March 2023: Fruits of Labor

Hi everybody,

2023 has been a fruits-of-my-labor type situation so far, or perhaps chicken-comes-home-to-roost, or even cow-returns-from-pasture. In less words, I wrote a lot of music and joined a lot of projects, and now things are happening. Nice!

The last two months included concerts and engagements in The Hague (Conservatoire Analog Ensemble, Hague/Brno Exchange, Ricardo Almeida at Korzo Theater), Apeldoorn (Orkest de Ereprijs Young Composers Meeting), Groningen (Noord Nederland Orkest Reading Session) and Brno, CZ (Hague/Brno Exchange). There are a bundle of new recordings on the way, including a short work for the Orkest de Ereprijs that won the Frank van der Wal Fonds Commission, below.

Included in this new batch of recordings, my band is releasing an album!!!! If you’d like, you can listen to our first single, in which I yew-hew-hew my way to Jack Black status à la The Polka King.

Like what you hear? Buy a CD! or get some Bierkeller swag, and help us release the album.

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Upcoming shows:

USA and online:

Saturday, March 25th, 7:30pm EDT: online arranger Q&A with contributors to the Bierkeller Boys Oompah Band’s new album, Dive In!, featuring low brass heavyweights Norlan Bewley, Gail Robertson, Mike Forbes, and also me.

Wednesday, March 29th, 6:30pm EDT: Daniel Rhode’s dearest rewinder these (arranged for live performance by me) is performed by the University of North Florida’s NuMIX.

Saturday, April 22nd, 7:30pm EDT: album preview livestream with the Bierkeller Boys Oompah Band

Netherlands:

Tuesday, April 18th: new theater collaboration, Life Lesson: Cycle, is presented at the Korzo Theater, Den Haag, as part of the Spring Festival of the Royal Conservatory and Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.

Sat-Sun, May 13-14: new collaboration with Zoë Greten of Nederland Dans Theater 2 is presented in Amare, Den Haag.

Fri-Sun, September 15-17: new work written with poet Maarten van der Graaff is presented by the Royal Conservatory’s Ensemble Academy at the Musica Sacra festival of Maastricht.

New recording:

The Orkest De Ereprijs released the concert recording of my new work, descending piece, which won the commission of the Frank van der Wal Fonds at the 29th Young Composers Meeting:

descending piece follows two courses:
1) a descending line borrowed perhaps from Alvin Lucier or perhaps an exaggeration of the basso ostinato of the Renaissance, and
2) a lyrical rearrangement of the famous aria, “When I am laid in earth,” from Dido and Aeneas.
The text is arranged by dominant phoneme, such that the color of the text matches the overarching descending line, creating a gradual opening, warming, and darkening of the sound. The result is a recognizable but absurd mishmash of phrases with vague but relatable meaning.

You can read about the Young Composers Meeting and The Hague/Brno Exchange thanks to Eva Beunk with the Royal Conservatoire.

And in personal updates:

– Taco Bell opened in The Hague, yessssss! (it’s not good)
– visited the home of Pilsner Urquell and Hovězí Guláš. Look at the size of those potato dumplings!
– my cats are still cute
– not much else to report, mostly just working