02 March 2015

Erasures and all

I've sent the Discreet Erasures to a conductor in the area, Yoichi Udagawa, who when he was director of the Quincy Symphony Orchestra had me write them a piece. (I am not at all sanguine that the Erasures will suit a group that he is currently leading, but I wanted to refresh the contact.) That done, I realize that I only have an old Finale file of the piece I had written for Quincy, The Wind, the Sky, & the Wheeling Stars, Op.46 . . . and that I have meant to produce a refreshed edition in Sibelius.

In the interval, a fellow Boston composer humbled me with a rave response to the Erasures.

After church yesterday, I spent most of the day working on the revision / Sibelius edition of The Wind, the Sky, & the Wheeling Stars. It is altogether a homier piece than the Erasures, but I am finding that I still like very well. I never did get a document of the first (and thus far, only, natch) performance. That performance was a little rough, but in abject candor, there were some bits which I notated unnecessarily difficult - hence the "new edition" aspect of this task . . . I originally wrote the piece 15-16 years ago, and, well, I have learnt a good deal in the interval. Plus this was the first orchestral score I had to deliver to a conductor, so of course I committed my share of errors. (The conductor wanted distance while the piece was in rehearsal, so I was not in the hall with the band until the dress; I do not mean to seem to second-guess that wish for the distance, and will observe simply that circumstances did not permit my "educating through" those errors into perfection.)

Anyway, I am not quite half finished with the present edition; I am easily emending the things which wanted adjustment, and, modest though the piece be, I find it good for what it is.

Once I get this revision/refresh done, it's on to finish the Gloria, so that then the Mass, Op. 106 is complete. And then? White Nights!

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