Michael James Oberhauser

I added parts from Four Poems and The Name on the Door to the Music page. These were recorded at the Perspectives recital, June 4, 2010, at the Artist's Inn Residence in Washington, DC. Check them out!

Perspectives went really well on Friday evening! I was very happy with the turnout and the performances. I made a recording that turned out pretty well, too. I have to do a little editing on it, and then I'll put snippets online for all of you to hear.

I haven't had much of a chance to write about this lately- I'm in rehearsals for a performance at the Kennedy Center with the City Choir of Washington (we're doing Beethoven's Choral Fantasia) and for La Rondine. Both of those are coming up very soon!

Soon I need to start work on my incidental music for the New York Fringe Festival (assuming that's still happening... it might not be.) I also want to start looking for good poems in the public domain to set to music. I'm really in the mood to write some songs. My 365 Project starts soon, too!

High five!

First and foremost: The composition recital that Kyle, Roc, and I have been working toward is in less than a week! It's tentatively named "Perspectives," (that hasn't been ok'd by everybody else yet). The program is below:

Perspectives
A Recital of the music of Kyle Gullings, Roc Lee, and Michael Oberhauser
The Artist's Inn Residence
1824 R St. NW
Washington, DC
June 4, 2010
8:00pm

String Quartet No. 1: At Best It Sometimes Rhymes (2009)                                     Kyle Gullings
II. Two Music Boxes
III. Emanations
I. There Is a Child
                                                         *Destiny Hoyle, violin
                                                          Kate Northfield, violin
                                                       *Elizabeth O'Hara, viola
                                                           *Diana Curtis, cello
*member of Altra String Quartet

Four Poems (2010)                                                                                     Michael Oberhauser
III. Haiku
IV. Free Verse
                                                       Cristina Verderese, flute
                                                          Henry Valoris, viola
                                                              Roc Lee, piano

Three arias from the chamber opera Oblivion (2010)                                                Kyle Gullings
The Plumtree
Night in Kalapa
Sorrow Is My Own Yard
                                                      Rachel Barham, soprano
                                                      James Rogers, baritone
                                                      Cristina Verderese, flute
                                                         Kyle Gullings, piano

Piano Suite (2005)                                                                                                       Roc Lee
tristesse oblige
sepia
                                                         Hilary Henry, piano

in memoriam Hibakusha (rev. 2009)                                                                       Kyle Gullings
                                                       Kyle Gullings, baritone
                                                        Hilary Henry, piano
                                                                 narrator

The Name on the Door (2010)                                                                      Michael Oberhauser
                                                    Sarah Philippa, soprano
                                                  Katherine Sanford, soprano
                                                    Joshua Brown, baritone
                                                     Elena Forbes, clarinet
                                                       Henry Valoris, viola
                                                     Elizabeth O'Hara, viola
                                                       Yufen Chou, piano



Next part of this post: Encounters.
Working here at the Cosmos Club, I saw that there was a recital by the Vocal Arts Society scheduled one of the days I was working. I had no more work to do, so I could have gone home, but I popped upstairs to see if they needed anything. Turns out the recital was made up of all Lori Laitman's music. There were two singers there... and the composer herself on piano. I mentioned to the woman sponsoring the recital that I was a composer, and she invited me to listen to the recital and meet Lori afterwards. I did both! What a wonderful concert (everyone, look up her "Pentecost." It's incredible.), and what a sweet, friendly person! She and I are actually friends on Facebook now! :)

Part three: Raise
I mean, there's not much to say about this, except that I got a raise at work... and I'm taking on a lot more hours: Instead of working weekends, I'm now working Monday through Friday 9-5. The worst part about this is I had to give up my dogwalking job. I'll miss the mutts, but the extra money will definitely be nice!

I've been inspired by a lot of things recently.

First, on Saturday, May 1, I went to the University of Maryland, College Park's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center to see a production of Ned Rorem's Evidence of Things Not Seen. I was absolutely stunned. The piece itself is incredible- stunning music for four soloists- Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Tenor, and Baritone with piano. The poems Rorem picked for the song cycle are incredible, too. All in all, it's 36 songs (solos, duets, trios, and quartets), with poems written by 24 different poets (Whitman, Auden, Wordsworth, Paul Goodman, and many others).

The piece is broken into three movements: Part One: Beginnings, Part Two: Middles, and Part Three: Ends. It's an hour and 40 minutes of incredibly powerful music. The singers and pianists (they switched off every couple songs) were incredible. I was so moved.

I want to write songs again. The last song I wrote just because I wanted to and not for a class or anything was in 2007. I think I need to add a song cycle or at least a handful of songs to my list of things I want to compose soon.

Other inspiration: This morning, my web browser had, on its home page, a story about a young woman who wore the same little black dress every day for an entire year, but styled it differently every day. (Without going too much into detail, the dress could be worn backwards. It had buttons down the front -or back, depending on how you look at it. She wore different things underneath, and different accessories to make 365 strikingly different looking outfits.)

I also kind of want to do something every day, like little black dress girl and my friend Kyle with his Haiku-a-day that he wrote while he was in Hawaii.

My idea is to start a new piano piece and write one measure of it every day for a year. My plan is to write it all in 4/4 at about 80bpm, which would make the entire piece  18 minutes and 15 seconds long, assuming I don't change tempo at any point. I also think I'll break it into four movements, based on the seasons. I'll try and write a measure each day before I go to bed, reflecting on how I felt that day, what I was thinking about, the weather, or whatever else. I'm also planning to not look back at too much of the music before - perhaps only look at the past 5 measures each time - to make the composition more in the moment. When I'm finished with a movement I'll look back and made minor edits to make the whole thing more cohesive.

The summer solstice this year is on June 21- I'll start work on the new piece then!

The University of Maryland, College Park, has a strong dedication to performing new works. The Maryland Opera Studio has performed an impressive number of new operas and american operas. Most recent on the list was Shadowboxer by composer Frank Proto and librettist John Chenault. This piece, commissioned by the University of Maryland at the goading of director Leon Major, is an opera based on the life of boxer Joe Louis. The opera shows Louis as a hero, but a very human hero.
 
So what?
 
That might be a little harsh. I really did enjoy my evening at the opera. It did most things well- the music, the singers, the pit, the set, the lights, the staging... all spectacular. There was just something lacking in the drama. It wasn't focused enough on any issue, and it wasn't made personal enough. Of course, this is coming from someone who had only heard the name. Joe Louis has never been a hero of mine, and I don't really care much for boxing. Even for people not too interested in boxing such as myself, though, there should have been a more satisfying dramatic arch.
 
Proto's score was probably the biggest star of the evening. A handful of people left at intermission- that's understandable, the tonal language was difficult and perhaps a little tiresome at times. Proto did an excellent job of keeping it fresher than many contemporary composers do, though, with the inclusion of jazz into the score. Every time the sparse, but amazingly effective setpiece in the back was flown out a bit to reveal the jazz band behind, the mood changed. It definitely helped keep my attention in a first act that might have been a bit too long.
 
The entire cast was very strong. There were no real weak links, but there were no real standout strong performances, either. I was mostly impressed by how well everyone worked together, both vocally and with their acting. If I had to pick a standout, I might pick mezzo-soprano Adrienne Webster as Marva Trotter, Louis' first (and second) wife. Her singing was very clear, as was her diction. I also greatly enjoyed her slight jazz stylings here and there. It didn't hurt at all, though, that she had the two best arias in the show: her flirty first act aria and, especially, her powerful divorce aria in the second act. Another very strong performance in the cast came from bass-baritone Jarrod Lee as Old Joe. He sang the entire show... difficult lines and phrases that always sounded very melodic and inspired by the action... and he never showed the slightest bit of fatigue in his voice. His physical performance was also very impressive. I also very much enjoyed Andrew Owens as Reporter #1, but he didn't have much of an opportunity to show off his voice.
 
As I mentioned above, the ensemble work was more impressive than the solo passages. The three reporters, the three beauties, and Jack Blackburn, Julian Black, and John Roxborough were all excellent working with each other. Surpassing all of that, though, was the chorus. The chorus added a great deal to the show- they snuck in sometimes and you barely noticed they were singing, and when you did, the effect was pleasingly eerie. They had to switch between more classical singing and jazz singing rather quickly. At times they were a little difficult to hear, but the effect of their voices and their presence was still there. Proto's choral writing is excellent. I'm sure it was difficult for the chorus, but their hard work and the hard work of the chorusmasters really paid off.
 
The orchestra and the jazz band were also very strong. Everything felt very together and synthesized, even from the orchestra in the pit to the band at the back of the stage. Kudos to conductor Timothy Long for that very impressive feat. Everything felt natural and easy. Proto's orchestral writing is also excellent.
 
On top of great acting and great music from everyone on, below, and behind the stage, everything looked fabulous. Leon Major is brilliant. Absolutely everything worked in this production. It's difficult to pick out favorite aspects, it was just so spot on. The set and the lighting added so much... the obvious but very effective squares of light at many times instead of the common circle of light, the projections alternating with shadows of the singers cast on the walls from floor lights... all incredible things that came from the collaboration of Major, scenic designer Erhard Rom, lighting designer Nancy Schertler, and projection designers Kirby Malone and Gail Scott White. (The only projection I didn't much care for was the radio projection. Kinda silly.)
 
This is Proto's first opera, and Chenault's first libretto. I hope they collaborate again, or at least work in their respective fields again. Shadowboxer is almost a great opera... almost. I really enjoyed it, though.

Just a quick update on the work I've been doing lately:

- I finished my first draft of The Name on the Door, my new opera. I'm gonna let it sit and stew for a while, come back and do some edits, then get to orchestrating! It looks like it'll be about 15 minutes long.

- I made a version of Haiku for flute, piano, and viola. (Vibraphones can be tough to come by.) A friend suggested I do this so it could be performed at a recital some time soon. I actually really like the way it turned out - it sometimes adds to the meditative, mystical quality, and it helps make the big sections bigger and "wetter," if that makes any sense. I'm considering doing a flute/piano/viola version of the other three pieces in Four Poems.

- Kyle, Roc, and I are slowly making progress toward putting on a little concert. (I say little, when really it might be up to 90 minutes long.) We're still looking for a venue, but we have rough dates nailed down: we're looking at early June.

Finally, in honor of Porgy and Bess being performed at the Kennedy Center, here's a YouTube video of Audra McDonald singing "My man's gone now."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT6LDh7cO1g&feature=related

It's amazing how, even after being pretty much stuck in my house for a week, I didn't get any work done... then as soon as I was busy with other things, I get a lot of composition work done.

-I finished my first full draft of Four Poems. It needs a little editing, but I need to spend some time away from it to be able to look at it with a more critical eye. I'm really excited about it!

-I've started, and am about a third of the way through, my new opera about Jezebel. I think I'm going to name it The Name on the Door, but I haven't for sure decided on that yet.

-I made a concert ending to John's aria from Magnum Opus, "I'm just worried about you, Claire." It's actually almost a minute longer with this ending.

I'm also working on putting together a recital for Spring with my friends Roc and Kyle. Hopefully all or part of Four Poems and The Name on the Door will be on the program. I just need to find a good, free venue... any ideas?

I'm almost finished with all of my doctoral applications. I mainly just need to print out, copy, and bind the pieces of my portfolio I'm sending out (Magnum Opus, Haiku, and Heaven-Haven: A Nun Takes the Veil).

I also added selections from Magnum Opus to my The Music page. Take a listen!

That's all for now- back to work on applications!

I tried to post last night, but Weebly was having some troubles and my post didn't save. No worries: I'm redoing it now. Plus, I added more to other parts of the website (a new Compositions Performed page, and a restructuring of the pages of the website)

The first order of business is that the children's musical is finally finished! I finished it last Friday, enjoyed a 3-day weekend of no composing, and was itching to get into some new work this week.
I started with some revisions of Haiku. I've always liked the general sound world of that piece, but there was something about that piece that just wasn't interesting enough. I think I've fixed that now, though.

I've also started work on another piece to go with Haiku: Limerick. It still needs some work, but I think I like where it's going. To come in this set: Free Verse, Sonnet, and possibly something else. For some reason I think 5 pieces is good for this set.

Something exciting for the near future: a City Choir performance. On Sunday, October 25 at 5:00pm we will be performing Mozart's Requiem and Tavener's Little Requiem for Father Malachy Lynch. It's at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC. If you'd like tickets, click here.

The next exciting thing coming up: fall travels! Here's the itinerary:
November 4 - Toledo, OH to visit family and friends
               5 - Ann Arbor, MI to check out the University of Michigan
               6 - another day in Toledo
               7-8 - the greater Chicago area to check out Northwestern University, see friends, and see a performance of my children's musical.

Whew... I think that's enough. I'll leave you with a recording of something I've been listening to lately: Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky. I went to a recital at the Kennedy Center a few weeks ago of Olga Borodina, Ildar Abdrazakov, and the Washington National Opera Orchestra. One of my favorite pieces was Field of the Dead from Alexander Nevsky, which Olga sang. It was incredible. Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC_qyMIqb-s . The piece is sung from the point of view of a girl at a battlefield after the battle. She pays her respects to the fallen soldiers, and promises to marry a surviving soldier. Incredibly heavy, incredibly moving stuff.

So, Magnum Opus was performed at the Kennedy Center. It doesn't get much cooler than that. It went really well- everyone performed well, the room was packed, and everyone seemed to really like it.

But... I'm pretty much Magnum'd out now. Time for some new stuff!

My children's musical is almost done... one more song to write, and then it's on to orchestration.

Next I'm moving to the instrumental world for a while- finishing up my orchestral piece, and writing a few more chamber pieces to go with Haiku. (That one needs a little editing, too...)

After that, I'm moving on to some new operas! More details about these to come... but I'm working with somereally great people. My friends Peter and Maria are each writing me libretti.

Whew, ok, back to work for me!