A Year After a Performance

I do enjoy looking forward to recordings of past performances. Some more than others. It's like getting a report card. Sure I felt good or even bad about a performance, and then I can listen to the recording and get a reality check. Was it as bad as I thought, or was it as good as I thought. Could my mistakes be perceived?

Another reason I like to get a recording is I get to relive the enjoyment I may have gotten out of performing a piece. I love playing, I really do. I love it more when I get to play with friends. It's like going on a roadtrip with your pals where there's a fabulous party at the end. The recording is the souvenir from that trip. You can look back and remember what a good ride that was, even if you broke down in the middle of nowhere. You can get something out of every trip for better or worse.

In May 2013, I performed a couple of works for the Terminus Ensemble recital at the end of an already packed month of gigs, commission deadlines, and performances. I was beat. In fact, the hubs and I were going on a long overdue vacation the next morning. I was performing two pieces that had their own emotional and technical demands. It was a challenge, but a challenge I knew I couldn't pass up on. In the end, I knew I was going to be a better musician because of these pieces. I just got the videos this morning.

The first piece I performed on the recital has been the most challenging piece I have had to work on in a long time, "Echolalia" by John Anthony Lennon. Parts of this piece scared me. There was a lot of room for interpretation on this piece and I only had one recording to go by. Luckily, like in all Terminus Ensemble pieces, the composer lived in Atlanta and I had met him before. So when in doubt, call the composer. As a performer, I do enjoy meeting the composer and talking. At the very least, I'll get to know the composer a little better and verify what's on the page. I know not all performers like to do that, but I like to have that line of communication available.

John was kind enough to carve out some time out of his end of the school year obligations at Emory University to meet. When I arrived at his office, I assumed I would just play the piece in his office and I'd get some words of wisdom, but he grabbed a music stand and said "It will sound much better in the stairwell."  He was right. The swirling reverb of the stairwell added in a new factor I hadn't thought about. I knew the definition before meeting John was the often pathological repetition of what is said by other people as if echoing them. I felt there was some repetition in the figures of the music, but the reverb really brought it home. So what did we know about the performance venue? I knew it was a church, but that didn't mean it was a stone walled cathedral that would ring for days. So we had to go with a different plan, which I am glad we did. In the recording, it didn't come across as extreme as the stairwell. Looking back on the recording I wish we had ramped the reverb up electronically more. But I am happy with the performance. It came a long way from when I first got it. I hope I get to perform it again in the future. It's one of those few pieces I get to play where all the work is worth the effort. It is a beautiful piece.



After I had a sigh of relief from performing "Echolalia" and was able to get over the post performance jitters, I had to get my mind right to perform an emotional taxing piece, "Twenty-One" by Tim Jansa. In August of 2010, conductor Robert J. Ambrose and his wife, flutist Sarah Kruser Ambrose, lost their son Zachary after twenty-one weeks of pregnancy. In memory of their child, Robert and Sarah asked composer Tim Jansa to write a piece for flute and accompaniment – originally for piano – which Sarah herself would be able to perform in memory of her son. Sarah had already premiered the piece, and there had been another flutist who had performed the piece as well. Sarah is a flutist in Atlanta, and someone who I know and admire. Naturally, I discussed the performance of the piece with Tim and Sarah. Performing a piece like this is always tricky. You want to be emotionally involved in the piece, but you have to keep from crossing that line into letting it break down the performance. (Soprano Anne Bird had a great blog post about this years ago -like a decade ago- and I always think about it while perform - I can't find it! UGH!)

The good thing about performing this piece, is that I had a pal who had my back on piano - Ipek Eginlioglu. There was a a moment when I was feeling, and not thinking. I nearly missed my entrance, but I got a reassuring look from Ipek that kept me from derailing.(You can catch that look at 4:43) Now that's a friend who knows when you're head isn't in it and can bring you back to the present! This girl had a lot to deal with that day. There were keys on the piano that were not quite working. She dealt with it like the pro she is.




So what is good about seeing a video of yourself performing and not just hearing an audio? Well I can find a lot of complaints, but what you never give much attention to is the pre and post performance action. Like that I am so floppy when I recognize my colleagues. It looks like I am not excited about working with them, but I'm just awkward, and not a touchy feely person. So I need to work on that. I need to channel my inner diva and look like I feel instead of just trying to get off the "stage" as fast as possible. My playing issues, I won't tear a part in public, but I'm not gonna like, I got some things to work on. I'll always have things to work on. That's part of the fun of it all. Pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

It was an incredibly rewarding experience. The crowd was small, but that was a good music making day. I'm looking forward to our concert on the 27th where I get to perform with my buddies again.

Reliving "Rabbit Tales"

I was commissioned in 2011 to compose a children's opera for the Atlanta Opera's first ever commission. I spent the summer of 2011 composing all day most every day and had the best time. It was one of those projects that I was glad I finished because that meant I was closer to hearing a performance, but I was sad that I would no longer work on the opera. It was just too much fun composing that hour long opera for children.

The past couple days I got to relive that feel by making clips from the DVD of the final dress rehearsal in October 2011. The opera was performed over 70 times, and hearing the dress rehearsal was a reminder of how a performance ensemble can evolve in that time. Don't get me wrong, I was more than happy with the dress rehearsal, but I caught some of the last performances in 2012 and it was amazing to see/hear how comfortable the singers got with the complicated text and 7/8 time signatures that some were skeptical the singers would ever get comfortable with. They just made it seem easy. I wish I had a video of the later performances to show how the opera evolved.

Madeleine St. Romain was the librettist who had the overwhelming task of finding a way to make a 45-50 minute story out of thousands of B'rer Rabbit stories. We had quite and enjoyable time working together, and I think we both agree that this section of the opera is our favorite text-wise and musically. We knew this song did not progress the story, but it was a part we fell in love with. We even made a pact that we would make compromises on any other section, but we would fight to the death for this song to stay in. Luckily, it never was an issue:



I love the next section mainly because of what the stage director Park Cofield and music director Michael Spassov did to make this section hang together. This song could have easily gotten tedious because of the repetition, but the added "camp choreography" and the added accelerando really made me happy. This collaboration was much appreciated!



What can I say about the cast? They were fabulous and an incredible fit for each role. I didn't necessarily know who was going to be performing these parts when I was composing, but I had seen Baritone Wade Thomas performing in Atlanta Opera's production of "The Ugly Duckling" as the Big Bad Wolf, and that always stuck with me when I was composing "Rabbit Tales" and I hoped that the Atlanta Opera would be able to cast Wade as King Lion. You can see why below:



I think the cast did really well with the ensemble singing, and I especially love the last segment because of their interaction, the stage props, and that I could legitimize eating pie while I was composing the "Pie" song.



I have some serious admiration for the singers and pianist for this production. This was a high energy opera with lost of text, music, and stage direction to remember. Sometimes they performed the opera 3 times or more in one day after traveling a couple hours all before noon wearing crazy costumes. This was an amazing collaboration. I don't really collaborate because the opportunity like this rarely comes along for me, but if all collaborations went like this I would do it everyday. And of course none of this wouldn't have happened if the Atlanta Opera's Education Director Emmalee Iden hadn't had the story idea and been an advocate for me to be the composer. It's really an experience that I will look back on as a pivotal moment in my career and life.

Another review in the AJC!

My first review, and I think its more than fair. I wasn't incredibly
happy with my sound output in this venue, but pretty nice review from
Pierre Ruhre. He thinks I might even have potential as a
composer....sweet. He's been very generous with his attention on our
group.

So here is the review from the electronic music concert on Tuesday,
where MW5 was performed: Click here to read it!

And listen to MW5 here: http://www.nikkinotes.com/music/mw5.mp3