Here's a shot from rehearsal on Saturday, which went swimmingly. Hope to see you there! Details are at the BMV's website.
What I've been up to, and where I'm headed
Greetings, Earthlings!
It's been a while, I apologize. The last few months have been intense! Before I tell you why, though, I want to share with you some exciting projects on the horizon. Keep in mind, many of the details on these projects are pretty vague---sometimes it's because I'm leaving room for commissioners to make formal announcements on their own, and sometimes it's because I just don't have the details completely nailed down yet.
Here's what we're looking at:
Fall 2012
- September 7-9: On the non-composing front, I'll be playing "Henry" in a production of next to normal at The Factory Theater in Boston. Hope to see you there!
- September 16: Boston Musica Viva will be playing abstractEXTRACTION at their first-ever Live@SoWa event in Boston.
Winter 2012
- Premiere of Hark, the glad sound! (SATB anthem) at the Trinity College Lessons and Carols services in Hartford (see last year's program here). Details to follow.
- Premiere of a to-be-titled piece for electronics at a Fifth Floor concert in Boston (announcement coming soon).
- Another non-composing item: the Elmsmen will be singing at the Algonquin Club on December 13 for the Trinity Club of Boston.
- December 16: The first ever public performance of an aria from my opera (stay tuned), premiered by the commissioning organization. Details to follow.
Spring 2013
- Premiere of a new work for the Balletik Duo at a Fifth Floor concert in Boston.
- Premiere of a new work for Transient Canvas at a Fifth Floor concert in Boston.
- Premiere of Vanitas, a batshit-crazy chamber work, with the Equilibrium Concert Series (still being hammered out).
Summer 2013
- Premiere of a large-scale organ commission by the absolutely incredible Christopher Houlihan. Chris will be playing my music at a dual convention of the New York/New Jersey and New England chapters of the American Guild of Organists in Hartford. Details to follow.
- Evening-length preview of the opera in Boston. Many, many more details to follow.
Summer 2014
- Premiere of the opera. I know, I know, this is all incredibly nebulous. The commissioning organization will make the formal announcement of the opera soon, and I want to make sure they have control over the publicity. Suffice to say I'm extremely excited.
All of these will eventually be added to the calendar, and all will be blogged about. You've been warned.
Anyway, here's a little of what I've been up to for the past few months!
I covered more than Handel, I swear.
In June, I delivered a talk at my Trinity five-year reunion in Hartford. The presentation was a thoroughly updated (though similarly titled) version of Sounding It Out, the lecture I gave at Trinity back in April 2011. At some point I'll be uploading the whole thing here---the problem I'm having now is that a) it's a Prezi and b) the audio track was recorded on an iPhone sitting in the audience. If I can make those two parties work together, I should be able to upload it soon.
The Elmsmen, reunited with Pinky the Water Bottle (our publicity-shy fourth member).
The nature of the talk was the evolution of Western classical music, and how I, as a modern composer, fit into it. Special emphasis was given the increasing diversity of material (harmonic, melodic, thematic, rhythmic, etc.) over time, and how my music---which has been characterized as aesthetically mercurial---is a logical (to me, at least) extension of that trajectory.
It ended with a performance of three of my pieces---How sweet I roam'd, and the Kyrie and Agnus Dei from my Missa Brevis for Three Male Voices---by the Elmsmen (our first time performing together in over a year). When all was said and done, I was pretty pleased!
Then, just a week later, I had the honor of premiering i carry your heart(i carry it in), set to (of course) E.E. Cummings, at the wedding of two great friends. Despite the performance being outside (and our numbers being a bit diminished), everyone pulled together and sang beautifully.
Performing in the ceremony. Credit: Kasey Matson Photography
A particularly full-of-character (read: sloppy) page from my sketches for the piece.
Then, the morning after said wedding, it was straight into the (absurdly gorgeous) studios of WGBH in Boston for The Tortoise and the Hare!
Check out the ceilings in this place!
Taking recording notes in the score.
The control room. That's our producer in the driver's seat.
It was wonderful seeing both the Boston Musica Viva and Marimba Magic again, and Steve Aveson (as always) nailed the narration. This project will be taking on a life of its own in the months to come, but for now it's under wraps. Rest assured you haven't heard the last of either of those furry woodland creatures.
As a side note, Christopher Pickett (the librettist, of course) and I are already discussing future projects---hopefully there will be announcements up here for those soon too.
Things quieted down for a couple of weeks. And then ...
I GOT MARRIED!
My best friend and I tied the knot on July 14 in Narragansett, Rhode Island. It was easily the best day of my life.
Micah and I on the beach where I first told her I loved her. That's right.
The wedding featured music by my great friend and colleague, Andrew Paul Jackson. My best buddy/Best Man, Devin Romanul, conducted a choir of my male friends in a beautiful rendition of Stephen Paulus' Shall I Compare Thee?, and Micah walked down the aisle to the theme from my Variations for String Quartet (2009), the first piece I composed for her.
We then enjoyed a gut-wrenchingly beautiful nine days in on the Isle of Capri, in Italy. I might do a blog post about this, or I might just write a novel. I'm not quite sure yet. Here are three pictures.
About to get dinner in Capri Town.
I wasn't even posing here, I'm just that much of a badass.
This is an actual place. That you can visit.
Then I came back to the real world.
That's all for now. I'll be more frequent with updates going forward, so please don't be a stranger!
Upcoming performances: BMV Live@SoWa
I'm thrilled to announce that the Boston Musica Viva will be performing abstractEXTRACTION (three times, no less) at "BMV Live @ SoWa" on September 16 at the Carroll and Sons Art Gallery in Boston. The mini-concerts will be performed between 12:30pm and 3pm, and will coincide with a gallery showing of music-themed photography by Henry Horenstein (not to mention the wonderful SoWa Open Market).
Aside from my music, they'll also be performing works by Froom, Sierra, Donatoni, Gandolfi, and Hoffer.
Hope to see you there!
Objects of My Affection: Eames RAR Rocker
The Eames RAR (rocking armchair rod) Rocker is a perfect example of timelessness in design: it could've been created in 2009 in a boutique workshop in São Paulo (it wasn't), or it could've been born in a crazy Renaissance-style think-tank/24-hour carnival/cultural epicenter in California for a competition at the MoMA six decades ago (it was). It's equal parts earthy/traditional (maple rockers, small footprint) and modern/industrial (bright-yellow fiberglass shell, steel base). It looks just as good outside on the deck as it does in a hyper-modern office, and looks even better when it's rocking a newborn baby to sleep.
It's also incredibly comfortable.
Just ask him.
We got ours about a month ago at Machine Age, which is probably the coolest store on the planet. Some years ago, Herman Miller (the manufacturer) decided to switch to plastic shells (in the name of environmental soundness). Ours, though, is the original fiberglass, and it's got a wonderful texture.
I hope this stays in our family for generations. I hope our great-grandchildren park their hoverboards to stare at it, wide-eyed, believing that they've witnessed something sent back from the future to enthrall them.
Review: STILL LIFE, 1985 (2012)
The Equilibrium Concert Series' Bloom concert last week at Alpha Gallery was a great success, and it was an honor to have my music played so beautifully. The Boston Musical Intelligencer apparently agreed! Check out Stefanie Lubkowski's review, which just went up today.
An excerpt:
Patrick Greene’s Still Life, 1985, an accompaniment to the painting of the same name, was similarly contemplative, but with a bit more contrast to its ebb and flow. The eponymous painting was one of several in which Bloom rendered vases amassed on a draped table with a bold Technicolor palate and an evocative depiction of light glinting off the golden surfaces. This clarinet, viola, and cello trio began with all three instruments in a single note unison passage that soon broke out into short micro melodies energetically led by the clarinetist Kevin Price. As the piece progressed, longer passages of somber melody and harmony emerged, again with the clarinet in the lead and the strings setting the foundation. Eventually, violist Zoe Kemmerling and cellist Christopher Homick took center stage with a beautifully played elegiac melody. The coda then collapsed back into a harmonically reduced and texturally sparse section reminiscent of the introductory passages. This coda however, was less of a denouement and more of a revelation, like the moment when light breaks into a room, revealing what was previously hidden.
The piece will be played again in the same space tomorrow night at 8pm. I unfortunately can't make that performance, but please come out and support Equilibrium! It really is a wonderful evening of music and art.
I'll also be posting an audio excerpt from the performance on here shortly, so stay tuned.