Summer Circuit

Professional musicians and academics share a similar yearly cycle. Most musical groups work within a season that begins in the fall and ends in the late spring/early summer. For those musicians – and in my case, composers – who work within the academy, there is a similar yearly schedule. Given this fall/spring season, many tend to assume (if they even think about artists and teachers at all) that musicians and academics simply “take the summer off” lounging at the pool and binging on Netflix for three months. How often I have heard the sentiment “wow…I wish I had my whole summer off…” by friends and family.

Truth is – there is very little time off during the summer months. For academics, this very short time-span is the single best period to further research that affects chances for promotion and tenure. For composers in the professional world (Mahler famously comes to mind) the brief summer months may simply be the only time to compose.

The Athens Saxophone Quartet in concert -
May 7, 2016 • Nicosia, CYPRUS

Yet, for many professional musicians (in or out of academia), summer does not actually afford the opportunity to recharge after the considerable demands of a performance season. Most of the time, summer is a time to continue performing at music festivals. Throughout the summer months, music festivals (large and prestigious as well as small and energetic) dot the landscape of our country as well as around the globe. Many of these festivals tend to mimic programming found in established ensemble seasons – meaning there is often a disparity between presenting older more “established repertoire” as compared to featuring contemporary music. However, there are still many festivals and conferences during the summer where a composer may find opportunities for performances of newer pieces.

I am grateful to be included among many other composers during the summer of 2016 who have received performances of pieces during the “off season.” For me, three particular events come to mind. First, I had the great fortune of having my work for saxophone quartet, Wandering Into Myth, performed at the International Conference: Wind Orchestras in Cyprus and Greece (May 7, 2016 in Nicosia, Cyprus). Sadly, I could not make the trek to Cyprus but having heard previous performances by the group that commissioned the work (the fabulous Athens Saxophone Quartet) I have no doubt of the quality of its presentation.

My "Two Tapestries for Brass Quintet" performance at the New
Music On The Bayou Summer Festival - June 3, 2016

Next, I was pleased to attend the inaugural New Music On the Bayou Summer Festival (June 1 – 4, 2016, Monroe, Louisiana) where my Two Tapestries for Brass Quintet received a really wonderful performance. In addition to the thrill of hearing my music performed at a very high level, the festival provided me with the opportunity to meet many new composers and performers from not only around the country but from around the world as well! I was amazed that talented composers from as far away as Italy and Mexico attended this festival. (This made me feel a little guilty for not making more of an effort to hear my work in Cyprus earlier!)

Lara Saville Dahl (oboe), Tania Maxwell Clements (viola)
and Tatiana Musanova (piano) performing my "Suite for
Oboe, Viola & Piano" at the 2016 IDRS Conference.

Later in the month of June, I was in the audience when my Suite for Oboe, Viola and Piano was performed at the 2016 International Double Reed Society Conference in Columbus, Georgia (June 28). I was doubly honored to have my music presented at this event not only because the piece itself was selected but also because my wonderful colleague, oboist Lara Saville Dahl, made the work part of her proposal for performance at the conference. I am forever grateful to the wonderful friends and colleagues in my life who regard my music high enough to include on their respective programs.

Finally, while not strictly speaking a performance at a summer festival, I was nevertheless just as thrilled to learn that the new recording on ABLAZE Records, New Choral Voices, Vol. 1, featuring my SATB a cappella work Every Good & Perfect Gift, was released in the late spring of 2016 both in physical and digital formats.

After a busy first half of the summer, I have settled into my more rigorous writing routine that has seen the completion of one new chamber work and the start of new work for symphonic wind ensemble commissioned by the Gwinnett Symphony Wind Orchestra. This routine, however, will be very short indeed as the new academic school year is barreling towards me like a runaway train. Wait…summer is nearly over already…?

One last mention – in case any reader may (rightly) feel that a good portion of this blog post was a thinly disguised self-promotional newsletter – I write this article as a form of therapy after receiving FOUR rejection letters for opportunities I really desired this past week (two yesterday alone). So there’s that.

From feeling unconquerable one moment to regarding myself as the worst composer ever in the next moment, I never cease to be reminded of the constant ebb and flow of an artistic life. 

How We Make The Sausage

What ProTools thinks my music looks like.

Making music in a studio is a completely different process than performing it live on stage. I suppose the closest analogy is that of movie making as compared to live theatre. Any live performance is a completely linear endeavor. You begin at the beginning and proceed straightway to the end. If any mistakes are made, you simply move on and hope the audience did not notice. Most times they don't. 

It's a completely different matter once you begin to commit any live performance to the recorded audio and/or video medium. Major errors cannot be left to stand. A recorded performance mistake that was once a passing gaff in an otherwise stellar live performance turns into a very noticeable stain. It doesn't matter how impeccable the rest of the beautiful white gown looks if there is a small spot of tomato sauce on the front. That's why, for both performers and the composers whose music they are committing to posterity, a recording session is a much more daunting and exhausting experience than simply playing music live in front of an audience.

Clarinetist Ken Long in the studio recording "Tonoi III."

I've been involved in many recording projects over the years and find myself this weekend in the familiar position of overseeing some recordings of my music. Although I've gone through it many times, I still find it a bizarre experience. By necessity, we are recording sections of my music out of order and then fashioning the sections together to restore the sense of the piece. It's anything  but the linear experience of a live performance. The music begins to lose meaning as we work diligently, for example, to correct one small phrase in a fast moving section of music. Imagine taking a simple straight-forward sentence like "The boys play baseball every Saturday" and focusing on the words "baseball every" over and over again. If you repeat those words a great deal, they lose their meaning first as words (sounding like random syllables) as well as their context. Now imagine having to re-orient yourself and splice the words "baseball every" to the string of words "The boys play." Now imagine repeating this process for hours. It's no wonder we all leave with our heads spinning, making a beeline for the nearest bar!

Aside from the urgency of "getting it right" for the recording, I, like every composer, feel the pressure of making any recording of my music perfect because in all reality - it will be the ONLY studio recording the work will EVER get. The performers understand this as well and are usually extremely dedicated to giving the best performance possible. I'm very fortunate in that I can personally program live performances of my music prior to heading into the studio. Musicians feel somewhat more comfortable in a recording session having already learned a piece well enough to present in a recent public performance. That's why I programmed my earlier neoPhonia concert just prior to these recording sessions and chose to present the very same music in concert that is currently being recorded. 

It's a long, crazy and exhausting journey from composing a piece, rehearsing it, premiering it then, finally, to entering a studio for hours to record it. (Then there's all the post production - but that's another story entirely!) It's a process, however, that I joyfully enter into repeatedly. Once the final product is created, I always forget about the process of making the sausage and just enjoy it!