Work has been going pretty slowly this summer. I'm about a third of the way done orchestrating my new orchestral piece... which still doesn't have a name. I need to think of something cool for it. But, either way, the work is taking longer than I expected it to.

I'm going to end up re-orchestrating Magnum Opus for the forces I end up with in the pit. I'm looking forward to having a different set of colors to work with.

I plan on starting work on my new children's musical commission in early July. That means I have to get the orchestra piece and Magnum Opus done before then. Yikes.

Lately I've been listening to a lot of Andrew Bird. Yes, it's not "classical" music, but I hope anyone would agree with me that he's very interesting and inventive. I don't want to talk about it too much, I think you should just give him a listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dJcr1brx_Y

Let me know what you think!

I graduated on Saturday. It feels strange to finally be done with that degree- only one more. I'll be Dr. Oberhauser in four or five years. Yikes.

Now I'm home at my parents' house in Ohio for a week or so. It's nice to relax, see some old friends, and not have to worry about anything for a while.

So, I have some exciting stuff coming up this summer!
-Magnum Opus in the Fringe Festival
-Magnum Opus in the Page-to-Stage Festival
-writing music for a new children's musical

More information about the musical soon... but I will say that it's great to be working with my college friend, the amazing Sarah Portz! I'm really looking forward to this project. 

This post is gonna be a little short, just wanted to say a couple things real quick:

The performance of Haiku was last night, and it went pretty well. The musicians were Sophia Musleh on flute, Julian Rieder on percussion, and Daniel McCarthy on viola.

I'm working on a piece for full orchestra. So far I have about 2 minutes written in short score, which I'll orchestrate next week. I'm gonna work today and tomorrow to see if I can get a little more than 2 minutes... pretty sure I won't be reaching the goal of 8, though, by Monday.

I'm also working on other movements to accompany Haiku. I'll eventually have a handful of chamber pieces based on poetry forms. I'm probably going to include sonnet, free verse, and limerick. Nothing's set in stone yet, though- just ideas.

Also, big news: Magnum Opus is getting a second performance! It will be at the DC Fringe festival this summer. It's going to be produced by Opera Alterna. I'm so excited about this! Once I know the exact venue and dates I'll put them on here.

I'm nearly finished with my new chamber piece for flute, viola, and percussion: Haiku. The whole piece will be about 5 minutes long. It's organized in a large ABA' form, where the two A sections each take up about 5/17ths of the time of the piece and the B section takes up 7/17ths - or, the rest of the time. Therefore, the piece has 5 - 7 - 5 proportions, like a haiku. Each of the larger sections has a small 5 - 7 - 5 proportion, though the two "5" sections are not as thematically similar as in the large ABA'.

In this piece I'm trying to evoke Japanese sounds without going too far and sounding like a parody. I think I've succeeded so far... I suppose the real test will be hearing it played by actual instruments.

I've also been playing around with mirror images in the piece. There are a lot of places where it looks like certain sections of the score are mirror images of other sections, sometimes in canon with each other. It doesn't quite sound like just a mirror image all of the time, but it's somewhat interesting visually. I think so, at least.

I'll probably finish this up today. Then I have to do some brainstorming with a potential (or, likely) future collaborator!

Also, does anybody want to give me a job for next year? I'd appreciate it. :)