Interchanging Idioms

Alisa Weilerstein joined Pacific Symphony for Dvorak's Cello Concerto and stunned the audience I love going to see a wide variety of classical concerts particularly when I get to see artists like Alisa in a variety of settings, playing a variety of pieces and watch their growth as an artist. It was my pleasure to see Alisa Weilerstein several years ago performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Vail Valley Music Festival (2009) where she played Schelomo, Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra . She has matured as a cellist over the past few years and she was pretty amazing back then. Where in Vail she inhabited the voice (and face) of Solomon, last night her performance pulled out both the demanding intensity Dvorak lavishly spreads throughout the first movement, while diving into the depth of despair in the second. The third movement frolics a bit, swerves toward the chaotic and then plummets into the pathos even deeper than before. It was an emotional roller-coaster and Ms Wei...

Dave Brubeck dies at 91 A jazz legend died today, at Norwalk Hospital, near his home in Wilton, Connecticut. His famous "Take Five" is one of the great jazz pieces, and ushered in a whole world of different time signatures and irregular rhythms bringing jazz into the main stream. Although early on fellow jazz musicians felt Dave's piano playing didn't swing, he taught the world a new meaning to swing relying on shifting meter and intricate rhythmic play. Back in the mid 70's I was just coming into my own as a musicians (albeit still in 8th grade). I was first chair trombone in a school jazz band and fell in love with making music. It was this year I first heard "Take Five" and it's been my favorite piece of music every since. If you listen to my music today, you'll heard elements of those initial irregular rhythms that seem to somehow feel regular pervasive throughout. While I have studied Bach, Beethoven, Mahler, Debussy, Shostakovich, Copla...

Instrumental Solo or Duo Christian Mason Learning Self- Modulation Chamber Thomas Adés The Four Quarters Vocal Colin Matthews No Man’s Land Choral Gabriel Jackson Airplane Cantata Wind Band or Brass Band Simon Dobson A Symphony of Colours Orchestral Sir Harrison Birtwistle Concerto for Violin and Orchestra Stage Works Jocelyn Pook DESH Liturgical Francis Grier Missa Brevis Sonic Art Ray Lee The Ethometric Museum Contemporary Jazz Composition Christine Tobin Sailing to Byzantium Community or Educational Paul Rissmann The Chimpanzees of Project Happytown Making Music Award Emily Howard Mesmerism for Piano and Chamber Orchestra International Award Thomas Larcher Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra The Awards were presented at a ceremony at Goldsmiths' Hall, on Monday 3rd December 2012 which opened with a performance of Gareth Moorcraft’s Rondo? – winner of the third Student Competition at the British Composer Awards – performed by membe...

When there are literally thousands of miles between the musicians, the sound engineers and the composer, trying to get all the pieces to fit together can be a monumental task. TwtrSymphony is in the last stages of releasing the 4th movement of Birds of a Feather , their debut symphony. So far the first three movements have been met with great enthusiasm, the videos averaging over 1000 views within the first 30 days and the music downloads beyond all expectations. Still, you'd think for an organization that has been playing together for eight months we'd have the process down. Far from it! With remote recording sessions the variety of recording levels from one track to the next. Is the flute really meant to be the focus in this section or is the volume of their track just that much higher than the strings? The engineer has to make choices as to what works and what doesn't. Then, he/she has to send the track to the producer (me) to make suggestions as to changing the volu...

Music is by its very nature a social art form. Therefore it only makes sense that music would do so well with social media I look around a some of the big names on Twitter and realize music has an huge influence on our community. Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Britney Spears, Taylor Swift and Shakira have over 200 million fans combined. Granted there are probably a fair number of these fans who follow more than just one (if not all) of the above noted names in the music industry. Still, their combined reach is estimated at over a billion people. IF you could get all seven of these 'stars' to tweet about the same thing you'd be reaching nearly a sixth of the world population. Wow, the power of music! Seven of the top ten Twitter feeds are directly related to music. Twelve of the top Fifteen Facebook pages are music personalities. That shows the importance our society (and as a result social media) places on music. If music is this important to us, and the...

People think there is a catch to TwtrSymphony TwtrSymphony is an orchestra founded because I write orchestra music and need an orchestra to play it. The problem I face getting my music played by other orchestras is simple: Music Directors and Conductors are extremely busy. Even if they're willing to give my music a glance (and few of them are willing unless they already have a personal relationship with me), they often don't do more than listen to the first couple of minutes of music. If the music doesn't grab them by that point, they're done and my score goes no further. While some will accept midi realizations, again, these who do are by far the minority. Even those who accept midi realizations prefer live recordings. So, composers need live-orchestras to record their music if they have any hope of getting music played by a live orchestra — rather a catch-22. I believe TwtrSymphony is the perfect solution to this conundrum. We perform 140 seconds (or 2 mins, 20 ...

Book review Typically this blog is about music, but there is more to my life than just music. So, today I branch out into discussing a book I just finished Redshirts by John Scalzi. It is a wonderful read, even for people who aren't Science Fiction fans, those who have no knowledge of Star Trek and the related issues with unexplained deaths of those who wear red shirts, and even people who prefer reading gritty crime novels, present day character studies or sappy romance books. Redshirts is a thought-provoking romp, with lots of comedy, philosophical questions and the appropriate number of tugs on the heart strings. In the end, the "Redshirts" win in more than just they get their own story — they get a back story we care about. Redshirts are the people on the television show Star Trek who, for one reason or another (and often really lame reasons) end up dying, to give a sense of potential danger to the situation. "What's going to happen to the main charac...