ForrestWorks

Well, summer has pretty much come and gone- faster than any other summer, in my recollection…Here’s where things stand for me:

• Hinshaw will be publishing two pieces in early 2009, Where Go The Boats and How Firm A Foundation. BJU choirs will be recording both this fall for the Hinshaw CD.
• Beckenhorst is publishing one piece of mine this fall, But By Love for SATB, piano, and oboe.
• Hal Leonard is publishing one piece of mine this fall, I think- Here Is Love (old Welsh tune) for SATB and piano…They’ve accepted more music of mine for the future, but that’s all for this fall.
• The Soundforth CD for this year will include several pieces of mine- mostly things that newly written. (Soundforth will be publishing two new anthems of mine, this coming year, that were written for the CD.) We’ll be recording throughout this fall semester, and I’m doing a good bit of orchestrating for the CD as well.
• I still have a couple good possibilities for commission and performance in the works, but official confirmation has been slow in coming on both, so I’m still mum on them…

This fall I’m teaching two new courses- fourth semester Theory and Graduate Theory Review- looking forward to both of them- in addition to my regular slate of courses.

My good composer-friend Doug Helvering has officially switched from Finale to Sibelius. You go, Doug! The rest of us are jealous…

Some initial impressions of Finale 2009, after using it for several days. I must admit immediately that I skipped Finale 2008 (refused to pay $100 of annual dues…), so my impressions are based on the improvements from Finale 2007.

For Finale 2009, MakeMusic really worked much harder than previous updates on NOTATION instead of bells, whistles, and app-bloating audio tricks that professionals wouldn’t use. I’m truly thankful. Several of the new features are:

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