ForrestWorks

In the last couple days, Dr Ron Staheli (renowned head of Choral Music at Brigham Young University) contacted me and asked if I’d orchestrate Carol of Joy (Beckenhorst 2007) for inclusion on their big annual Christmas program this year! It’s a huge honor, and we’re thrilled about the musical opportunity. The resulting recording will likely be one of the best performances of my music I’ve had!

If you’re not familiar with Dr Staheli, perhaps you’ll recognize him as the conductor of the famous CD of Eric Whitacre a cappella choral music.

Yeah! I won an ASCAPlus Standard Award again this year- the letter came today. (Note that this is not the Morton Gould thing- this is just the Standard awards). Thankfully, the award amount (which varies based on the amount of “activity” one’s compositions generated in the previous year) was the same as last year’s- a good amount! With my dissertation eating up so much of my time this past year, I wondered whether I’d still qualify for that bracket or not, but it appears so. Praise the Lord, who “daily loadeth us with benefits”.

Dear friends in Kansas- looking forward to seeing you all soon! The concert of Forrest and Whitacre music (including the premiere of Oread Farewell) is the evening of Oct 16, at Corpus Christi in Lawrence…

Splendid news: Hinshaw is creating a Dan Forrest choral series! This is just one more step in a growing line of good relationship-building events between them and me. My future pieces with them will now bear the unique series name along the left side of the cover, and I can build my own collection of pieces within their catalog. I’m happy to do so- they’ve been so good to me from day one (when they put Selah into print in one month flat, in time for the ACDA convention premiere!). I’m thankful for them, for their increased level of commitment to me, and to the Lord for once again doing marvelous things, whereof we are glad.

The first pieces in the series will be out in January: You Are The Music, Arise Shine, and the Three Nocturnes…

Wow- school is keeping me busy. My brass trio and the Good Christian Men Rejoice setting for Hal Leonard are coming along, working late at night…Not time to say much more right now!
Meanwhile, here’s the internet debut (?!) of my Sonata for Violin and Piano (2003), performed by Brian Pinner and Stephen Schaub last year on Brian’s Master’s recital- a fabulous performance of an “early” Forrest work.

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A brooding, somber movement, always exploring the subtle difference between a major and a minor triad, through various combinations and transformations.

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A scherzo, obviously inspired by Prokofiev. We’re still exploring half steps here, but in different transformational ways. The entire movement is constructed from two motives- a chromatic upper neighbor, and a descending third.

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A tender aria, first for violin solo, then eventually as a canon for violin and piano.

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An aggressive tarantella, still looking for ways to pit major sonorities against minor ones,  but ever more fragmentary. It dances relentlessly almost until the end, where the main theme from the first movement re-emerges, soaring…but the relentless dance gets the final word!