ForrestWorks

Three Nocturnes for chorus and percussion ensemble will be presented at the 2008  Annual Conference of the Conductor’s Guild, in Baltimore, MD, next week. Dr. David Bowden will be presenting the set as part of the New Music Project session…

Since I’m publicly posting my “to-do” list, I’ll publicize my progress…

• Three of the five Soundforth orchestrations are now done.
• Piano reduction of Oread Farewell is done.
• Proofing has begun in earnest on the Hinshaw pieces- (still a long ways to go…)
• Organ/Brass/Percussion version of Arise Shine has been written, read-through by Foundation Brass, and sent to Hinshaw for proofing. We may still tweak the organ part a little…
• Piano recording of Soundforth book: finished, after re-recording and editing today. It’s now ready to be mastered, early next month.
•  ”A Cradle Carol”, a Christmas anthem that I wrote this semester (text by new collaborator Rebekah Pringle), has been accepted at Beckenhorst, but Craig required a fair amount of revision…those revisions are mostly complete now- just awaiting their finalization.
• Lastly, I got a new promo picture taken today so that I can stop using one that’s 5-6 years old!

So, the next couple weeks will be very busy with Hinshaw proofing, the last two Soundforth orchestrations, and “in paradisum…”…not to mention family time, and having a very merry Christmas!

“…I was touched by the composers obvious belief in the words he had chosen to set to music. It gave me chills….”

Could I be paid a better compliment than that…?

Click here for the full post.

Other recent posts about Carol of Joy can be read here and here…

These are thrilling and encouraging days, when I get comments like these from total strangers, who attended BYU’s Christmas Celebration:

• “…Glorious… I could not speak for several minutes because I was moved so much by the words and the music.”
• “…Congratulations on a stunningly beautiful and meaningful
  piece…”
• “…Thank you for the beautiful gift of “Carol of Joy,” which I heard
  tonight at the BYU Christmas Concert. I couldn’t restrain the tears as your
  sublime composition melded so perfectly with the moving text…”

Sometimes, composing is frustrating and hard. But these things make it worth it!

I also found out that Carol of Joy was included on a concert in Colorado Springs, with music of my friend Doug Helvering, as well- click here.

Other recent performances can be found here and here.

Carol of Joy seems to have gone over very well at BYU… (thank you to all the kind people who attended and sent me nice messages afterward).

A news release about the concert can be seen here.

Come to find out, Carol of Joy was the concert closer- an honor to send people out, thinking about Eileen’s glorious text!  May the gospel be heard, and may Christ be glorified!

Looking forward to the recording…especially since I’ve never heard the orchestration…or the anthem performed live!

Christmas break has just about begun, for all practical purposes..and my to-do list is about to get tackled!

• Proofing Three Nocturnes, Oread Farewell, Arise Shine, and You Are The Music for Hinshaw.
• Piano reduction of Oread Farewell for Hinshaw.
• Organ/Brass/Percussion version of Arise Shine for Hinshaw.
• Five orchestrations for the upcoming Soundforth CD.
• Do-or-die time (!) for “in paradisum…”, my piece for band and chorus for the BJU Commencement Concert.
•  Piano recording of my next Soundforth piano book (intermediate communion hymns).

Upcoming events:

• Carol of Joy performed at BYU’s Christmas Celebration, this Friday and Saturday. The performances are sold out!
• Several area performances of Lord of Glory (Christmas cantata) at area churches (and beyond!) in the next few weeks.

In other news, it looks like my friend Dr. Mike Hall will be returning to Greenville to record my Sonata for Trombone and Piano with Daniel Overly. Hopefully everything will work out…

Before we know it, Christmas break will be over; January will be filled with the beginning of a new semester, and many nights of studio work for Soundforth; and as soon as that’s over with, we’ll be taking the whole family to Houston Baptist University for my week-long composer-in-residence time there, the first full week of February. More details on that later.

Lastly: In order to make my Christmas travels more productive, I just ordered an M-Audio Key Rig 49 MIDI controller. It looks like the perfect combination of small size yet large capability (especially because of those cool “octave shift” buttons that extend the range WAY past 49 keys- yet it’ll pack quite nicely on the road!). Travelling with that and my Mac Mini should be fun…and hopefully productive!