# First blog of 2017



## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Well, I won the Orchestral Composition Contest I discussed in my last TC blog. So I will get three performances of my piece. I plan to attend all 3 as it all occurs within a week's time.

Of the 3 finalists, two of us attended the reading session. The other two pieces were read first; mine therefore being last. For each piece the first read thru was rough, but after a few touch ups, their 2nd read thru was so much better. Those two other compositions were extremely listener friendly. One being deliberately "Hollywood-ish"; the other being a calculated monothematic tear-jerker. Both were in the end, pieces that sounded like so many faceless others. I think that's why in the end the orchestra (by secret ballot) voted my piece the winner.

I completed the piece for brass and percussion that I mentioned in my previous blog,. It's quite aggressive and even noisy at times but I had great fun writing it. And while I hope it wins the contest I am entering, the odds are that it won't win; however one brass quintet ensemble that played my latest piece for that combo late last year said they'd be happy to see this new one that includes percussion. So maybe it will come to life. Right now I'm cleaning up the score and contemplating what next to write. I'm leaning towards a Piano Trio piece that is essentially slow and lyrical in nature (because the brass & percussion work was 8 minutes of non-stop fast and faster. It kind of wore me out!! LOL!)

Meanwhile March will have 3 performances of my music. My set of piano pieces will get premiered and then a few weeks later another pianist will play them. And I'll also have a premiere of a work for Euphonium & Piano. My next blog will surely discuss something about them.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Well, my March performances went quite well. My set of six scherzos for piano was premiered in mid-March. The pianist has a degree from Eastman and one from Julliard, so you know it couldn't be bad. We did get together a few hours before so I could give her insight into the piece. That consisted mainly of fine-tuning some rhythms, dynamics, tempi. Nothing needed drastic overhauling; but even it did it's too late to make major changes. While I was attending the two day meeting, I got to hear an outstanding clarinet player and I made up my mind right away that a piece for clarinet and piano was next on my "to do list". I mentioned in last blog about writing a piano trio; but scratch that!! This became my priority. In fact, I have written 7 minutes of the one-movement piece so far and I suspect it will go to 10-12 minutes when done.

Two weeks later an entirely different pianist at an entirely different event in an entirely different part of the country, also played the set and did an even more impressive performance. Some of the movements were smokin' hot. Her fingers really flew. Just minutes after that concert, I go back to my hotel, turn on my laptop and read an email that stated the same set of scherzos was accepted for performance at a national meeting of one of the music organizations I belong to. In fact, I mentioned having to find a pianist willing to play these at this upcoming national meeting back in my October 2016 TC Blog.

The third piece was the premiere of a work for Euphonium and Piano. It was played by two sophomore students at a mid-sized state university. I had no idea ahead of time that students would be playing it, but I really felt they did a good job. I got their recording; it's a bit too under-recorded to share. But I will share at least one or two of the scherzos here at TC's Today's Composers. Why one or two? It seems I'm approaching my allotment (73 MB out of 100 MB) of available TC space, so I can only put up another piece or two.


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