December 2020 News
This has certainly been a year unlike any other, but amongst all the difficulties and challenges I have really been blessed with a lot of wonderful opportunities and things to be grateful for. Most recently, I was awarded a residency at the Copland House (pictured above) and will be spending the three weeks after Christmas living and composing in the house where Aaron Copland spent the last three decades of his life! I was one of five composers selected for this award this year out of 130 applications! After being holed up in my apartment so much during the past 9 months and not doing any overnight travel since the summer, I'm thrilled to be able to have some new and historic surroundings to be and compose in!
I have two pieces I will be working on at the Copland House. One is a new art song commissioned by the Art Song Collaborative Project in Toronto, Canada, on the theme of protecting the environment. I've written my own text entitled "Mottainai" which is a Japanese expression of regret at the full value of something not being put to good use (something which I feel often very strongly but for which there is no equivalent term in English). The other piece is one I am writing for the ONIX Ensamble, a Mexican new music ensemble, as part of the RED NOTE New Music Festival Composition Workshop in February at Illinois State University, for which I was one of 9 composers chosen from 175 applications. After writing those two works, my next project is a new work for OSSIA, which is the student-run new music ensemble here at Eastman, to be performed in April which will explore my love of glissandi (the musical technique of sliding between pitches.)
I'm also thrilled that back in September my new wind ensemble work The Dove in the Ash Grove (which was originally written for cello and piano) won 2nd prize in the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble's Composition Competition (out of 210 entries)! At some point after the pandemic, the ensemble will bring me out to Hanover, New Hampshire, to attend the premiere of the work. You may remember that I lived in Hanover, NH for a year in 2016-17, but my father also went to graduate school at Dartmouth back in the 80s and my parents now live just a town over, so it will be something of a homecoming for me!
One night this past summer, I watched the film "1917" which has a moving scene where a soldier sings the American folksong "The Wayfaring Stranger" to his fellow soldiers. It really must have made an impression on me because a few nights later I had a dream where I was in a choir that was accompanying a solo singer singing the song. I was able to remember some of the choral accompaniment when I woke up, so I wrote it down and within a few days I had a new complete choral setting of this folksong. But what choir would be able to sing it during this pandemic? So I asked my good friend David McHenry if he might make a recording where he'd overdub and sing all the parts himself and it sounds pretty amazing!
I was also able to have one performance at Eastman this semester. The amazing pianist Nathan Cheung gave a superb performance of my Preludes No. 15 (Liquid) and 16 (Scurrying) back in September.
Additionally, I was honored to be asked to write an article on my Appalachian Trail Symphony for Journeys, which is the official magazine of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.