Monthly Archives: April 2016

Iron Giant Revives Metronome Quartet

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Iron Giant Percussion will perform my work Quartet 60x88x120x208 for four metronomes  at the Hoover Library Theatre tomorrow. The concert is part of a 20th anniversary celebration of the Birmingham Art Music Alliance. Quartet 60x88x120x208 was performed during BAMA’s first season of concerts (January 22, 1996). It’s one of my more widely performed compositions, but I don’t think it has been heard in Birmingham since then.

Thursday April 28 7:30pm
BAMA presents Iron Giant Percussion
Hoover Library Theater
200 Municipal Drive
Hoover AL 35216Free Admission

The program will also include music by Drew Pendergrass, Tom Reiner, Mark Lackey, Jody Landers, Monroe Golden and works by Iron Giant Percussion.

Download a .pdf score for Quartet 60x88x120x208

My Turn on the Turner Show

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Tonight at 6pm I take my turn playing on the Turner Williams Jr. MFA Show. I’ve been bugging Turner as regularly as we run into each other about playing together some day;  that some day has finally arrived.

Monday April 25 6pm
Turner Williams Jr. : MFA Thesis Exhibition and Performance Series
Sella-Granata Gallery
109 Woods Hall
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa AL

Come check out Turner’s multi-layered collages and sculptures and his use of video feedback. I’ll be slinging banjo and other electronic implements of destruction/delight. Stay tuned for more musical guests at the exhibition through May 1.

Follows From Hummingbird

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Here’s a recording of the premiere performance of Follows from Hummingbird for 3 or more sustaining instruments.  The performers are Hillary Tidman, flute; Brad Whitfield, clarinet; and Laura Usiskin, cello.

I’m so happy with this first performance; the musicians nailed it. My scores often require a period of workshopping—work that reaches beyond typical rehearsal activity to include comparing alternate realizations, discussing timing, and lots of listening—so premiere performances can be risky. These performers, however, really embraced the spirit of the piece and pulled it off with elegance and aplomb.

The work is based on Hummingbirds (1997) a group of small Oil paintings on linen by the artist Enrique Martínez Celaya.

Download a pdf of the score

Hearing Metal 3

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For the second time in a month I get to be a guest percussionist with the University of Alabama Percussion Ensemble directed by Tim Feeney. The concert is presented by Sonic Frontiers and features guest artist Greg Stuart. We’re performing Hearing Metal 3 by Michael Pisaro.

The work is for 16 suspended cymbals and electronics. The cymbals are bowed and activated by dropping beans, rice and millet on them. Such amazing sounds! Greg described one part of it in rehearsal as “listening to a radio tuned between stations.” If you know and love that sound (you know who you are), then you’ll understand why I’m so excited about tonight’s performance. If you’re bewildered or intrigued, you should come hear this. You’ll never listen to your radio (or look at beans, rice and millet) the same way again.

Carefully Unfolded Premiere by Wind Quintet Unfolds Sunday

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carefully unfolded II image
My piece …then carefully unfolded and placed in… receives its premiere performance tomorrow at 2:30 pm. It’s a big work: 6 movements that each function as a kind of canon, a dronal piece that moves from sunny lydian to spacey locrian. The work is scored for any 5 sustaining instruments and is being performed by

  • Barbara Harrington, flute
  • Jim Sullivan, oboe
  • Brian Viliunas, clarinet
  • Tariq Masri, bassoon
  • Kevin Kozak, horn

For readers keeping track, I posted about this piece in progress earlier.

 

Sunday April 10 2:30pm
BAMA presents An Afternoon of Music for Wind Quintet and Piano
Brock Recital Hall at Samford University
800 Lakeshore Dr
Homewood AL 35209