I am so happy with how New Inspirations went on Thursday evening. Everyone performed beautifully, we had a nice turnout in the audience, and the recordings turned out well.

I took Friday off and didn't do much of anything - it was much needed. Then, today, I've been in musician mode all day: I took part in the Duo Fujin competition: at 9:00am we were given a prompt, and we had until 9:00pm to compose and email in a new composition for flute and alto saxophone. I won't talk about my composition much until we hear the results some time in the next few months.

When I wasn't composing, I was creating all of the mp3s of the recital. My pieces are now on the website: Heaven-Haven: A Nun Takes the Veil, and Love is Not the Last Room. Give them a listen!

I still have a lot of work to do to finish redoing the rest of the website: I have to move all the recordings from the Samples page and put them on their own pages, finish writing program notes for each piece, and add pdfs of the scores. It'll take me a while, but I'll get there.

I have other news of an exciting new project of mine, but I don't want to say anything until I get it worked out a bit more. Ooh, suspense!

I've been talking about this for a while, so I think it's time I finally get to writing it:

Come hear:
Kathleen Jagielski, soprano
Mariana Pino, soprano
Erica Haman, mezzo-soprano
Katherine Sanford, mezzo-soprano
Terrance Johns, tenor
Rameen Chaharbaghi, baritone
Michael Oberhauser, baritone

and

Kayme Henkel, piano

perform the following pieces:

Too Solemn for Day (2005)                                                         Michael Oberhauser (1985 - )

Fêtes galantes, serie I, L80 (1891)                                            Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918)
     En sourdine
     Fantoches
     Clair de lune
Fêtes galantes, serie II, L104 (1904)
     Les ingénus
     Le faune
     Colloque sentimental

Siete canciones populares española (1914)                                Manuel de Falla (1876 - 1946)
     1. El pano moruno
     3. Asturiana
     6. Nana
     7. Polo

Heaven-Haven: A Nun Takes the Veil (2007)                                            Michael Oberhauser

Four Songs (1937)                                                                     Samuel Barber (1910 - 1891)
     1. Nun Takes the Veil
     3. Sure on this Shining Night

Bachianas Brasilieras no. 5 (1938)                                          Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887 - 1959)
     I. Aria (Cantilena)
     II. Dança (Martelo)

Passing By (1981)                                                                       John Jeffreys (1927 - 2010)
She is All So Slight (1964)
My Little Pretty One (1952)

Orange Afternoon Lover (2006)                                                              Lori Laitman (1955 - )
     I. Against Still Life
     II. I was reading a scientific article
     III. I am sitting

Love is Not the Last Room (2011)                                                            Michael Oberhauser
     1. Introduction
     2. On Pilgrimage
     7. An Empty Crib
     9. Chloris and Fanny
     10. When I Would Muse in Boyhood
     11. To One Away
     18. Near the Wall of a House

This will be a FREE recital. It will last about 90 minutes.

Thursday, July 28, 7:30pm

Calvary Baptist Church
755 8th St. NW
Washington, DC
The church is right by the Gallery Place/Chinatown metro station on the Red and Green lines. There is also a parking garage right next to the church, but the garage is NOT free. Street parking in the area is limited.

DIRECTIONS TO THE CHAPEL:

The church consists of two buildings; a big red building on the corner of H and 8th, and a white building next to that on 8th street. Next to that white building, also on 8th street, is the aforementioned parking garage. The quickest way to the chapel is to take the garage's elevator to floor G2. As you leave the elevator, the chapel will be on your left, but to enter the chapel, you'll have to walk down the hall, make a left at the fork, and then go into the left door.

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.