January 2023 News
Conducting Iridium with the Tonkunstler Orchestra in Austria!
Happy New Year! My biggest highlight of the past several months was attending the INK STILL WET Composer/Conductor Workshop at the Grafenegg Festival in Austria. In addition to getting to hear some of the world's greatest orchestras in concert, including the London Symphony and the Vienna Philharmonic, getting to learn from acclaimed composer Georg Friedrich Haas and conductor Baldur Brönnimann, and meeting conductors Simon Rattle and Esa-Pekka Salonen, I had the amazing experience of conducting the premiere of my new orchestral work Iridium with the amazing Tonkünstler Orchester, one of Austria's top professional orchestras! I had a really amazing time and it was certainly two weeks that I will never forget!
Meeting Simon Rattle backstage after an amazing performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with the London Symphony Orchestra (along with fellow composer Simone Cardini)
Iridium is actually the second movement of my Symphony No. 2 "Metallic" which I just completed a couple months ago. The first movement, Titanium and Mercury, was read in 2020 by the American Composers Orchestra, and I'm now looking to have the third and final movement, Lithium, performed as well. In the meantime, the computerized MIDI realization of the work doesn't sound half bad if you'd like to hear what it sounds like.
Just a few weeks ago I just finished my most recent composition, a song cycle that is part of FUSE: Collaborations in Song, a project of Catalyst New Music and Boston Singers' Resource where five teams of composers, poets, and singers were formed to collaborate in the creation of new art songs. I was placed with poet Kendra Preston Leonard and baritone Daniel Laverriere. Based on our common interests, we decided to create a song cycle that addresses the problem of deforestation. The result, a 10-minute work called Felling, will be premiered by Laverriere and pianist Brendon Shapiro, along with the four other new works on February 11 at 7:30pm at the Longy School of Music's Edward M. Pickman Hall in Cambridge, MA. Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to Massachusetts for the performance, but if you are in the area I hope you might come to the concert! More info and ticket information can be found here.
In November, the University of Louisville Collegiate Chorale, conducted by Kent Hatteberg, gave a beautiful performance of my Te Lucis Ante Terminum at the University of Louisville New Music Festival. This is the second time the University of Louisville choirs have performed my works and I've been so impressed with their performances!
I recently finished a new work for pipe organ as part of the Composing the Future project between the Eastman School of Music and the University of Siegen in Germany. My new work Kaleidoscope will be premiered by organist Alex Little on the historical Hildebrandt organ (built in 1743 and performed on by J.S. Bach himself!) in Naumburg, Germany in April and then again in Rochester, NY in September.
While I didn't win it, I'm proud that in December I was named a finalist in the Austin Symphonic Band's inaugural Young Composers Contest.
My next project is a small commission for the contemporary chamber ensemble fivebyfive (based in Rochester, NY and with whom I interned a few years ago). I'll be creating contemporary arrangements of three Sephardic folk songs for their unique ensemble of flute, clarinet, piano, guitar, and double bass that they will perform and record during the next year or two.