Pieces You Can Premiere! (Part I)

I have a few pieces lurking out there in my catalog that have actually never been performed. While most of the time I am writing a new piece for a specific ensemble, group of ensembles, or particular event, sometimes I write a piece simply because I want to.  In the case of the latter, sometimes I will send the finished piece to groups who I think may be interested.  Other times, I just hold onto the piece.

One of those pieces is a work for Men's Choir (TTBB) and English Horn titled "From Our Happy Home."

It is a Christmas-themed piece, although I wrote it last summer when I stumbled upon a wonderful text by Louisa May Alcott.  I felt like the text called for a fun and lighthearted setting, and so I chose men's choir and the beautiful (but also witty) english horn to accompany them.  The piece is 3 minutes long - bursting with fun and energy throughout.  After I wrote the piece last summer, I added it to my website and moved onto the next project.

So, thinking well ahead of the 2012 Holiday Season - you can purchase the music and have yourself the premiere performance!  Contact me if you are interested.

New Year :: New Music

In my last post I did a quick recap of 2011, and today I want to touch on my compositional plans for 2012.  I have a bunch of other goals and plans, but for this post I want to focus on pieces I plan (and hope!) to write this year: Nocturne IV - Flute & Saxophone Ensemble Commissioned by the University of Central Florida Flute & Saxophone Ensemble

Magnolia Star - Wind Ensemble A short and energetic piece for wind ensemble based on trains and the blues scale. What could be better!

Keep Me Fully Glad - SATB Choir (?? not sure of exact instrumentation yet) A setting of a beautiful Rabindranath Tagore poem - read more here.

Untitled - Wind Ensemble & Screen A 15 minute work for wind ensemble and film, inspired by the photography of Ansel Adams.  Click here to see a video about the project. Commissioned by a consortium of wind ensembles.  You can join! Contact me here.

Shout! - SATB Choir (?? not sure of exact instrumentation yet) A fun and rousing song with powerful text by one of my favorite poets - my wife!

Morning Hymn - SATB & Piano A setting of the beautiful text (see here) by Charles Wesley

There you have it - my compositions for 2012.  Of course, there will probably be other projects that sneak in here as well.  And, if you/your ensemble wants to commission a piece this year, there is still room!  I can always fit in special projects, but the sooner we start planning, the better!

Best wishes for an exciting 2012!

Flash Mob

Well, yes, it is the season for flash mobs. And yes, I agree (I assume that you and I are on the same page about everything) that they are sometimes sort of cheesy.  But they are festive and joyous and bring smiles to peoples faces - all great stuff. Here is one that a friend sent me that's pretty cool... and it includes saxophone, so how could I not post it?

Women's Choir Piece - In Progress

In a previous post, I shared a beautiful text which I have been planning to set.  I've been working out some ideas for weeks and 2 weeks ago I decided that the piece would work well for women's choir (SA, some divisi) and piano. So, I've been hard at work and the piece is basically done now, just some editing and tweaking to do. It's one of those pieces I just wanted to write, and wasn't being written for specific performance or ensemble.  So...that means the premiere performance is up for grabs!  I'm posting this on my blog and facebook to see if a women's choir out there would like to premiere the piece.

If you/your ensemble is interested in premiering the piece, let me know (email steve [at] stevedanyew [dot] com).  As a special holiday treat, I'm willing to provide the PDF version for FREE to the ensemble that will premiere the piece!

The whole piece is about 4.5 minutes long.  The piece is not very difficult - sort of a delicate lullaby-type song.  The text is taken from a beautiful poem titled "My Song" by Rabindranath Tagore -  more details about the text follow the two pages below...

Tagore's "My Song" is a simple and beautiful poem - a collection of statements, promises, about "this song of mine." I selected several of the lines from the poem to make up the text for this piece. Here are the lines included in the text:

This song of mine will wind its music around you, my child, like the fond arms of love. This song of mine will touch your forehead like a kiss of blessing. My song will be like a pair of wings to your dreams, it will transport your heart to the verge of the unknown. It will be like the faithful star overhead when dark night is over your road. When you are alone it will sit by your side and whisper in your ear.

Beautiful words from Tagore, don't you think? If you are interested in premiering the piece, please contact me at steve [at] stevedanyew [dot] com. Thanks!

Recap: A Song of Singing Premiere

I didn't get sun burned! (I wasn't in the sun very much... alas.) I had a wonderful visit to Delray Beach, FL from November 30 - December 4. I was in Florida for the premiere of A Song of Singing, which was commissioned by the Delray Beach Chorale (DBC) in celebration of their 30th anniversary season.

The dress rehearsal on Tuesday night (Nov. 30th) was the first time the choir had rehearsed with a 9-piece brass and percussion ensemble that would perform with them that weekend.  The size of the church, power of the brass, and arrangement on the stage made balance a little tricky, but the DBC director Eric Keiper did a great job harnessing the brass and bringing the choir to the fore.  He even brought a beautiful red rug to the performance, laying it down in front of the brass which helped absorb a bit of their powerful sound!

Between Tuesday (dress rehearsal) and Saturday (performance) I was hosted by a wonderful choir member and her husband, and was treated to great food, weather, and conversation.  On Wednesday evening I had a lovely dinner with Eric and two members of the DBC board.  It was really interesting to learn about the history of the choir and hear all their great ideas for the future - this is a group to watch!

Friday evening I had dinner with a board member and another singer in the group, and was fortunate enough to attend a brilliant concert by the Delray String Quartet.  They played a wonderful program of music in a beautiful venue in Fort Lauderdale, and played with fantastic sensitivity.  It was really a pleasure to hear them - I only wish more people had been there to appreciate some great music-making.

Saturday was a great day - we took some pictures prior to the performance in the afternoon, touched some spots in my piece and others, and began the concert at 3pm.  It was a wonderful performance on many levels.

First, I think there were about 400 people in attendance!  Second, it was an ambitious program of music that really showed many different sides of the choir and all the instrumentalists involved.

Third, the performance had a great energy and excitement that doesn't always happen.  Sometimes the dress rehearsal will have that extra edge and energy, followed by a performance that seems lackluster.  But in this case, the performance really kicked it up a notch.

My piece in particular sounded fun - which is exactly what I wanted.  I wrote the piece hoping that it would be fun for everyone involved - the choir, the director, the brass, the timpani, the piano!  I wasn't entirely sure how the audience would react to the piece (I guess because I was thinking so much more about the performers, in this case) but they loved it!

I was honored to be a part of this significant anniversary for the DBC and I look forward to following their next 30 years of singing!

Florida, Here I Come!

It's been a couple of years since I was in the Sunshine State, but I'm coming back tomorrow! I will be in Delray Beach for the Delray Beach Chorale dress rehearsal tomorrow night, and the premiere of "A Song of Singing" on Saturday December 3rd.  Concert info here.

I'm very excited - it will be great to hear this wonderful group of singers perform a really fantastic program of music. I'm honored to have been asked to write a new work in celebration of their 30th anniversary!  The piece is joyus, big, and hopefully fun for everyone involved!

Other recent news:

• Goodnight, Goodnight was chosen to be presented in the ACDA Eastern Division Conference Reading Session at the Convention in February.
• Lauda will be performed by the Bethel College Wind Ensemble at the Kansas Music Educators Association’s In-Service Workshop next spring in Wichita, KS.  The Bethel Wind Ensemble recently performed the work on November 20th, and will perform the piece again at KMEA in February.  Congrats to Timothy Shade and the ensemble who were one of three ensembles chosen out of 66 Kansas ensembles - wow!

A Video Tour Through My Newest Piece!

"A Song of Singing" written for the Delray Beach Chorale

A Really Old Book

A few weekends ago, I was at a Historical Society sale in my town. I happened to spot a rather old book on a large table covered in books large and small, all on sale for 25 or 50 cents. I looked closely at the worn cover and read the faded title "Songs for the Sanctuary."

Interesting, I thought.

I got distracted and put the book down, but came back to it later and thumbed through the many pages. The book contains no actual sheet music, just texts for sacred hymns and psalms. The book was published in 1869 and the pages are still in pretty good shape considering the age of this book.

I bought the book and over the next few days, skimmed through the 1300+ texts in the book.

I'm astonished at the beauty of many of these texts - most are settings and variations of hymn texts, psalm texts, and biblical verses. It is not clear who actually wrote/adapted each specific text, as the book is a collection of these "songs," which have surely evolved over decades and centuries. However, many of these beautiful texts have likely been lost from sacred service music, due to their "dated" language.

In my love for old things, I find the antique nature of some of the language to be wonderful and certainly worth preserving.

I quickly realized that this book will be a fantastic source of texts to use in future compositions. I have already completed two works with texts drawn from this book: Once More, My Soul and An Hour of Hallowed Peace. I hope that I will be able to draw inspiration from the book for years to come.

Endings

I'm finishing up a trumpet and piano piece, which got me thinking about endings.  I love writing endings.  Sometimes it is the hardest section of a piece to compose, but I love it anyway. Most composers probably agree that starting a piece is often the hardest part, but there is a certain pressure that looms when it comes time to write an ending.  You have to wrap everything up - successfully, creatively, and uniquely.  The ending is also a great opportunity - to transform the music you've written, to "kick it up a notch" and take the listener somewhere special.

Endings are often where we find composers being the most creative.

Sometimes composers choose to bring the music to its highest moment of tension at the ending, saving the climax for the very end.  Other times, the ending is understated, drawing the piece to a close in a hushed calm.  Still other times, endings surprise us with their wit.  Think about some of your favorite pieces and how they end - being that they are your favorite pieces, I bet they have endings that you love.

Renaissance composers such as Josquin developed the compositional idea of a conclusione - an ending which brings together all the pervading motives of the work.  The technique provides a satisfying summation of the work - bringing back elements of music which we have heard before, but combining them into an amalgamation which is new and often stunning.  Lately, I have found myself more and more attracted to this idea of conclusione, and several of my works aim for an ending that somehow brings together several music motives and transforms them through their simultaneous (or nearly simultaneous) combination.

Here is a wonderful example of a conclusione ending by Josquin, from his astounding psalm motet Miserere mei deus:

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