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music
My latest work is part of my ongoing series of Open Pieces. Carson Cooman is performing on this recording. He is a wonderful, sensitive musician. This work was composed for the very talented organist and composer Carson Cooman. Please take a moment to listen to his fine performance.
Open means the pieces have an indeterminate duration and can be performed by any group or instruments.
If you want to learn more about Carson please go over to his website: carsoncooman.com
This weekend I get to meet my friend, Wendy Richman, in person. Not just twitter, email, Facebook and over the phone. I'm excited. Here's why:
In the spring of 2009 (i think), I joined twitter. I had lots of friends joining it so i decided if everyone else was doing it I didn't want to miss out on anything. I began following my fellow musicians from college and the random other ones that i knew. discussions with one friend would bring other people into the conversation and before I knew it i had twitter musician friends around the globe. One evening I was having a conversation with two other composers. I don't even remember what we were discussing but i remember being in awe that the three of us were able to connect and discuss in real-time scattered across the globe. One was in Ireland, one in Australia and I was here in Mississippi. I thought that was a wonderful.
One of the musicians i feel incredibly fortunate to have formed a friendship with is Wendy Richman. We met on twitter via a mutual friend, Ken Ueno. Wendy and I had quite a few chats and one day she told me about her commissioning project for new works for singing violist. i was excited and intrigued. We chatted some more and I began writing in mid 2010. the result was Gakka for singing violist. She was able to premiere it the following year. It was wonderful.
So this weekend Wendy is in Biloxi performing in the Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestra. I feel like we already know each other quite a bit even though we've never met face to face.
So here is the audio of Wendy performing Gakka for singing violist:
I've been doing a bit of driving lately so I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and concerts from Archive.org. I may be the last person to discover the live concerts and other recordings available on the Internet Archive. So I downloaded a couple of concerts by one of my new favorite bands, Alabama Shakes. Not only do I want to support fellow Alabamians but i feel they are one of the latest bands continuing the long line of the Southern Rock tradition.
If you don't have their album Boys and Girls get it. If you have the time check out their live concerts at the link below. I highly recommend the one at the Capitol Theater
https://archive.org/details/AlabamaShakes
Leif Segerstam writes lots of symphonies. Not as in Mozart wrote a lot of symphonies, not even in the category of Haydn and Hovhaness wrote a lot of symphonies, Segerstam is in a different category. Right now he is somewhere in the 270s for his symphonies. Most of them are intended to be performed without a conductor. Each part has timings and when they should play in time with other musicians. Each section even has directions on who should begin and end it. His symphonies have inspired me to start sketching out one of my own for winds, piano and tympani. We'll see if anything comes of it.
As I said in my first post his music is very free. If you click the link below and look through his catalogue you will find bunch of PDF files of some of his works.
Here is a link to Leif Segerstam's profile and list of works at the FMIC.
Below I've included video of his Symphony No. 212 which was written for Gustavo Dudamel. The work was divided into two sections i'm assuming to meet the file size requirements of YT. Go listen to it. Enjoy it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAydCG0KTdQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9909P9h-2s
