Tonight's the Night!

OK, yes.  I have been neglecting my poor little blog.  I promise that will change!

It's a good feeling to begin the day of a performance feeling comfortable with all of the music.  Tyson Deaton and I have spent this week putting everything together and merging our interpretations.  There have been arguments (as there almost always surely will be) and we have had to call the composer of one of the pieces to mediate.  But, everything has been settled now, we're on the same page and I feel like it's going to be a very good program.

One little note to my audience tonight.  The first half of this program is very heavy, dramatic, and maybe a little long.  It deals with war and death.  I just want you to know that the second half is lighter, more hopeful and much shorter.  If you make it through the first half, you're home free!

So, come on out and enjoy an evening of great poetry, good music and two good musicians (if I do say so myself)!!

A Brand New Song

I just love the smell of new music on the computer.

Today I received the finished score of "To a Stranger," a piece I commissioned from composer David T. Little.  The commission was made possible by a very generous grant from the Walt Whitman Project (Greg Trupiano, Artistic Director) in Brooklyn, and pianist Tyson Deaton.  It's a unique piece that, I think, captures the meaning of this poem.

The piece came with an interesting note from its composer saying,

In an odd way, this song is as much a stranger to me as the characters it discusses are to
each other. That is, I can’t say that it is recognizably my music, to the same extent that
another piece of mine would be. Still, as I was writing, I had a strange feeling that we
knew each other—this piece and I. That I knew what was to come next, though I didn’t
always know why; that the piece and I knew each other’s secrets, though it still felt slightly
foreign. Though this is nothing like I had ever experienced before, I suppose it’s fitting,
given Whitman’s words.

When I spoke with David this afternoon in a little Lincoln Center cafe in New York, we discussed how the piece captures a "subway moment" of one person seeing another and in an instant the thoughts expressed in the poem shoot through their head.  I'll talk about this more when I discuss the poem in a few days, but that moment was very much on Little's mind while he composed.  I think the music captures the formation of those thoughts and I can't wait to dive into it when I return to Knoxville.

It's a rare treat to begin work on a piece of music days after its completion.  I look forward to continuing the collaboration with David, Tyson and Carol!

A Change in Personnel

A quick little update regarding personnel for one of the performances.  Due to an unforeseen conflict, Carol Zinavage will not be able to perform with me on October 14.  Because of scheduling conflicts with the hall, among other requirements, I was not able to reschedule for a date where we were both free.  So, Tyson Deaton will now play this performance.  Carol will still prepare the program with me and remains a vital part of the team I've assembled for these performances.

A HUGE thank you goes out to Andy Wentzel and the faculty at UT for being flexible with me on this issue!

Musings on Preparation

I've spent the past month making the initial preparations of the music for this recital and have reached the point where I'm ready to start putting things together with a pianist. In fact, I'll have my first rehearsal with the wonderful Carol Zinavage on August 5.  We'll have about seven weeks (probably 7-14 hours) to put everything together before I have to travel out of town for another engagement.  When I return, we'll have four days (probably 2 hours) before the performance to brush up the work of August and September.  That might not sound like a lot of time, but in this business where operas can be rehearsed and performed in the span of two weeks, it's plenty.  (To highlight the luxury of time, I will have even less time with my other pianist, Tyson Deaton.  We will probably have 4-6 hours of rehearsal together before we give our first performance in February.  Because of that, we've been in constant communication on the music, discussing what we've learned from our solo practicing.  I'll have the advantage of having already performed the music when we have our first rehearsal, which will lighten the burden of our rehearsals.)

With that, I thought I would take a moment and share some thoughts on preparation and the music so far.

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