So yesterday was the reading session for the Brooklyn Philharmonic Composer Mentorship program, and I finally got to hear the fruits of my labors over the past several months. My fellow mentoree, singer Susan Oetgen, and I each had about an hour to spend with the orchestra.
I wrote a relatively concise piece (for me, at least), which allowed enough time to work out some interpretive details, and to try out some tweaks here and there to see what would happen (e.g., solo violin an octave above the firsts, having the string tremolos gradually slow up instead of stopping abruptly, etc). Brooklyn Phil composer-in-residence Randy Woolf was on hand and suggested several possibilities along these lines, as did some of the musicians in the orchestra -- which I know would have rubbed some composers the wrong way, but I actually thought it was great. In a workshop atmosphere like this, without the immediate pressure of a pending performance, why not try out a few alternate solutions? The vibe was relaxed but efficient, and conductor Michael Christie really helped us get the most out of our alloted time.
This hands-on way of working is familiar to me -- when I was studying with Brookmeyer at NEC, the school had a big band that met every week and played exclusively student compositions. You would write something, bring it in, hear it right away, get a vivid, instantaneous sense of what worked and what didn't, try out some quick-and-dirty tweaks, and then come back the next week with revisions. This is how I learned to write. I always thought it was incredibly unfortunate that classical composition majors who harbored orchestral ambitions did not have a similar setup on their side. I know many of them would have killed for a composers' workshop-type chamber orchestra that met every week to read through their stuff.
Of course, now that I've heard the work, I'd like for other people to have that opportunity as well. The piece is called Dean St. and it's loosely inspired by The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem, which is the first novel I read after moving to New York. The book that seemed like it had been custom-written just for me, especially at that point in my life. I'm very pleased with how Dean St. turned out and I'm going to be sending the score around, see if there is any interest in actually premiering the thing. Rest assured, I'll keep you posted.
Meanwhile, it's time to get to work on the second portion of the mentorship program -- writing a piece for the Music Off The Walls series at the Brooklyn Museum. Details below:
TRAVERSING THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM
Sunday, April 27, 2008, at 2:00 PMA multi-media experience featuring music by Randy Woolf, members of Brooklyn Philharmonic, musicians from Concert Artists Guild, and special guests.
In conjunction with Brooklyn Museum Takashi Murakami exhibition.
Randall Woolf: Try to Believe
Darcy James Argue: New Work (World Premiere)
I'll have post additional details about this event as we get closer to the date.
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