The Fiery Furnace Premere - part 1

I am in San Diego in preparation for the premiere of The Fiery Furnace with Maestro Jahja Ling, the San Diego Symphony, and the San Diego Master Chorale. In a future post I’ll give the details of the piece. For the moment, I’ll tell you it is 34 minutes in length and is absolutely the biggest piece I have ever written. It is also my first attempt at true dramatic music. This project has been 4 years in the making and has taken me roughly 9 months to write.

Last night I attended a rehearsal where Maestro Jahja Ling worked with the chorale for the first time on this music. It was a wonderful rehearsal. He devoted all three hours to my piece and took so much care with each moment that he didn’t have time for the last 5 minutes of the piece. He had a great rapport with the choir who clearly loves singing for him. Perhaps the most meaningful part of the rehearsal was how much attention he gave to text expression. He had a clear idea of how each musical phrase should communicate the text. It was truly wonderful to have the conductor so in tune with my intentions.

I have been quite nervous about this piece since early January. It has taken months and months to create and I have never done anything remotely similar before. I’ve done everything I know to make it a great piece, yet I have no past experience to know if this piece will ultimately work. Last night was such a relief because I am starting to get a glimpse of the whole piece and I am feeling very good about it. Although the vocal soloists won’t arrive till next week, the dramatic arch of the choral parts are working really well. The chorus sounds great and I now know that the maestro knows the piece and will do a marvelous job in preparing this performance.

The next big piece of the puzzle will come Wednesday night when the orchestra rehearses the piece for the first time.

Thoughts about San Diego…

I have never before visited a city where the airport is in the middle of the city. The first time I flew in I felt like I could see in people’s living rooms as the plane dropped to the level of apartments. On the ground, it is wild to see planes flying so low. As I type, a plane flies by my hotel room every 10 minutes or so. Its sort of creepy.

The weather is really great. I took a long walk earlier through Balboa Park and there was just the right mix of warmth with an occasional cool breeze.