Cloud Forest - Now Available

The score and parts for Cloud Forest are now available at www.blaketyson.com

I'm also running a Summer Sale Spectacular! Buy Cloud Forest and get A cricket sang and set the sun for free. The total price is $25 and it includes shipping (within the US).

To paraphrase Michael Daugherty's Used Car Salesman...

"You can't afford NOT to buy this piece!"

If you haven't heard them, recordings of both pieces are available on my website.

New work for percussion ensemble

Last summer, Brian West and the Texas Christian University Percussion Ensemble commissioned me to write a new work for percussion ensemble. On April 7th, they gave an incredible premiere performance in Ft. Worth. I was there to hear it along with the premiere of Eric Ewazen's Symphony for Percussion Ensemble and the premiere of Till Meyn's Zzzzing. Both are amazing pieces and TCU has recorded all three works for a CD release later this year.

The piece I wrote is called A Ceiling Full of Stars. You can hear (and see) the UCA Percussion Ensemble performing the work by following this link

If you'd like to read more about the inspiration for the piece, head on over to blaketyson.com and check out the "Compositions" page.

The National Symphony is in town tonight. They're playing Dvorak 7 along with Three Dance Episodes by Bernstein and some Wagner. I'm looking forward to it, except that I have to go outside to get there. I am not particularly happy that it "feels like" 33 degrees here in Conway....and it's raining.

Tomorrow and Monday, I'll be playing timpani with the Pine Bluff Symphony. A new work by Schwantner is on the program along with West Side Story(the short medley), Lincoln Portrait, Barber's First Essay and the Korngold Violin Concerto.

By the way, if you ever need a narrator for Lincoln Portrait, give me a call. It is one of my secret dreams (not that secret, I suppose) to perform the work. I'll do it from memory, and I promise to speak clearly. Since I read music and know the piece well, you won't even have to give me those awkward cues or hold out those fermatas for 30 seconds each.

The best way to get the gig, it seems, is to be a senator, or president, or famous actor. I will most likely never be any of those things, but maybe things will work out anyway.

Beakerthovens 9th

This one's for you, Parksie

Steady Decline

"Most people reach their mental peak between the ages of 35 and 40, then begin a steady decline that speeds up in the years before death"

Having just attending my 20th high school class reunion (you do the math), I was glad to read that in the news today.

Looks like I've got two good years left. I'd better get that application for Jeopardy in while there's still a chance.

Mental skills fade earlier than thought - Aging- msnbc.com:

Josh Knight plays Cloud Forest

Here's a video of Josh Knight, a DMA student at OU, playing my piece Cloud Forest. Josh is a former student and is one of only two people other than me to play the piece (as far as I know). That will hopefully change soon. I'm finalizing the score and parts and will make it available on my website in the next week or two. Thanks to Josh and the quartet for putting this up on YouTube!