Filtering by Tag: steel symphony

In case you missed it: STEEL SYMPHONY was reviewed (and enjoyed!) by the New York Times

Added on by Patrick Greene.

I wish I could say this was, you know, a regular occurrence for me, but seeing my name in the New York Times for the first time ever back in September was an immense - and, for me, unprecedented - thrill. When they mentioned me again in the paper, with a glowing review, I nearly crapped my pants.

Thanks to Christopher Houlihan for giving me some astonishing coat-tails to grab onto.

Steel Symphony has since been purchased by a number of other performers from around the United States. Hopefully this crazy little piece will continue to blow eardrums off all across the world for years to come.

If you'd like to purchase a bound copy of the score, by the way, you can do so on my store. It's $14, it's vermilion, and it's CRAZY.

But fun.

Thanks!

STEEL SYMPHONY in Brooklyn - this Sunday, for free, played by the brilliant Christopher Houlihan

Added on by Patrick Greene.
Michael Falco for the New York Times

Michael Falco for the New York Times

In case you missed it in the New York Times, the New Yorker, I Care If You Listen, or Time Out New York, Christopher Houlihan - dear friend of mine, and world-class musician - will be performing Steel Symphony at the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph in Brooklyn on Sunday, September 20. 

I wrote this piece for him back in 2013; since then it's been performed numerous times, always to thunderous applause. He's a magnificent interpreter of my music, and a thoughtful, helpful collaborator.

For more on Steel Symphony, check out this blog post from way back when I'd just started composing the thing. Live recordings of the premiere performance (at the Trinity College Chapel in Hartford) are available on the Music page, too.

But I wholeheartedly recommend you make the trip over to Prospect Heights if you're in the area and available. Watching Christopher play is a transformative experience, and hearing those thunderous pipes filling a richly acoustic, beautiful space is unlike any other live-music experience I can think of.

Hope to see you there!

Looking back before moving ahead ...

Added on by Patrick Greene.

For the past decade or so, I've used a series of Moleskine Art Plus Music Notebooks to map out ideas: motivic materials, rhythmic schema, notes to myself, sketches (musical and otherwise), etc. They've become an integral part of my creative process, but they've also served as creative waypoints; I flip through them every few years to see how I've developed, where life's taken me, that sort of thing.

Now that I've crammed the last bit of material into one (a sixteenth-note G sharp on a bass clarinet, for those of you keeping score at home), I figured I'd flip through this puppy and highlight some especially memorable moments from the past couple of years.  

And so it begins ...

Left: Memorizing lines for Wax Wings Productions' THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS; Right: Mapping out clarinet multiphonics for CHARLES & RAY

Left: Measuring furniture in preparation for our move to Lincoln, MA in February of 2013; Right: The first harmonic sketches of STEEL SYMPHONY

Left: Notes from our "birthing class" at Mount Auburn Hospital (where our son was born a few months later); Right: Figuring out the ending to STEEL SYMPHONY

Left and Right: Mapping out an array of extended techniques utilized throughout THE TOWER

Left: While walking through the Lincoln wilderness, I stumbled upon a new "office" (to which I've returned many times since); Right: Mapping out isorhythmic material for THE TOWER (used in the "winding staircase" section

Sketching out ideas for the poster design of Wax Wings Productions' HAMLET: PRINCE OF DENMARK

Left and Right: Notes from an especially productive Fifth Floor Collective meeting at a coffee shop in Brighton---we were mapping out our first-ever collaborative composition, TRIPTYCH, about which much more information will be coming soon

Rounding out the final page---182---of this current notebook: motivic sketches for my upcoming loadbang piece, COME SOON, YOU FERAL CATS. More info on this one coming as well!