I found out a few days ago that I was selected for this year’s Brian M. Israel prize, a composition competition held every year by the Society for New Music. It’s a pleasure to be associated with such a great organization. Please check out their website for a listing of wonderful concerts and events happening throughout the year.
Coming up on June 19th is the premiere of “The Glory of It All!,” a small orchestra piece performed by the students at Bloomingdale School of Music. The piece was commissioned by A4TY, a program designed by Katy Luo to foster interaction between composers and school aged kids. In addition to playing the work of an older composer every year, the Bloomingdale students compose pieces for each other to play. I saw the video of last year’s concert, and I can assure you it’s a great time! Go here to read more about the program.
I’ve also been working on piano quartet piece entitled “Valley of Fire,” for the ensemble Redshift. It’s inspired by a recent trip to Nevada, where the Valley of Fire National Park is located. I was stunned by the expansive, desolate beauty of the place. In some ways it actually reminded of Alaska. Not because of any geographical resemblance but because of its pure wildness and uncompromising natural characteristics. Valley of Fire is an extreme place that forces you to acknowledge the wonders of existing on this planet called Earth. I was amazed by the shifting nature of the desert throughout the course of the day - by midday it’s almost unbearable because of the heat and bright, harsh light. At dusk it cools down, the red rocks look like they’re on fire, the air is thin and pure, and there’s a sense of incredible peace and beauty. That’s when I really love it. This piece is intended to reflect my feelings about dusk in the Valley of Fire. It’s very different from anything I’ve ever written - very slow, a little spooky and ultimately (I hope) very beautiful.
Finally, the recording session for Television Landscape was very cool. Since the winds were the last to record, I got to hear some rough mixes of a few of the songs. As I suspected, it’s going to sound amazing. Lawson has done a great job engineering and the performances are all solid. Look for it on New Amsterdam this fall.
When I meet new people, they almost always ask what kind of music I play. My answer is usually “everything!” This week has been a good example.
On Tuesday I played with a new group, National Noise, that more or less falls into the improvised experimental jazz category. I’ve always found improvised music exciting to perform because it’s just as likely to fall completely flat as it is to succeed. In this particular case, everyone in the group was listening closely and I think the set came off really well.
Last night I played with Television Landscape as part of the New Amsterdam “Undiscovered Islands” series at the Galapagos Art Space. Composer/creator Bill Brittelle has written a whole suite of music that is some combination of the Beach Boys, Michael Jackson, Ravel, Debussy, Prince and Radiohead, as described here on his website. It requires me to play saxophone AND flute, an instrument I absolutely love and wish I got to perform on more (hint, hint…) I think Bill’s music works so well because it doesn’t sound like a combination of the influences listed above - it’s his own thing and totally original. Looking forward to recording the album next week.
And finally, I’ll be performing Ken Thomsen’s new saxophone nonet this Sunday at the Bang on a Can Marathon. I won’t talk much about the piece in a effort to get everyone to come hear it live. But I will say that “Rut” is incredibly dense sonically (3 baritone, 3 tenor, 3 alto), very hard, and a great piece of music.
In addition to the upcoming performance at the Hollywood Bowl, the Philip Glass Ensemble will be hopping across the pond to play in France and the Netherlands. We’ll be doing Music in 12 Parts, Koyaanisqatsi, and Philip’s score to Bela Lugosi’s 1931 version of Dracula.
I’m making a select number of my scores available for ensembles through DKone (ASCAP) publishing. Please visit my audio page to listen, and if interested please contact me for more information.
The Now Ensemble is performing my piece, sCrAmBle sUiT, for the MATA Festival tonight at 7:30. NY Times posting
There are some exciting performances of a few different chamber pieces of mine coming up in the next few months. My percussion piece, “the day after,” will be performed at the University of North Texas and Brooklyn College. The piece is for 6 players of mostly pitched percussion (marimbas, vibraphones, glockenspiel, but also some drums too). It was originally commissioned by the award winning University of Kentucky Percussion Ensemble, and received its premiere there last spring. Brian Archinal, the main force behind the original commission, has recently completed a fantastic recording of the piece. He recorded all 6 parts for all 3 movements. Not bad! Please visit Brian on MySpace. My audio page will be undergoing some major renovations in the near future, and I plan to get this piece and others up there as soon as possible.
Also in the future is another performance of “sCrAmBle sUiT” at the MATA Festival (Le Poisson Rouge) in early April. I wrote this piece for the NOW Ensemble almost 2 years ago, and they’ve been playing it ever since. It has evolved quite a bit since its premiere in May 2007, both from rewrites on my part (both substantial and minor - I can’t seem to help myself!) and from the interpretation by NOW. I’m really looking forward to this concert and I hope you New Yorkers out there will come and hear it.
The Philip Glass Ensemble performance of “Music in 12 Parts” in San Francisco (Davies Hall) a few weeks ago was fantastic. After the performance, Philip himself declared it the best performance of 12 Parts in the history of the ensemble. Considering it was finished in 1974 and been performed countless times since then, I was honored to be a part of the experience. And an experience it is. I don’t think that there is a performance equivalent in the history of composed music quite like playing a 4 hour piece with exactly 1 bar of rest. It’s demanding physically and mentally, but it also feels great. As Andrew Sterman (woodwinds since 1991) says, “It hurts so good!” There are some pictures from the performance here.
The new David Crowell Ensemble recording will be released this summer on Innova recordings, the label of the American Composers Forum. They have released a lot of great recordings over the years and it’s a pleasure to be involved with them. Please visit them here.
In a few weeks the Philip Glass Ensemble will be traveling to San Francisco (Davies Hall) to perform Music in 12 Parts, Philip’s masterpiece from 1974. It is the hardest piece in the PGE repertoire with 4 hours of continuous playing. There is nothing that sounds like it - it’s an other-worldly and intense experience for both the audience members and the performers. If the listener can settle into some kind of meditative experience without expectation, the music opens up and becomes very expansive. It’s beautiful in a way that’s impossible to articulate.
The next day I fly back to New York and will be performing a new saxophone nonet by Ken Thomson as part of Anti-Social Music. We’ll also be recording the piece later that week.
I’ve also finished a string quartet, and am looking into some exciting possibilities for that. Will keep you posted!
I’ve been working on a commissioned piece for A4TY, which is a program run by Katy Luo at the Bloomingdale School of Music. The idea is to connect school aged kids (1st-12th grade) to composers in an interactive way. I decided I wanted to include as many kids as I possibly could in the piece, from the younger beginners to the high school kids. It’s a challenge to write a piece with so many different skill levels involved. But I think it will be fun to see them all up on stage together! So far, I’ve got 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 alto saxophones, string quartet (older kids), string orchestra (younger kids) and 2 percussionists. Depending on big the string orchestra is, that’ll be about 30 kids!
all content on this site © 2004-2009 David Crowell.