Posts Tagged ‘Donald McGinnis’

Lunchtime Thoughts

Wednesday, October 31st, 2012

Looking back, I’ve been neglecting this blog–posting every six weeks isn’t really going to do it. So–my Halloween resolution is now and then to go on at lunchtime and put up about ten minutes worth of thoughts. Here goes:
I’ve been spending some time getting together a group of composition projects for the next year or so, and it’s looking good. First, there will be a piece for flute choir in honor of Donald McGinnis’ 95th birthday, commissioned by Katherine Borst Jones at Ohio State for her Flute Troupe there. Dr. McGinnis was Kathy’s teacher and the subject of my doctoral research–he was the band director at Ohio State for over thirty years (from the 40s to the 70s), and was also a composer and flutist, so it’s a very interesting commission from a personal point of view. I’ve started a couple of different openings, but I haven’t found the one that really makes me want to keep writing–when I do, the piece will come, so I’m giving it another shot this weekend.

After that will be a first for me–a film score. At the Region VI Society of Composers conference earlier this month, the WTAMU Symphony Orchestra performed excerpts of the silent film scores that BJ Brooks has created for them over the last few years. Now that I’m conducting the Lakeland Civic Orchestra, I’ve decided to try the same thing with them in April, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to use Georges Melies’ 1902 Le Voyage Dans La Lune, which I will score and we will then project during our performance.

Next, a collaborative project–Antoine Clark, a clarinetist who was at Ohio State at the same time I was, approached me about scoring a new work of his for clarinet and band.  Antoine’s work is a Fantasy on Themes from the Barber of Seville for clarinet and piano, and would make an excellent solo vehicle in the tradition of pieces for cornet by Clarke and Arban, and I’m very excited about working on this.  Look for performances in the Columbus area next fall.

Finally–and I find this incredibly exciting, I will be writing a piano concerto for pianist Avguste Antonov, who is based in Grapevine, Texas and has performed my Starry Wanderers and my Piano Sonata.  Avguste performs as a concerto soloist regularly, and the piece won’t be ready until the 2014-2015 season, but I’m thrilled to be writing for this medium.  If you need a preview, Avguste is playing excerpts from Starry Wanderers tonight in Youngstown!

Those are the new projects–there are plenty of performances of old pieces on the horizon as well:  In two weeks, Magie Smith will be the clarinet soloist with the Sinclair Community College Wind Symphony and Kenneth Kohlenberg in the premiere of my concerto Daytime Drama–a piece that has been waiting longer than it was supposed to wait, but that is in good hands with a group I used to play in.  November 17 in Dayton, Ohio.  Two weeks late, I’ll be conducting my Variations on a French Carol with the Lakeland Civic Band, on December 2 here in Kirtland.  Then after the new year, performances of my Suite for String Orchestra will get rolling, beginning with Maura Brown and that Batavia High School strings at the Illinois Music Educators Association convention on Friday, January 25 in Peoria–at 9:30am, but it’s my first MEA convention performance, so I’m excited.  Performances will follow thereafter in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kansas and Florida!

Symphony on the Brain

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

Every so often, I go through symphony envy…

I’m older than Beethoven was when he wrote his first symphony, but younger than Brahms by the time he finished his initial contribution to the genre, so maybe it’s just a part of the phase of life I’m in now–a desire to work on big, meaningful projects that really define who I am as a musician and a human being.

It might be that I’ve been running across symphony references–today is Phillip Glass’ birthday, and the American Composer’s Orchestra is giving the premiere of his Ninth Symphony in New York (I won’t be there… we have band rehearsal in Oklahoma).  Additionally, my facebook friend David Sartor, whose music I have been admiring of late, posted that he has begun working on a Symphony No. 1, despite not having a commission, because he feels like he needs to do that.  David is somewhat older and more established as a composer than I am, but I understand the desire to tackle this genre, whether the results are immediately wanted or not.  A respondent to David’s facebook post said that if he wrote his symphony for band instead of orchestra, he’d have plenty of opportunities for performance, which is probably true.  Last, I just finished reading Nicholas Tawa’s new book The Great American Symphony.  As I read about some pieces that I’ve loved for years and some that are unfamiliar to me, I came to realize what an American thing it actually is to write a symphony.

So, first, Phillip Glass.  I’ve come to the conclusion that the minimalist label might  be incorrect for Glass’s music–his textures are reminiscent of true minimalism, of course, but the structures of his music are not, even in pieces like Wichita Sutra Vortex.  Unlike Reich or Riley, they are meditative, but not entrancing.  A thought, and I will have to think more about it later.  Happy Birthday!  and congrats on your premiere tonight, Mr. Glass.

As a performer who has played orchestrally but whose main experience is in band, I wonder if my desire to write a symphony for orchestra, like David Sartor’s, is not a little bit misplaced, or in my case, even a form of betrayal.  I have spent my professional life promoting the idea that bands can, should and must play serious original music–like the symphonies for band by Hindemith, Persichetti and Gould–I even wrote my DMA document on a symphony for band (by Donald McGinnis), but I want my first symphony to be for orchestra.

When I wrote my biggest orchestra piece to date, Five Rhythmic Etudes, I had just turned thirty and initially started sketching a symphony–unlike many composers, I have only even made a halting attempt once!  The piece turned into something else, and I can see now that I wasn’t ready to write a symphony.  If a great college or military band came to me tomorrow with a commission for a symphony, I would probably accept it–all the while wishing the piece was for orchestra.  Am I being a traitor to the very movement that has allowed me to participate fully in serious music as a professional?  I’ve written some band music over the years–and some of my best pieces are for band–but I’m still not ready to completely admit that I am a “band composer.”  As many doors as that might open, it certainly seems to slam others shut.  Of course, writing a symphony could have precisely the same effect.

That said, I’m excited about my major project for the first part of the year, a suite for strings.  Alongside, I’m cohosting an SCI conference, so I’ll be professionally busy for quite a bit of the year, but 2013 is wide open–if any conductors or patrons are reading this, I’m want to write a symphony, and I won’t do it without a commission: I don’t write anything unless there is a firm promise of a performance.  Listen to my music and see what you think, and you know where to find me.