Sorry to be away for almost a month – I’ve been moving, starting work at Meet The Composer while still looking for full-time work, going to a wedding in Rhode Island, that sort of thing. It always takes me a little while after a move to feel comfortable enough to...
So I’m finally back to work on Summer’s Twilight, my one act opera of Midsummer Nights’ Dream. I’ve been away scoring Theatre Hopkins’ Arabian Nights, and Baltimore Shakespeare Festival’s Twelfth Night, and moving twice, and graduating, and doing a job search, but now I’ve got a few days of lull. Just...
I will not write another catchy tune for a long time. Theatre Hopkins’ Arabian Nights is up, and reviewed very nicely by a Baltimore radio station, and the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival’s Twelfth Night is going up on Friday. This is definitely the summer of straight plays, and when actors sing...
Hey team. I’m just checking in again in the middle of my marathon of work. Arabian Nights is finished, and opening a week from Friday. We’ve got a lot of work to do in that time, but luckily the cast is very talented, and very devoted, and I think we’re...
Sorry for the lack of posting, my life’s gotten a bit ridiculous. I’ve been graduating, moving, looking for a proper day job, etc. Now, although I don’t have the time to be doing this, I wanted to post about the part of my being overworked that is the best: the...
I have a week to write whatever I want. Next Friday I’m having a long lunch meeting with my director for Arabian Nights to talk about the specifics of what she wants for the music in the play. After that I’m going to be locked in, writing Arabian Nights all...
I’m music directing/composing the Theatre Hopkins production of Mary Zimmerman’s adaptation of “The Arabian Nights”. The show goes up in the last three weeks of June, and there’s a lot to do. The play has 83 roles, which I’ve broken down into 13 actors, including two who basically only play...
I’ve finished, at long last, ‘The Stain of Love’. It’s a song cycle for baritone and piano that Jason Buckwalter commissioned. The text is early William Carlos Williams poems. It’s a little strange that it took me so long to finish the songs. Three songs just didn’t make the cut...
So, I’ve just learned that my solo acting cello piece, ‘The Seafarer’, will be done at the Kimmel Center’s Live in the Plaza series on May 18 of this year. This’s going to be a big performance for me, and hopefully a stepping stone to bigger things. I heard all...
So, I finished that cello solo. It was strange, after my first pass on it, which lacked rhythms and articulations and dynamics, all I did was add those things, make two held double-stops re-attack, and add a bit to one section that sounded a bit too much like the NBC...
So now I’ll find out if Caitlin’s discovered I have a blog yet. I’ve got a full draft of her opening aria for Midsummer. I wrote the main theme and a partial draft in like August, so it’s good to have the whole thing properly drafted. Also, I’ve re-written the...
I was on the plane to Boston today, for Thanksgiving, and I started thinking about the problems I’m having writing Summer’s Twilight, my Midsummer chamber opera. I’m in the middle of re-thinking the way my scenes work based more around a small set of emotions. You see, if there are a...
