# First Blog of 2019 - A lot has been happening



## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Before I start in with new news, I need to update from my last blog about a publisher interested in issuing an orchestral work of mine. And while I still remain a bit skeptical, it nevertheless seems to be heading in the right direction. This is the week I finish proofing all parts against the score; then I read the contract a number of times before sending him the PDFs of score and parts with the contract signed (assuming I find nothing objectionable about it). I also mentioned in my end of the 2018 year blog that a European woodwind quartet might perform the piece that they will be recording for a CD. They did, but not in 2018. Instead it was premiered in Poland a few months ago. April is the month to record their album.

Now onto new things. January started off by my latest piece for trumpet and piano being part of a faculty recital at a small private university in Texas that features "premieres" only through a "call for scores" that they sift through to design their program.

I then got word that the faculty brass quintet at a much larger university (also in Texas....God Bless Texas...as you'll see as I continue..LOL!) performed an old published work of mine and then told me that they will be including it on an album that they're making as I type this. This work has been professionally recorded twice before, but it still feels great that it still has legs.

In March I attended a music conference in Pennsylvania where my composition for clarinet and piano was premiered. Then the next week I attended a different one in Texas where that trumpet & piano piece I mentioned a few paragraphs above got its second performance by a set of different players.

Meanwhile I won first place in a contest that a community band in California held and besides supplying a monetary prize, they premiered it one week and then gave it a second playing the following week.. 

And last week I went to a meeting in Texas where the work for clarinet and piano, I mentioned above, received its second performance by two different musicians than the ones that premiered it in PA.

While I am going to stop here, there is a very special event that I, as a composer, am going to be part of with a professional orchestra next month (Low tiered American, but nevertheless professional). I'll leave it as a tease, but not because I want to be a tease, but rather because I really prefer to blog about the entire experience after it occurs. Oh and that band piece I discussed above also has me excited about its future as I received good news about it too, but that too I'll hold off until it really happens this coming Fall.


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