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Numerous people have asked what the next project is going to be. I can honestly say not a concert. While I feel the recent concert was very successful, it’s a huge undertaking and not something I am looking to repeat any time soon. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things on the horizon.

Present (this week)
I have 2 films that are being shown in Edinburgh over the next couple of months (one in the Edinburgh Film Festival) so I need to finish the music for them. Films typically leave the music to the very last moment, so composers are working with the final product. Often music is considered post-production, but this also means the release date has been set so we have a pretty tight deadline to work with.

Symphony for sale
or at least for hire. Based on what I learned in the concert (and the rehearsals leading up to it), I have some adjustments to make with the score of the Symphony No 1, Figuratively Speaking. Fortunately, these are all relatively small changes and none that affect the end result. Mostly the changes are just to make the music more legible for the musicians. Once that’s done, we plan to start sending copies of the score to various conductors and major orchestras with the hopes of getting it performed again (and again, and again). I doubt we’ll get any takers for the 2008-9 season, but there is serious hope it will get picked up for the 2009-2010 season.

Continue work on the opera
It’s not done, not by a long shot. What was performed at the concert was really just the first half of the first episode and even that isn’t finished the way we want. So, there are some re-writing that needs to happen, so extending of the music and potentially re-orchestrating it (although I may not do any re-orchestration until we get an opera company on board with the project. If that happens, they may have orchestral requirements or suggestions that may affect the final orchestration.). And then there is the second half of the first episode. We are not expecting to finish the second half before we get an opera company seriously considering it for performance, but we would like to have the framework of the second half down to the point we can give a reasonable estimate as to how long until it is completed.

After all this there are thoughts about a Flute Concerto, a chamber symphony, a book of short songs for vocal exercises, another string quartet and a piano quintet, but I’m not likely to finish any of that before the end of the summer.

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