My Recent Activities

When I first conceived this blog, I intended it to be a daily posting of my compositional activities. Recently, I have realized that daily posts are too time consuming and not all that interesting. There are also times where composing takes a back seat to other activities. Therefore my posts will be less frequent.

Lately,I have been transcribing a piece I wrote for flute, clarinet and piano for woodwind quintet at the request of John Rush, who was part of the group that originally commissioned the piece. John now holds the principal flute position in many of Tulsa's professional music organizations. The transcription of "Scenes from Tom Sawyer" is going well. I have been mainly able to put the piano part in the oboe, horn and bassoon, but there are times where I have needed to re-orchestrate the music to achieve the desired sound. It is challenging to give a piece new life in a different instrumentation because of the idiomatic writing one tries to incorporate while composing. Piano lines do not always transcribe easily for single line wind instruments without some tweaking. It also creates some balance and register issues that also need to be addressed. So while this is not as challenging as creating a new piece, it is still time consuming.

The other project I have been working on is the release of the CD "Collage" which contains two pieces of mine performed by Cincinnati's premiere chamber music ensemble, Conundrum along with the three winners of the 2007 Co-op Press Recording Competition. The Co-op Press Recording Competition is an annual event for recorded performances of my music. We have a fine panel of judges that select the winners from many worthy entries and we award cash prizes and a CD release to the winners. The 2007 winners were a trio from the New World Symphony, a duo from the Hartt School of Music, and a duo who freelances and teaches in the central Pennsylvania area. One of the pieces recorded by Conundrum is the "Scenes from Tom Sawyer" mentioned above in its original instrumentation.

For more information about the CD, you can go to http://www.cooppress.net/page18/page19/page19.html

Dr. B