My great trip to Oregon and Washington, pt. 2

Saturday and Sunday Concerts

Saturday morning at 9 AM Chor Anno gathered for a day-of-concert three hour rehearsal. Not much fun to sing that early, but this is how a professional group puts things together- intensive rehearsals during the week-of, not a seemingly never-ending once a week rehearsal like a community choir does things.

Musical interpretations were falling into place- probably the trickiest piece was still the Hyo Won Woo Alleluia, simply because any singer rhythmic inaccuracy, even from just one singer, will be totally exposed and noticed. But with each run through the piece was getting better and better. My piece was also sounding good- just some sagging pitch problems in the gnarliest bit of chromatic imitation, due to the fact that at the junction of voice imitation there is a vertical tritone for a moment,. making it tough to establish the new tonal center that each voice tries to claim as new territory. I knew this was not an easy passage when I wrote it, but of course I wasn't trying to make this piece easy! (Btw, please let me know if you would like a perusal copy of this score- contact me at paulcarey440@yahoo.com)

After the rehearsal, some of us went up to Brian Mtichell's awesome farmhouse with acreage on a high hill overlooking the river. Brian runs a wonderful choral program at Mark Morris High School in Longview, WA and he is also R and S for high schools for Washington ACDA. There is a maple tree on his property that must be over 150 years old I would guess. The few hours there were just what the singers needed- a little food, rest, and quiet.

Then it was time to get on back to our venue in Vancouver, WA and present a pre-concert talk sponsored by Meet the Composer Foundation. The event was well attended and the hour or so was moderated by Reg Unterseher with the composers in attendance being Tim Sharp and Wes Ramsey, co-composers of the High Lonesome Mass, Seattle-based composer John Muhleisen, and myself. The concert program contained other pieces by living composers, many from the NW, but they were not present for the talk or concerts (Vijay Singh and Richard Nance, to mention two).

The talk was great and the audience mostly wanted to know about our process for composing. We all seemed to have different answers to all the question but there were plenty of things in common too. I felt that we had a comfort zone and clear mutual respect for each other and the audience loved that we didn't see each other as competition, rather as brethren of the compositional art I suppose you could say. I was especially interested in how Tim and Wes co-compose as I have never tried to do such a thing. After an hour Reg had to go warm up, but the audience wanted us to keep talking and they veered us toward the area of publishing and the self-publishing that many of us are already doing. The audience was fascinated by this area and seemed to be cheering us on in the general quest to become independent from the traditional publishing houses. I think one telling factor here was a question posed by an audience member- she asked if we ever get commissions through any of our publishers' efforts. The answer across the panel was a resounding no- it's never happened. Seeing as how commissions are the biggest earnings item for a living composer, this was a pretty telling fact- not a single one of us have ever had a publisher pull in a commission for us- wow! Before this talk I had not intended at all to bring up publishing issues- many people know I am getting more and more militantly anti-traditional publisher so I didn't want to sound like I was on the offensive in front of a Meet the Composer audience. But the audience wanted to hear about this issue and I think everyone on the panel spoke fluently, fairly, and without avarice on the subject and where the future is going to be for us individually and for the choral world as well.

Finally concert time came. The church was filled- maybe 300-400 audience members (you would never achieve that in Chicago) Chor Annon was sounding great and my piece was early in the program- the third piece. They preformed my "When Jesus Wept" beautifully and as it trailed off with two soprano solo voices (one from each choir- thus quite antiphonal and echo-ish) Reg gestured a conductor's release to the end of the piece. Then there were at least 3-4 seconds of total silence and then some audible "wows" whispered hear and there, and then the applause. For a piece that has some drama and also has a quiet ending this is what you hope for- that extended silence where everyone soaks up the last phrase and appreciates the music enough to give the ending a stillness before we enter back into real rime. Obviously I was very pleased with the choir, Reg (who totally "gets" this piece), and the audience!

The rest of the program was rock solid and well-received. It included the Tim Sharp and Wes Ramsey "Come Away to the Skies: A High Lonesome Mass" and I'll write more about it in the next part. It's such a new and interesting work that I think it deserves a blog post of its own.

After the Saturday concert we all wound up at the Vancouver Hilton for celebration. I got to chat with national ACDA president-elect Karen Fulmer about her plans for the Dallas 2013 national conference. She and Tim have some great things planned. Karen also sings in Chor Anno.

The program was repeated Sunday in Longview, WA and the music was blossoming even more. On my piece the singers were becoming more and more comfortable and becoming more expressive of the drama packed into that short text. Once again we had a large appreciative audience- Chor Anno is well-liked and they deserve the support they get from their audiences!

Earlier that morning Tim Sharp, Reg, and I had a nice brunch overlooking a small sailboat harbor (you can decided whether the sailboats were small or the harbor). We had a great time chatting away, and we even talked about things other than music once in awhile. Reg and I especially love Tim's support for composers, his interest in the future of choral composition and how ACDA can build more mentor/partner support for that in various ways.

After the Sunday concert Reg, Justin, Molly, and I headed back to the Tri-Cities area, driving along the highway that follows the beautiful Columbia River back east. Before the sun set I got to enjoy the spectacular views of the river and cliffs, and we stopped at the Multnomah Waterfall for a few minutes to enjoy the view.



Up next: Before I continue my travelogue, I will backtrack to talk about the "High Lonesome Mass"

Thanks for reading!

My great trip to Oregon and Washington

As you know from my last blog entry, I was invited out to the Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA area for the premiere of my unusual double choir arrangement of William Billings' When Jesus Wept. For the folks of Howard Meharg's Chor Anno this concert was also a big deal because ACDA executive director Tim Sharp would be there, and not just to visit- Tim would be present for, and performing as well, in the premiere of his “Come Away to the Skies: A High Lonesome [Bluegrass] Mass" -you can read some more about it here:

http://www.columbian.com/news/2011/sep/23/fish-tale-nets-music-for-chor-anno/

I decided to make this a work/networking/fun trip, so I got to Portland on Wednesday night and was picked up at PDX by April Duvic, choral director at Clark College in Vancouver.

On Thursday morning I worked with Margaret Green's amazing high school choir at the Vancouver School of the Arts. Margaret let me jump in and teach them some challenging warmups that I like, and we talked about music and ideas from Alexander technique, and I listened to them sing a piece, after which I worked with them on expression and other things. We really had a lot of fun getting barefoot and letting the sound start from our feet up (ooh, they liked the barefoot thing!) and since this is a long class session (I think it was over 90 minutes) we were able to really connect and pack a lot into the class session. I really liked the students in this class and I love what Margaret is doing with them- they all love music AND work hard for their achievements.

I then hopped on the very convenient mass transit to downtown Portland and strolled around. This was my first visit there and I felt that an older dude like myself needed to find a ponytail rental shop in order to fit in.



(I found a picture of this old guy on Google, whoever he is, with ponytail- but most of the old dudes in Portland didn't braid theirs)

If I were younger I would have needed some tattoos and piercings. But the people seem really cool and I love their diverse ways- “Keep Portland Weird” is a cool slogan, and we could use some more weird in Chicago, that's for sure.

I visited the small Chinese gardens there- very quaint and lovely. I also went to the Portland Art Museum,visiting all four floors of both buildings, using the stairs instead of elevators.

Next I did a couple of geocaches in one of the parks, and then took a break for people watching at sidewalk cafe. I then walked up to Powell's Books. I think this is the largest used and new bookstore in the country and it is way cool. Their selection was monumental and any nerd, geek, or Marian the Librarian could live here for a week.


But the weather was great so it was time to get outside for more strolling. I eventually wound up at a jazz club with a pretty decent group, though they put a little more cliched funk into their mainstream jazz than I cared for. I finally strolled down to where Greg Duvic (April's husband) works a late shift and we drove back up to Amboy, WA where they live. All in all a great day!

Friday started out with more sightseeing. Greg loves the Japanese gardens up in the hills to the west of downtown Portland so we headed there. The Japanese garden was large and the best I have ever been to, even surpassing the impressive Anderson Gardens in Rockford, IL. There's a lot more to do right there up in the hills, so we also strolled around the famous Portland Rose Test Garden- not that I am a rose fan, but that was fun too. We also smashed a few pennies in the souvenir penny smasher (Aidan loves smashed souvenir pennies!).

We then headed downtown since Greg needed to start his shift at the federal building where he is a security expert for the federal judges, which is a second career for him. He was a career police officer and investigator for the Portland Police Department. Greg's stories were amazing, and I was envious of his accomplishments in making the world a safer place.

So now it was time for more strolling and I wound up at the same outdoor cafe where I was doing my people watching the day before. I then headed over to Deschute's Brew Pub which was already massively busy at 3 PM.




Deschute's

I was to meet my old composer/conductor pal Reg Unterseher there, along with two new members of Chor Anno, since Reg and these two young and talented newbies, the very friendly Justin Raffa and Molly Holleran, live all the way three hours east in the Tri-Cities, WA area and were driving in for the Friday night Chor Anno rehearsal. While waiting for Reg, I did a sample flight of Deschute's brews and was impressed. They certainly are well above average. Reg found me and off we went for a funky dinner at The Tin Shack on the east side of Portland and then drove up to rehearsal.

The rehearsal went really well. Since my piece, directed by Reg, was new, I had never heard it for real except in my head and via Finale software playback. I was pleased that everything “worked”-- and I really did have some concerns going into this because the piece, as a double choir arrangement, is a bit complex in spots. There are a number of pages without barlines (but with a pulse), and at times various voice parts do not share downbeats. This was part of the reason for using few barlines or using dotted barlines at different points for various voices. It's not like singers haven't seen a score like this before, but I admit that at first it looks a little odd and challenging. Of course, that should draw the curious singer into the piece, and get them to explore it more- including exploring how their own voice part interacts contrapuntally with other parts. And this was also a goal for this piece- to take a simple round and write even more variations of counterpoint with the material. I am more and more convinced that today's American choral composer/arranger needs to get down to business and write more counterpoint- we have become so monophonic in the last fifteen years that it's pretty scary. When one finally tires of ear candy full of piled chords and lack of independent line, where does a singer or director turn for some counterpoint? Certainly not to any other of our new works- our output is out of balance today in this regard. So this is an area I want to continue to work within- writing creative choral counterpoint and giving altos lines to sing, giving basses lines to sing, etc, and not just writing blobs of homophony which usually give no voice part (other than perhaps the soprano part) an actual line to sing!

NEXT BLOG: The Saturday and Sunday concerts, including a Meet the Composer session

Chor Anno- a great program this coming weekend

Today, Sept. 21st, I'm leaving Chicago to visit the Pacific NW for the first time in my life- something I've wanted to do for years. I will be at the world premiere of my modernized, quite contrapuntal double choir arrangement of William Billings' "When Jesus Wept" in a concert by Chor Anno, founded not long ago by Howard Meharg.

The idea behind Chor Anno is brilliant- take 25-30 professional choral singers/directors with chops and do one kickass concert each early fall. When else could all these busy directors find the time to be in a choir- they are too busy leading choirs all year!

Here is some info from the Chor Anno website about some of the piece on the upcoming concert which will be presented both Saturday and Sunday. Note that ACDA prez Tim Sharp also has a piece on the program and will be there!

Part of the program will include "Come Away to the Skies: A High Lonesome Mass," by Dr. Tim Sharp, Executive Director of the American Choral Directors Association.

Dr. Sharp, is well known in choral circles, not only as head of the 20,000 member ACDA, but as a conductor and composer.

The great thing for us is that Tim Sharp will not only be here for the premiere of his work, but he will also play the banjo as part of the accompanying bluegrass style group. Yes, you'll hear a marvelous combining of musical styles...wonderful choral writing and the poignant and mesmerizing sound of bluegrass instruments accompanying the choir.


But that's just part of the concert!

Early/Late American

The program will range from early American to present day compositions by American composers such as John Muehleisen (Seattle), Paul Carey (Chicago), Richard Nance (Tacoma), Vijay Singh (Ellensburg), Ola Gjeilo (New York)...all contemporary, as well as a work by the incomparable Leonard Bernstein.

Here is [part of] the program:

Come Away to the Skies - and early American hymn arranged by the legendary double-choir Alice Parker

Saints Bound for Heaven - a melody from Walker's "Southern Harmony" of 1835, arranged by Mack Wilberg

When Jesus Wept - William Billings, from the New England Psalm Singer of 1770, but with an amazing new twist...arranged for eight-part, double choir by Paul Carey. This is a premiere performance. (Paul will be in attendance for the Vancouver concert!)

Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal - the robust and powerful hymn arranged by Alice Parker

Come Away to the Skies: a High Lonesome Mass - a west coast premiere of Tim Sharp's latest work. Tim uses his expertise as a scholar in early American music, taking hymns such as "Brethren, We Have Met to Worship," "Do Lord," "Hail, the Blest Morn," and "What Wondrous Love," and placed them in the framework of the mass. The result is a stunning 20 minute work.

INTERMISSION

Alleluia - by Hyo won Woo is a departure (along with the next two works) from our American themed concert...but we just had to perform 'em. This piece was premiered at the ACDA national convention by the Incheon Chorale of Seoul, Korea, in 2009. Powerful and very exciting. This may be another west-coast premiere performance.

The Beatitudes - by contemporary Estonian composer, Arvo Paert

Northern Lights - a composition by Ola Gjeilo

Carpenters of God - by our friend Vijay Singh

River Moons - is written by John Muehleisen, a Seattle composer who is becoming widely known. This piece was premiered and recorded by the Choral Arts Ensemble of Rochester, MN, in 2006. It's a setting of the poem by Carl Sandburg, who turns the image of the moon reflected in the water into a vivid memory from his youth.

The rest of my nine days in Oregon and Washington will be spent working with two excellent HS and college choirs,geocaching, sightseeing,and hanging out with my partner in crime, fellow composer Reg Ungerseher (who is the conductor for my piece). I guess when I am with Reg back at his home in Kennewick, WA I will see Mt. St. Helen's and many tumbleweeds (he does NOT live near the coast).

Here is the link to Chor Anno

http://www.choranno.org/program.html

I will try to blog while I am there!

Jan 2011 composer newsletter- and many thanks to you!

Happy New Year to all!

Here is what is going on in my little corner of the music world:

2010 was an amazing year for me. I attended three regional ACDA conferences (Cincinnati, Tucson, and Memphis) and met all sorts of new folks and reconnected with people I already knew. I had pieces either performed or on interest/reading sessions in six out of the seven conferences- what a delight. I also blogged heavily from each conference I attended, and I know many of you enjoyed reading the play by play (not sure how I did all that- did I sleep at all?).

The year finished up for me in grand manner- a trip to Grinnell College (with my hilarious seven year old sidekick Aidan in tow, "Roadtrip!") for a major performance, some guest conducting in Pittsburgh, and a trip to Flagstaff, AZ to hear the Northern Arizona University choirs sing a commission premiere (SATB/organ/brass/perc/handbells) on their Holiday Dinner Festival. Thanks to Edie Copley, Ryan Holder and the students of NAU for being such wonderful artists and hosts. And thanks to the big red rocks of Sedona, AZ for being so gorgeous!

There were performances all over the US of my music- pieces big-- the previously alluded to "El Limonar Florido" at Grinnell College was one (also "Play with your Food" got wide performances) and small-- performances galore by youth choirs of my wacky "Peace on earth...and lots of little crickets", which remains Walton's best-selling octavo for the third straight year. My music is also winding up in Asian markets thanks to my trip to South Korea in the fall of 2009 and through some networking in China, Australia and New Zealand, with some assists by Tim Sharp, Nancy Menk, and Mary Hopper.

Coming up in the first half of 2011-- I have four new pieces out in time for the national ACDA conference in Chicago. For young SA choirs "Night Song", with a beautiful text about birdcall by Jean Burden (Roger Dean cat. # 15/2591R) and a gentle SA arrangement of the spiritual "My Lord, what a morning" (Roger Dean cat. # 15/2849R). For HS through adult women's choirs, the long awaited treble version of "Mashed Potato Love Poem" (Walton, not sure of cat. number but it will be out very soon), and my setting of the goings on in the Garden of Eden as deconstructed with razor sharp wit by American poet Diane Lockward-- "Eve's Confession" (SSA/piano, Roger Dean cat. # 15/2838R). Let me know if you would like a free persual copy of any of these; I can easily get the Roger Dean titles to you as they are very good about getting music out there to directors. I'll make sure that next year there are some mixed titles published.

I will be traveling to Hong Kong in late February for a week long festival conducting youth choirs and coaching conductors in my music (including a commission premiere) and other new-ish music. In May I will be composer-in-residence with the Cincinnati Children's Choir, where two new commissioned pieces will be premiered. These are pretty special, as director Robyn Lana and I decided that I would set poetry by local children, and the two poems I set are really delightful. The summer will be filled with composing and another six week session directing the choir at the North Carolina Governor's School in Raleigh which is one heck of a fun, yet demanding job.


I am still always looking for advanced choirs who have interest in singing my advanced music- please let me know if you'd like to peruse longer pieces, multi-movement pieces, more difficult pieces. Many of these are my best writing, yet are hard to make known to the choral world through traditional publishers since most of them just want the easy, short stuff (arghh). In fact, I have just finished a challenging double choir setting of Billings' "When Jesus Wept"- let me know if you'd like a perusal pdf file! Another piece, "The leaves are falling", could be very effective as a 9/11 memorial piece if you are looking for repertoire for the tenth anniversary of that sad event. This piece is about three minutes long and is for SATB/piano- it alludes artistically, in a sense, to 9/11 - the text, by Rilke but in English, is much older. And by the way, I am now accepting commissions for next season. I'd love to hear from you if you have an interest in something new and special for your choir. Also, for any of you doing my music soon, I am available (for free) to meet and work with your choir via Skype, which has been a great communication tool lately for me.

Finally, I'd like to thank a bunch of people by name- folks who, in calendar year 2010, conducted/commissioned my music, did me a favor or two, mentored or encouraged me in some way, etc. I will probably forget someone (sorry in advance). Without all of you the little black marks on paper that I scribble mean nothing- thank you so much for collaborating with me-- you all touch my heart:

Kirk Aamot, David Baldwin, Angie Batey, Bryan Black, Dennis Blubaugh, Meredith Bowen, Brian Bohrer, Joani Brandon, Charles Bruffy, Sean Burton, Margaret Butterfield, Shannon Carey, Karyl Carlson, Julie Clemens, Andrew Collins, Drew Collins, Philip Copeland. Edie Copley, Valerie Crescenz, Gwen Dettweiler, Marian Dolan, April Duvic, Tim Fitzpatrick, Scott Foss, Deedy Francis, Jane Ring Frank, Lisa Fredenburgh, Lynne Gackle, Janet Galvan, Dee Gauthier, Sarah Graham, James Green, Matt Greer, Leslie Guelker-Cone, Susan Hahn, Ryan Holder, Mary Hopper, Dan Huff, Daniel Hughes, Cindy Hunter, Emily and James John, Sigrid Johnson, Heather Kinkennon, Tom Koharchik, Erica Kragness, Robyn Lana, Paul LaPrade, Sherri Lasko, Iris Levine, Brad Logan, Gunilla Luboff, Michael McElreath, Nancy Menk, Jonathan Miller, Eric Nelson, Emily Orr, Sharon Paul, Earl Rivers, Jon Rommereim, Catherine Sailer, Michael Sanflippo, Mike Scheibe, Brett Scott, Elena Sharkova, Tim Sharp, Deborah Simpkin King, Justin Sisul, Sandra Snow, Phil Spencer, Ethan Sperry, Debra Spurgeon, Ronald Staheli, Erin Stinson, Joan Szymko, Barbara Tagg, Becky Tyree, Reg Unterseher, Hak-won Yoon, Michael Zemek.

Hope to see you here in Chicago for the ACDA national conference,

Paul

When Jesus Wept- in sixteen voices?

Hugo Distler, 20th century German polyphonist
(who died way to soon)








I'm feeling the need to write something really out there- even if it's still just new ideas (for me) in extended counterpoint and lots of voices. I have always had this weird idea of doing a 40 voice piece a la Tallis' Spem in Alium though maybe not that extreme! The tune I have thought would be cool treated like this is Billings' "When Jesus Wept", which obviously is already a simple four part canon. So I am finally going to give it a shot- maybe 16 voices at max? Any university folks want to read this through if and when I get it done?

Part of this is a concern that I may become more and more pigeonholed as a children's choir and women's choir composer. In a few months I will have four new releases (from Roger Dean and Walton) and all four are for treble voices. It's not like I haven't submitted mixed pieces- but they just haven't accepted the SATB stuff lately. In general I feel I need to keep writing more and more SATB pieces at various difficulty levels.I am excited that the Atlanta Sacred Chorale is doing my piece Morning Person (SATB/piano 4 hands) in October. It's a setting of a delightfully creative poem by New Orleans poet Vassar Miller. This is one of my SATB piece which I think is highly successful, and is published by Roger Dean.

Anyway, as I work on this mostly polyphonic When Jesus Wept I am going to try to do some edgy stuff in the sense that it will be truly polyphonic and may wander into strange tonal areas- I am going to try to write individual voices first and only later try to reconcile them to each other. I may even write some of them on scraps of paper and then patch some parts of the piece together- a process I used to some extent WAY back in college. In other words, write very individual voices, and as scraps of paper, they exist only in their own world- then later, throw them together and adjust them as little as possible to reconcile them. We'll see where this goes, but this will be a piece I am writing for myself- kind of like a unique 15 minute piece I wrote called "1944", which sets a WWII poem by Hilda Doolittle and incorporates elements of the Bach Christmas Oratorio (yes,the bombing of London, Bach, and Christmas- well it's all implied in the H.D. text). I was really fortunate to get a performance by Tom Koharchik in Pittsburgh of this piece but zero performances since then. It's for SATB and strings and pretty visceral at times. As I said, composers write things like this for themselves most of the time-- we know that traditional publishers run screaming from this kind of music.

Update: I have started the piece and to many folks it may seem actually pretty conservative- for me the biggest challenge is to not fall into my own musical cliches and to push myself to write these independent voices. I have decided on using two SATB choirs and to write in eight voices for each choir- thus I will at times be in sixteen voices plus have the added amazing potential of polyphony between the two choirs. I am even toying with having one of the choirs be textless part or all of the time- perhaps that choir is simply commenting musically without words on what the "with words" choir is singing and saying? This all has to be worked out!

As I said earlier,I'm really going to try hard to write things where the meter in some voices is set apart, as if voices coexist in sound but not really in meter. To prepare for this I have been looking at some of Hugo Distler's music and been asking advice on ChoralNet about music without bars, dotted barlines, multiple meters, bracketed phrasings (such as brackets marking hemiolas)a la early Baroque music and all this stuff. I've already received some great advice both on how the music could be notated and how easy or hard some of those notations may be to grasp by anyone rehearsing and singing the piece. I'm also not in a hurry to write the piece an I am liking the idea that I can putz away at this now and then without feeling like I have to be in a hurry.

More updates as I continue, for those who may be interested!