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Improvisation: Concert

As I slowly rebuild the website, I have been slowly revisiting my blog posts and Youtube videos. And I discovered a video that has no blog post! In 2011, I was a semi-finalist at the André Marchal Improvisation Competition held in Biarritz, France. According to Youtube, it is the first video I posted and it is really fun listening to it after almost seven years. It is fascinating to see how much the focus of my career has changed (and in many ways how it hasn’t).

I had just begun my academic teaching life at CCAC (Community College of Allegheny County). I was teaching three sections of class piano and I had to miss a week of teaching to attend the competition. I played this video for one of the classes after I returned and they all looked at me like I was on another planet. In hindsight, it is clear to me now that most people’s experience with music is not what this improvisation contains.

I remember using this improvisation as an exploration of the instrument. There are things I would not do now and that includes setting up the camera (and mic consequently) in the loft with the organ. Not until the end do you get a sense of the acoustic which of course makes the instrument sound much better than the recording itself.

BUT, I love looking back at something like this. Twenty years ago, I tried to imagine what my musical life would be like and it never looks like what I expect. Now, twenty years on in my professional career, composing, improvising, and performing, this is a beautiful time capsule. That said, I don’t think the improv is formally concise, just trying out the different stop combinations in a very broad arch form. I’m not entirely sold on this improvisation but I have eyes and ears that hear it differently. Enjoy this retro post!

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Composition: Sonata No. 1 and the AGO National Convention

Greetings post-Kansas City AGO National Convention!  It’s Sunday and I am both rejuvenated and quite tired. There was so much: great music, workshops, and some very powerful worship ceremonies. I was particularly fond of the dance pieces I saw as they were very moving (pun intended – but seriously, I had to hold back tears). It was so nice to see old friends, make new ones, and there is never enough time to really take it all in. But of course, for me, the premier of the Sonata No. 1, was a high point.

I was commissioned by the National Convention to write a work that the average organist can play and that would be useful for both church services and concerts. In my mind, a sonata seems the perfect form for that expectation. Sonatas are fluid things: the individual movements can work independently while becoming a larger, cohesive whole when done together. Jennifer Pascual played the premier excellently. The Sonata No. 1 is available through Selah publishing. I am so proud and humbled to be presenting this to you all!

And now some shameless self-promotion. I have created a $5 coupon good for anything in the store. Just use “agokc2018” during checkout to receive the discount and enjoy the music you purchase. The coupon is good until the end of August and thank you for supporting my compositions. Happy playing out there! (PS: To be clear, the coupon works on my site, not Selah’s.)

 

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Composition: Chamber

Greetings to the new website! The biggest reason I haven’t posted in two months is because of preparing this new site. And here it is! Besides having the shop for my music and revising a number of works (and I am still revising), it is a pleasure to have something that closer resembles my vision than what the previous site had.

To that point, I present a new work, something I wrote as a complimentary work to a piece I  arranged: Carlotta Ferrari’s Toccata sopra Crux Fidelis. Where the Toccata began the Good Friday service, Scrutari ended it (please note that the video for the Toccata says Palm Sunday, that is incorrect). In between there were many passion themed hymns. Behind the scenes though, we recorded this on Saturday before the Easter Vigil to get something better. We had just enough time to get one solid performance.

And while the recording is not perfect, it captures the aesthetic I was trying to achieve for a Good Friday meditation service. I hope that one day, I will be able to record it again in less time crunched circumstances. That and perhaps write more music for this instrumentation.

 

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Composition: Chamber

Happy Easter and greetings from the other side of Holy Week!  It has been quite a month and a half since I last posted.  My work at the Monastery had me quite busy, though not un-enjoyably so.  Along with the usual amounts of work that Lent and Holy Week require, I was asked by my rector to put a program together for Good Friday.  More specifically, he asked that I put together an ensemble (voice, violin, flute, and organ) and perform music under the vague title “Music of the Passion.”  Honestly, it wasn’t too hard to find hymns for that setting, but finding instrumental music was definitely more challenging.

After spending too much time on IMSLP, I discovered a work for organ by the composer Carlotta Ferrari.  I became familiar to her works because of Carson Cooman’s numerous Youtube recordings of her works.  The piece titled, Toccata sopra Crux Fidelis, seemed perfect for the Good Friday program as the opening.  I reached out to her and she loved the idea of the arrangement and I am so happy I did it.  The score is available on the same IMSLP page as the organ version.

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Composition: Organ

It has taken some time, but I finally finished recording and editing a video for the last movement of The Divine Office.  I remember when writing this work facing a difficult decision: should I keep the contemplative nature of the offices, as one might actually experience or do I follow the logical conclusion of a multi-movement musical work?  Well, the answer is the latter.  Gotta end big.

With so many quiet movements, the work really needs something sparkling at the end.  I mean that somewhat literally: I had the vastness of space and stars in mind.  Compline happens in the middle of the night and in those ancient days, the stars are very visible.  It is not programmatic, but growing up in Alaska and seeing the aurora borealis regularly, definitely sticks in one’s imagination.

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Composition: Organ

Apparently, I have been sitting on this recording for a whole year!  A few evenings ago, I spent some time finishing up my recordings of the Divine Office and I did not even realize that I had not posted the seventh movement, Vespers.  And here it is!

In retrospect, I am happy that I get to post these last two movements together .  They are somewhat of an impression of my late nights at the Monastery, particularly Saturday evenings.  It is a very quiet place in the evenings, a place for contemplation and prayer.  I tried to evoke the feeling I get when I am working in that quiet.

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Improvisation: Evening

Happy New Year!  It has been an exciting time as things are gearing up for an exciting summer.  The Kansas City AGO 2018 Convention sent out a very kind promotion to a piece of mine that will be premiered, Sonata No. 1.  It has been a long time coming and it is very, very exciting.

On a note about the blog, I have wanted to post something for some time but due to a mix of Christmas, family, and some issues with the organ, I have not been unhappy with the handful of recordings I have made.  Well, after the KC Newsletter, I wanted to post something and I took a look at the recordings I had and I found this gem.

Back in November, I went to St. Paul Cathedral to make a recording of more experimental improvisations, but it was not a very satisfying session.  Or at least that is what I thought at the time.  While reviewing the recording I came upon this terrifying improv.  St. Paul Cathedral has a magnificent von Beckerath organ, one that reminds me of the organ I played my undergrad days.  Really, both are German neo-Baroque trackers which allow for certain kinds of exploitation.  When I re-listened to the improv, I recalled the difficulty in moving my fingers slowly off the keys to create the desired effect.  The cromorne had particularly interesting sonorities when using this technique was applied.

As with any avant-garde composition or improvisation, I tried to ground it with some simple elements.  It is essentially a binary form, with a heavy emphasis on the lowest C pitch.  It is a balance; when there are highly strange elements present, simplicity is certainly needed.  And lastly, that middle section makes me think of this sound, whether or not it was intentional at the time.

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Composition: Chamber

Greetings friends!  It has been about two months since I have posted something and much of that has to do with life, the universe, and not getting a good a proper recording done.  It is also coupled with that I am trying to get a recording from another organ and space as I have been becoming increasingly frustrated with the instrument in the Monastery Church.  I have attempted to be as kind as possible about it, but the Möller is a Möller and has limited potential, one that I feel has been realized by the Evening Improvisations.

And now for something completely different…  Earlier this year I ran an improvisation session with a bunch of young students.  It was a blast!  I think there are some fine tuning elements that I will include next time I do it, but the real success of the night was one particular piece I titled, “To be determined…”  It was modeled after modern pop ballads (as I see and hear them), but it was template in which the students would be able to improvise upon.

Well, it was enough of a hit that my violinist friend who sponsored the event wanted the students to have something to take home.  Another friend of mine from CCAC, needed people to record for his Audio Recording course.  I saw this as the perfect opportunity to help both of my friends get things done!  I am happy to announce the result: a fully realized version of the song “To be determined…”  Here is a link to the score:

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Here I will note that I have titled this a “composition.”  For me, creating a template for improvisation falls far on the side of composition and less improvisation.  Knowing that improvisation will happen is only a part of the compositional process, not an actual realization of the result.  Writing, planning, and realizing the backing track was truly fun; though the sound of the song is of a pop kind, the process for me was as much like any other composition that I have written, with decidedly different results.

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Improvisation: Evening

This evening I recorded my fourth recording in the second Evening Improvisation series.  I have had a busy couple of weeks, so I have been planning this for some time.  One thing I can say, no improvisation is ever truly improvised, and in this case, I had a lot of planning time.  Perhaps, that is why I really like it!  Usually I might do three or four takes before I am satisfied.  And I wouldn’t post a video if I didn’t like it, but this was one improvisation I knew was good the moment I lifted by arms off the keys.  (Spoiler!)

This particular stop, the 8′ Trumpet on the swell, is quite noisy and nasally.  I had a different stop in mind originally, but upon reflection of my intentions, I realized that it would work rather ideally for this stop.  If Evening Improv II: III was an aria, that I would call this a fanfare.  A little on the nose for a trumpet stop, but why not!  What I was going for was a buzzing sort of accompaniment, one where pitch is indecipherable.  Then, as you listen, a theme emerges.

For me, when there are strong non-tonal elements, it’s important to simplify other things.  The form of the improvisation is A-B-A1.  There is only one theme and at most it is inverted and presented in no more than two voices.  The improvisation is also short.  I knew that I had had enough of what I was doing and couldn’t sustain itself any longer.  Whereas the idea, the buzzing, was planned, it is those other elements that reveal themselves to me as the improvisation happens.

 

 

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Improvisation: Evening

The 8′ Gedackt on the Choir is the chiffiest stop on the whole instrument, like so much of the Moller organ at the Monastery.  And when given an overripe banana, throw it in the freezer and make banana bread.  By that I mean, it is up to me to make it work.  This particularly stop is a horrible ensemble stop and I rarely use it liturgically.  But I thought it would be an interesting stop for my latest set of improvisations.

In my mind, I consider this an aria/recitative.  After two fairly more energetic improvisations, I thought this particular stop could function in a speaking manner.  And much like the two previous stops, the Bourdon and Waldflote, the Gedackt has several different sounds within the various octaves.  Though, that chiff sure is consistent.  Sheesh.

PS: I just read the Wikipedia article on gadeckt and I had to quote it, saying the gadeckt is a “moderately soft, bland, flute-like tone, invaluable for basic ensemble sound in the pipe organ.”  Too funny.