The Revenant Composer

One of the guiding lights for me in my decision to return to the field of composition was that I wanted my work to be performed. Having written music for the past 20 years for an audience of one, I felt that there would be little point in continuing my education if it wasn’t going to lead to live performances.

Last semester I got my first taste of this, with two movements of an oboe sonata performed at a Rutgers music workshop. It didn’t go quite as well as I’d hoped; rushing into the semester, I wasn’t able to give the performers enough rehearsal time, and I made the unforgivable sin of not taping the oboist’s score together (imagine several loose sheets of paper on a music stand), which led to a minor disaster partway through the second movement when one of the sheets fell on the floor.

I’d like to think I learned some lessons from this, and hopefully this will lead to far better performances in the future. And this semester, I have not one but two performances upcoming – two songs at a music workshop, and a chamber orchestra work at a full concert.

The music workshop is on April 16th at 7:30 pm, with free attendance and a donut reception to follow. There will be approximately 90 minutes of music from composers across Rutgers’ music program, with Dr. Karina Bruk and Micaela Aldridge Singh performing two songs from an in-progress song cycle I’m writing.

The piece for chamber orchestra is being performed later this month – April 27th at 7 pm – as part of a program being put on by Rutgers’ Helix Ensemble. As I understand it, four composers’ works are being showcased amongst a concert of established chamber orchestra repertoire, with mine being apparently the longest (approximately 7 minutes). I’m quite excited for this, as it will be my first orchestral performance ever. I’ll be attending a rehearsal this week, and I can’t wait to hear the piece live; it’s an exciting piece even through MIDI rendering, with driving percussion and plenty of loud brass, and I hope it makes a great impression!

Both of these concerts are free to attend, and are being held in the Richard E. Shindell Choral Hall at Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts in New Brunswick, NJ. I invite and encourage everyone to attend for evenings of exciting new music!