# Mercer Arboretum, Sunrise



## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

If anyone is located in the Houston area I wanted to invite you to come to a concert next month at which a piece I wrote is being performed as one of the winners to the Cypress Symphonic Band 2014 - 2015 Call for Scores. My piece is titled "Mercer Arboretum, Sunrise" and will be performed at the opening concert on Saturday, September 27th at 4:00pm at the John Wesley United Methodist Church in Houston (map is at the site). http://cypresssymphonicband.org/events/

I'll post the recording/video here once it is available.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Here is the live recording of the performance. The rules of the competition were that it had to be "Americana" in theme and had to be level 4 or 5 in the state of Texas for difficulty. I chose the easier level as I wanted to err on the side of caution. There were over 30 entries nationwide and I placed fifth. The instrumentation called for 3 percussion including timpani, but only 1 percussionist showed for the concert (two high-schoolers did not show--the band is all-volunteer) so two parts did not get played. Also, there were only 4 rehearsals (only 2 hours each) of which my piece was only one of many pieces, so rehearsal time was limited. But I'm proud of this group's efforts anyway.

I was honored to have this group perform this piece and I hope you enjoy it.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Not a bad performance; their tuning stayed decent throughout. While you were surely bothered by two missing percussionists I must say your piece didn't really need them. And you captured an air of Americana fairly successfully.

As for 5 out of 30: that's really not bad odds. I just received a rejection notice where over 1100 pieces were submitted for a festival and only 40 were chosen. Yikes!!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Congratulations. I agree with Vasks, i.e. writing in a genre to evoke a genre without sounding too directly derivative is a very workmanlike challenge.

Congratulations, too, that when it is band music -- if you're good enough (and face it, luck still has a lot to do with it) -- and piece gets liked, at least for a season or two it is a revenue producer, maybe even generating enough to at least be able to pay your utility bills with the income!


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Vasks said:


> Not a bad performance; their tuning stayed decent throughout. While you were surely bothered by two missing percussionists I must say your piece didn't really need them. And you captured an air of Americana fairly successfully.
> 
> As for 5 out of 30: that's really not bad odds. I just received a rejection notice where over 1100 pieces were submitted for a festival and only 40 were chosen. Yikes!!


Thank you!
Would that happen to be the Florida State University Festival of New Music? I got the same rejection notice, if so. (If not, it's quite a coincidence with the numbers).


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

PetrB said:


> Congratulations. I agree with Vasks, i.e. writing in a genre to evoke a genre without sounding too directly derivative is a very workmanlike challenge.
> 
> Congratulations, too, that when it is band music -- if you're good enough (and face it, luck still has a lot to do with it) -- and piece gets liked, at least for a season or two it is a revenue producer, maybe even generating enough to at least be able to pay your utility bills with the income!


Thank you, PetrB!


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Torkelburger said:


> Thank you!
> Would that happen to be the Florida State University Festival of New Music?


Yep!

That festival is one of the hardest to crack for me. There's another at Indiana State that's really hard to crack, but they only have a single recital and they're not keen on supplying players. A number of years ago I was sitting with a senior composer from a large state university at a mid-west new music festival where we having pieces played and in our conversation he asks me "_Have you ever been selected for the Indiana State University festival?_". I said "_No_" to which he responded "_Me neither! I just don't get it_"


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