After school started back I just wasn't able to keep things going on a regular basis with the blog. I think that I should be back to more regular postings at this point. Let's catch up.
Most recently, Liana and I gave a recital at UCA. We did four pieces together (Big Tooth Aspen by Halim El-Dabh, Hot Water Burn Baby by Roshanne Etezady, Kembang Suling by Gareth Farr and Intimacy by Halim El-Dabh) and we each did a solo piece (Liana did Air by Toru Takemitsu and I did Sonic No. 7 by Halim El-Dabh). We had a good crowd and as far as we could tell, things went well. A lot of people liked Intimacy. Many said it was their favorite piece. We were glad to hear that because it is such a difficult piece to pull off. Technically it is not that difficult, but the pacing of the work and the interaction between flute and marimba presented us with quite a musical challenge.We rehearsed that piece far more than any other piece on the concert.
We programmed more El-Dabh than we might usually play becuase we leave for China in about two weeks to perform an entire concert of his music at the Central Conservatory in Beijing. It is part of a symposium called "Asia Meets Africa". The entire website for the event is in chinese, but I'll find the link and post it soon.
A word of advice...if you are going to China apply for that visa early. I'm not sure why some countries have to make it so difficult to get in. Chinese visas have to be applied for in person at one of three locations in the country. If you can't go in person you have to hire someone to go for you. We had to send off visa applications, order forms, consulate and service fees and our passports to a company in Houston who will walk everything through and then express mail them back to us later this week. A real pain (and expensive). In China's defense, I think that in many countries it is much harder to get a US visa.
Things at UCA have been busy. I have 11 majors (including 3 grad students) and I'm teaching 6 non-majors as well. Plus 5 hours of percussion ensemble a week and Pedagogy and Rep classes. Add the practicing, composing and travel to the mix and things get pretty crazy. I did finish the new work for solo marimba/percussion and percussion trio. It still needs some minor adjustments, but I'll be doing a "preview performance" on October 6th. I also found out that two students at Rutgers University will be doing my piece Vertical River on their percussion ensemble concert on the 6th. Always exciting to hear in advance that someone is performing your piece. There have been a lot of performances of the work, but I usually don't find out about them until after they have happened.
Today I have a rehearsal all afternoon on Cloud Forest and Bob Becker's Prisoners of the Image Factory. I really like Bob's music a lot. Prisoners is great but I think that my favorite in Turning Point. I will probably program that one or Mudra for one of the spring concerts.
Also on the concert we'll be doing the world premiere of a new work by Andrew R. Stout caled The Lost. If you are close by UCA, come on out at 7:30 this Thursday and check it out.
Later,
Blake
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3 comments:
That's awesome that the Rutgers guys are playing Vertical River... I introduced one of them to it this summer at Eastern Music Festival while I was getting ready to play (well, try to) it in Korea!
Matt Jordan
Dear Professor Tyson,
My name is Dan and i'm one of the two rutgers students who has been working on your piece. I met Matt Jordan over the summer, who was the one that introduced me to your work. I just wanted to let you know that we particularly enjoyed working on it, and that has some very effective compositional techniques. We also made a recording of it. I was hoping to show you the copy. I will be at PASIC 2005, and will make a point of introducing myself. I would really like to meet you, and i just wanted to let you know how much we enjoyed your piece.
-Dan
Matt and Dan,
Thanks for the posts.
Dan, I am on the keyboard panel discussion on Thursday. I'm not sure what I'm going to say yet, but I'll come up with something. You could probably catch me after that. If not, we could at least set up a time to meet at that point.
BT
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