corigliano’s output. Although I am sort of a meats and potatoes, harmony and counterpoint sort of composer, I do enjoy the simple power and beauty of raw sound or even noise. Our auditory environment has become so complex in our mechanized and electric world. This work tapped into that energy and harnessed it beautifully.

Perhaps the most interesting thing for me to think about during the concert was how were others in the audience processing the piece. Much of the piece is ear splitting loud (it ends with a shotgun). Our audience was made up of a mix of ages and I was quite sure that many of them had never heard concerts that were so loud. A few people walked out at various points. At those moments I thought this piece was indeed pushing the boundaries of how outside the bounds of “normal” most audiences can stomach. I thought perhaps everyone was shell shocked and were just politely waiting till the 3^rd act when Dave Grusin would perform some Bernstein. I was dead wrong. The standing ovation at the end of the piece was quite immediate and truly earnest. I have never witnessed such a positive response to a new piece of music (and I was present at the premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s percussion concerto). The mastery of this piece is that John Corigliano’s auditory vision is so unique and compelling that a hall filled with average concert goers overcame any inhibition to the “new” and came to instantly love something shockingly different than anything they had ever heard in an orchestral concert hall.

On the right days, new music has an amazing power…

The Fiery Furnace Premiere - Part 9 - Sunday

Sunday…

The Sunday performance was the best of all. The pacing got even better, the soloists further refined their parts, and everything had a great energy. The audience response was very strong (complete with whoops and hollers) and the whole concert was very satisfying.

The soloists and Maestro Ling were all very pleased and their feelings for the piece had strengthened further. It felt really great. Lots of work went into the piece and I felt like it had all been worth it. Certainly there are things I want to tweak and I will continue to think through issues of pacing, but the piece really came together and made a big impact. I think I am hooked enough on dramatic vocal works that I definitely should go ahead with plans to write a chamber opera.

It was a bit sad to leave town. In the end, I had made 4 trips to San Diego for a total of 9 rehearsals (including voice only rehearsals), 3 concerts, 6 events of talking about the piece to different groups of people, and 5 solid sightseeing outings. It was a great experience that is quite removed from the daily slog of writing in my basement studio, or weekly teaching. Hearing one’s music come to life is possibly the best part of composition. All the work pays off and hopefully a deeply satisfying performance is the result. This “high” should carry me through the next several months worth of writer’s block, and days I wish I was doing anything but writing.

I have plans to arrange a two piano version of the score so that smaller choirs can present the piece in chamber settings. This will probably happen over the next year and will first be performed at the University of Colorado where I teach. I am hopeful I can interest a few orchestras to take up the piece as well. Certainly an excellent choir is needed as well as an interest in the “new”.

The Fiery Furnace Premiere - Part 8 - Saturday night

Saturday night…

By Saturday morning I had come to believe that Friday night had gone really, really well. After the concert there was a champagne toast in Maestro Ling’s dressing room. I talked to a number of audience members who offered great responses to the oratorio. The drama of the story had come across and the totality of the piece had made a strong impression.

Later on I had a drink with the soloists and a few others from the orchestra. We did some recapping of the performance and noticed how the drama of the story had really come forward since the early rehearsals. Performers often say they never really understand a piece until they perform it to an audience, and my soloists felt even better about the piece after this first performance.

So, I woke up Saturday feeling that months and months of writing this oratorio had paid off. This was great because now I could really enjoy the Saturday and Sunday performances. I didn’t have to torture myself with rethinking each section. I could just listen and enjoy the music making.

After my on stage comments (much more confident this time), I decided to listen from the balcony. A run around the stage and up some stairs and I could sit by myself in a part of the concert hall that had a great balance. The Saturday performance was stronger from everyone and it was an absolute pleasure to hear so many musicians bring this piece to life.

The Fiery Furnace Premiere - Part 7 - Friday Night

The Friday night concert was great…

At least that’s how I think it went and at least what people told me. The premiere of The Fiery Furnace was truly nerve wracking. It wasn’t that I did not have total confidence in the performers, but rather I just didn’t know how the audience would enjoy the piece. I thought the piece worked, but would anyone else? Was the pacing right? Would the balances work with a room full of people? Did the libretto communicate the drama of the story?

I was nervous for the pre-concert talk and even more nervous for the 2 minute comment I would make on stage just before the piece was played. Then I ran to get my seat on the ground floor aware of the hundreds of people covering the whole floor. For the first time I heard the piece without my nose in the score. I thought the players did wonderfully well, but I kept thinking about each decision I had made when writing the piece and whether they were good decisions. After 35 minutes, the piece came to an end and it turned out the response was great. By the time I made it on stage, most of the first floor was standing and I truly felt that the audience heard the story I wanted to tell.

The soloists, Nicholas Phan and Stephen Richardson, were very complimentary and were also very pleased that an actual world premiere had been successfully accomplished. This piece demanded a lot from them both and they came through with power and grace. Maestro Ling was equally pleased and complimentary. His pacing was the best yet.

In spite of the celebratory tone, I was in shell shock. It was just too much to process. At any rate, the piece had been born…

The Fiery Furnace Premiere - Part 6

The Friday night performance was wonderful. The performers did a beautiful job and the response was great. It looked like a very sizable standing ovation.

My head is still spinning. A premiere is so much to take in. Now that I have been through a performance once, I am really looking forward to tonight’s concert. I can finally relax and enjoy the piece.

I spent the day sailing with friends and now need a nap. More to come soon…

The Fiery Furnace Premiere - Part 5

Well, its finally come altogether. Tonight I heard the soloists, chorus, and orchestra all in the same room. They all sounded fantastic. I am absolutely pleased and really looking forward to the public unveiling tomorrow.

This morning was the first rehearsal with soloists and orchestra. The biggest challenge (and one of the biggest question marks) was the balance with soloists and orchestra. The first run revealed many difficult passages (and a few that worked beautifully). After rehearsal the soloists, Maestro Ling, the assistant conductor, and myself went to Maestro Ling’s dressing room and dug into the details of the piece. During the rehearsal I put post-its at the top of a page where there is something that needs to be addressed. After rehearsal I must have had 35 post-its sticking up from my score. So we went through each post-it and figured out what changes would improve those spots. Many times we simply needed to reduce the strings to one player on a part. Other spots we took out a few instruments. After our 45 minute rehearsal the orchestra librarians left with 3 pages of notes. Later in the afternoon they penciled in the changes to the parts.

By the evening rehearsal, many of the problem spots were fixed and the balance was great. After one run through there were a few more spots to tweak. I also took out one measure (removing only one measure isn’t bad for a 750 measure piece), made some transition spots louder, and tweaked a few tempos. We ratcheted up the final tempo and now the ending really cooks. By the end of my portion of the rehearsal, the piece was in great shape.

I am really excited about the premiere. Many thanks to the orchestra, administration, chorus, soloists, Gary McKercher (director of the chorus), and Maestro Ling. A special thanks to Philip Mann (assistant conductor) who provided a second set of super expert ears. He had his own running list of post-its and was invaluable during each rehearsal. If his conducting is as good as his insight into the finer workings of orchestral sound, he has a bright future.

Much of tomorrow is a down day (until the premiere). I am looking forward to eating lunch at the hotel filmed in Some Like it Hot. The afternoon will include a backstage tour of the train museum in Balboa Park. My dad (my folks came to San Diego for the premiere) is a train nut and has planned this trip since he first heard my piece would be premiered in San Diego.