I send my readers greetings from Grand Junction, CO where I am in the last day of a three-day residency at Mesa State College. Tonight is the premiere of my Regal Variations, a flute and clarinet duet that I wrote for the Ballif Duo. Kristi and Adam are doing a marvelous job with the piece and I am looking forward to the performance this evening.
On Monday, I spoke with a group of music majors about creating win-win opportunities in music. Much of the music business has functioned with the creative artists being at the bottom of the ladder regarding receiving compensation for their talent. Fortunately, technology has enabled composers, performers and audiences to connect with each other and to by-pass the traditional music business model. I urged the students to think like the people they want to reach and to come up with creative ways of helping those people achieve their goals while they achieve their own goals.
I am also doing a three-day composition seminar for ten student and community members that is based on my book, "A Composer's Guide to Understanding Music". The students appear very enthusiastic and I have been meeting with some of them individually to give them some ideas they can incorporate into their compositions.
This afternoon I am doing a talk at the Mesa County Library called "Music To Your Ears". It is intended to help people listen more effectively to music by showing them how composers used unity and variety to express their ideas.
During my free time, I visited Colorado National Monument and enjoyed the scenery as well as nice hike amongst the cliffs. I have also been transcribing one of my compositions for brass octet to enter into a competition.
I return home tomorrow and hope to get back to more composition. November and December are very busy performing months for me, so composition gets put on the back burner.
Dr. B
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