A Ceiling Full of Stars

I've finally gotten around to starting up a real YouTube channel and posting video there. The first video I posted was A Ceiling Full of Stars performed by the UCA Percussion Ensemble. My students gave a wonderful performance of the work.



The work was premiered in Spring of 2009 by the Texas Christian University Percussion Ensemble with Brian West conducting. The video above was recorded just a couple of weeks later.

We also performed the work at the Arkansas Day of Percussion at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. This fall I have been lucky to have had a number of performances of the piece, including one by the LSU Percussion Ensemble at PASIC in Indianapolis. It was also performed by the percussion ensembles at the Eastman School of Music, Ithaca College, the University of South Carolina, East Central Oklahoma University, Florida State University, the University of Georgia, the University of Central Florida, Northwestern University and Jacksonville State University. I'm excited that there are also quite a few performances scheduled for the spring.

In addition to the live performances, there are two great recordings of the work coming out soon. On December 1st the TCU Percussion Ensemble's recording of A Ceiling Full of Stars will be released on their CD Escape Velocity. In the spring of 2010 the FSU Percussion Ensemble, under the direction of John Parks, will release it on their CD Ten Windows. You can get a preview of that recording by heading over to my website.

A Ceiling Full of Stars, along with most of my other compositions, is now available from Steve Weiss Music.

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.