Steel Paradise

I have a surprise performance coming up in January. It was a surprise to me as I hadn't written the piece yet, and it hadn't been discussed at all, except that the SNM had expressed interest in performing something of mine on their winter series.

As I have to deliver a score and parts by Dec. 1, I decided to arrange a piece of mine that has never been performed, Paradisio. I know I was going to arrange it for band, but this came up, and it seems that it can be reduced easily for the required forces: cl, str qt, pf, pc, and steel pan. I've never written for steel pan before, but the concert features a steel pan specialist, and it seemed to be appropriate to include him. Anyway, I'm about a quarter of the way through it, and it's going quickly when I have time to work on it.

New Notations Computer Services Ltd is finished now. I sent my final accounts in to my accountant, and except for paying their invoice and submitting my final VAT return, it is closed. It served me well over the years. The new US company is Notagraphia LLC, and I'm too busy with it to build more than a rudimentary website. That is, combined with teaching, composing, and typesetting, there is no free time. (I really do need to do some work on the house!)

Speaking of teaching, I'm now directing the Syracuse University Contemporary Music Ensemble, and we will perform on our Nov. 8 concert the Stravinsky Octet, the first complete performance of Bill Brooks' The Kitchen Sink and The Water In It, as well as Pitch City by William Duckworth.

Also on the program will be two directed improvisations, for which I'm providing the framework. The first is called Night Visions, and will be based on a rearrangement of Pitch City that instead uses my rows. Over the top will be improvised material, using sets from those rows, as well as interpolated material from a "not-jazz" combo suite (Visions) that I began about 10 years ago. Rehearsals are going well.

The second improvisation is The Sky at Night, which uses the same sets accompanying the saxophone solo part from Remembering the Night Sky, which was originally supposed to be part of the Visions set. No Free Lunch is also part of that set, but it was originally supposed to be a much larger work. There is another "movement" that was never finished, since I was already 4 minutes over the commissioned length. I may finish it and revert the NFL material to the original ordering, and the re-insert it into Visions.

That would make the new Visions:

Night Visions: Improvisation I (fl, as, 2pf, pc, 10')
No Free Lunch (fl, va, vc, pf, current version, possibly reordered?, 5')
The Sky at Night: Improvisation II (fl, as, 2pf, pc, 10')
Remembering the Night Sky (as, pf, 18')
(untitled): Improvisation III ((fl, as, 2pf, pc, va, vc, probably based on unused NFL material, 12')

My original plan had a different instrumentation (as, tpt, tbn, pf, elect. bass, pc), but I'm not bothered about that. It's around the same length, and the instrumentation of the improvisations is flexible.