Michael James Oberhauser

To help myself keep track, here's what I need to talk about:-Words and Music Concert
-Twitter
-Necromancer's Dance
-ALT's CLDP
-Of Montreal concert
-Don Pasquale
-Words and Music Concert
-Upcoming recital

I have 20 minutes to write a lot of stuff, so I might not get it all in this post. (Deep breath...) Ok, go!

I'm in Twitter now. I've discovered it really is a great way to interact with some other people who are passionate about new music and opera. I'm finding lots of interesting articles and links to new music that I'm sharing on there, so follow me: @moberhau

Necromancer's Dance is finished! That's what I ended up naming my orchestra piece. I don't really know what to do with it now, though. Should I just start throwing it at orchestras? Perhaps with baskets of fresh baked cookies?

I applied for American Lyric Theater's Composer Librettist Development Program. I really, really want this - but it's out of my hands now. Wish me luck! If I get this, it means I'm moving to NYC!

This doesn't really apply to new classical music, but - if you ever get the chance, go see Of Montreal in concert. They put on a ridiculously entertaining show. Fun music, and lots of random people in costumes.

A disappointment, then: Don Pasquale at the Washington National Opera. I wasn't expecting it to be the best thing ever - in my opinion, it's one of the worst operas that's in the traditional canon - but I was expecting to at least be amused, entertained, and impressed by the talent. I wasn't any of those. There were a few good moments here or there, but mostly everything was ho-hum at best. What a disappointment.

Not a disappointment at all, though: Words and Music's concert yesterday, The American Composer I. Great works, all by living American composers: Laitman, Rorem, Chipulo, Johns, and Frazin. Johns and Frazin were there - I already knew Terrance Johns, tenor extraordinaire and a really excellent composer, and it was wonderful to meet Howard Frazin. The usual four singers and pianist that make up Words and Music were diminished slightly - the bartone's wife had just had a child, and the tenor (Terry) was really sick. The soprano and mezzo took on most of the concert, with Terry joining in for the ensemble pieces. They also had a terrific clarinettist there, Brian David Jones, who played on the Rorem and two Frazin pieces. All really great stuff - but now I have to run! Memorial Day festivities, and not enough time to write about the most exciting part (for me): the upcoming Songs recital! Look for a post about this soon.

Yay! It's done! I'm sure I'll tweak it for a while, but it's done and performable! The entire thing ended up being about 40 minutes long. It's late, but I was excited and needed to post this.

Now I can devote more attention to my orchestra piece (which might be named The Necromancer... is that hokey?), the libretto to the Lilith opera, the song recital (which looks like it actually is happening), and now a potential opera performance that some friends and I are discussing.

More on the song recital: What I think will happen is the singers will each sing something of mine and something by another composer. I might even sing myself!

More on the opera performance? Well, I don't want to give away anything yet. This is full of a lot of maybes, and I don't want to jinx it. It quite possibly will include a staged performance of The Name on the Door, though, and that's exciting.

The past few days have actually been somewhat good for me, creatively.

I have a start on "The Good Night," the last song I have yet to write for Love is Not the Last Room. Well, it's my third or fourth start, but I don't think I'm scrapping this one. Thanks, Prokofiev, for the ideas. You'll probably hear the more obvious idea if you listen to it, but that led to a less obvious idea #2, which probably only in my head. Oh, idea #2 owes a little bit to Shakespeare, too. (Cryptic much?)

The real progress was made in the orchestral piece. I spent the last week or so listening to some of the great orchestrators (or, at least the greats that I have full scores for.) Listening to Stravinsky's Firebird gave me some great ideas for colors in the piece, and I'm able to reference those colors for recurring musical ideas throughout the piece. In just two days of orchestrating, I'm 2/3 of the way through the piece! It's moving by much more quickly than the past couple times I've tried to orchestrate this. So, thanks, Stravinsky, for letting me borrow some of the crayons from your box.

Oh, and the piece doesn't actually sound like Stravinsky. It sounds like another piece of mine, Cogito ergo sum, which I've been told sounds like Bartok. Well, Cogito ergo sum kind of feels like a practice piece for this new piece. Much more involved. 

So yes, thank you Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Bartok, and, in a roundabout way, Shakespeare.

Also, while I was listening to the great orchestrators, I rediscovered this amazing piece. Strauss didn't normally write with his heart on his sleeve, but he totally did here. This isn't the direction I wanted to go with my new piece, but I had to listen to this... several times. Give it a good listen yourself (along with the other two youtube videos that make up the full performance). Trust me. You'll love it.

I've been working a lot. Not just on music: My job's been hectic, my chorus rehearsal schedule is sometimes a bit much (concert this weekend), doctoral applications (long done, but they took a lot of the time toward the end of 2010), and just general business from life.

I have been writing, though:

As of last night, Love is Not the Last Room is 17/18 done! Only one song left! It's a tough one, though- the last soprano solo. I've been wrestling with it for a while. Hopefully a good idea will come to me soon!

The 365 Project is coming along well. I finished Autumn back in December, and I'm really happy with it. I think it's one of the prettiest things I've ever written. I have mixed feelings about Winter so far, but the last few days have produced some music I like for that.

The Inspiration Ring has kind of taken a back burner for all of us, but it should get started up again soon.

As soon as LINTLR is completely finished, I need to dive headfirst into my orchestral piece that I've been talking about writing for such a long time. This really needs to be finished and in my portfolio!

Also, I have a new collaboration starting up soon: My friend Ashley Alden wants to create a staged song cycle, based on the life of Cleopatra, with me. She's writing the words and will sing it, and I just have to write the music! I'm looking forward to the project, though- I think it could be really interesting. More details to come on that project later.

Some other things I want to do soon:
-Review the CD of string quartets I recently got
-Blog about composing and songwriting with words first, or adding words to existing music
-Organize a recital - Yes, I know, ANOTHER one. I've been itching to get work performed again for a while!

So, this post's title: "Lots of progress, not much progress"
That's what I feel like lately. I'm getting a lot of work accomplished, but nothing's finished. I feel like I have nothing to show for all my work, but soon that will change.