Goin' International

So I found out that recently that a short I scored in May of 2005, The Importance of Blind Dating (which I've discussed before), was screened for a Valentine's Day Film Night at London's Carnsforth Station.

Does this mean I get to say my music has been heard internationally?

Or is that in poor taste? I mean, it's not like it's a big-budget international film or anything.

78 Years Ago Today

Jerry Goldsmith was born in L.A.

There's an article in Newsweek about Ennio Morricone (since he's being given this year's lifetime achievement award at the Oscars) which refers to him as maybe the greatest film composer ever. For my money, after Herrmann, it was Jerry. He may not have created instantly recognisable scores for certain iconic Spaghetti Westerns, but he did score a lot of iconic films, many of which have withstood the test of time pretty well (Charlton Heston's bellowing aside!).

Memorandum

I have come to a conclusion.

Like it or not, love it or hate it, the single most influential piece of popular music written in the past 5 years is (drumroll please!)

Pirates of the Caribbean.

Now I know you're thinking, "Herr, that can't possibly be true, can it?"

Yes, Bambi, it's true.

I've done a painstaking amount of passive research on the subject. Watch any broadcast sporting event, sports show, reality tv or anything else that requires energetic music and you'll discover it's being ripped off; most of the time not so lovingly.

For the record I like the Pirates of the Caribbean films and their music.

Yo-Yo Ma(nia) Film Score Friday

Yo-Yo Ma is in town this weekend for what is probably the biggest series of concerts we've ever done.

To that end I offer the following hodge-podge for Film Score Friday:

Hero - Tan Dun
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Tan Dun
Memoirs of a Geisha - John Williams
Yo-Yo Ma Play Ennio Morricone
Fire, Water, Paper: A Vietnam Oratorio - Elliot Goldenthal
Concerto for Cello - John Williams
Silk Road Journeys - Silk Road Ensemble
The Protecting Veil - John Tavener (who is an honorary member of the category as he wrote some original music for Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men)

Contemplation Music for Sad Days

Choir Concerto - Alfred Schnittke
Coptic Light - Morton Feldman
You Are (Variations) - Steve Reich
Requiem - Herbert Howells

By the way...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, Festivus, Chanukkah, New Year, Kwanzaa...whatever.

I would also like to contribute the following:

We made it. It was tough and not a little grueling but it's over. It's like the elephant in the room and nobody seems prepared to discuss it. You know what I'm talking about.

The Mozart Anniversary Year

Congratulations, everybody. I think we managed to go the entire year in the call center listening to virtually none of Wolfgang's works. I understand that the concert season isn't over yet so there's still some to endure, but the technicality is the thing and the year is officially done.

And since the demise of our "Mozart Anniversary Year Countdown" clock you will (hopefully) notice that it has been replaced with a new clock that is simultaneously depressing and hopeful.

Happy New Year!

Wintry Mix

It's the last day of work before our little holiday break.

Christmas Cocktails - Various Columbia Artists
Christmas Carols and Hymns - Robert Shaw Chamber Singers
When My Heart Finds Christmas - Harry Connick, Jr.
Une Cantate de Noel - Arthur Honegger
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Good. Music.

To get through a quiet day at the office:

Steve Reich: Drumming, Tehillim
Harrison Birtwistle: Earth Dances
Sibelius: Symphony no. 6
Wayne Siegel: Devil's Golf Course
Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra
Joonas Kokkonen: Requiem
Rautavaara: Book of Visions

Happy Thanksgiving

And happy birthday!

In Memorium

Jerry Fischer was a friend of mine in grad school. He had just begun composition studies in my second year at Truman State. Jerry was a non-trad. He had made his living in software sales of a system that he had devised that took him all over the world. He was an organ player who rarely missed mass. Most of all he was a family man who cared deeply for his wife, children and elderly mother. He had decided, though, that it was time to return to school and study composition. So he drove to Kirksville, Missouri from Quincy, Illinois every Friday for his lessons and the composers master class. He was quiet, thoughtful, kind and always thoroughly engaged. I didn't really get to know Jerry as well as I would have liked. But the person I was able to get to know was an extraordinarily good human being.

On this date three years ago Jerry was gunned down in his driveway by his business partner over a business disagreement. Later that school year we programmed on one of our composers concerts the only piece he completed as a student; a breezy set for flute and piano written about his three cats. It was an extremely emotional day as his family was there, too. And one I'll never forget.

Once again, you're remembered Jerry.

I Can't Handel It Anymore

It's Saturday afternoon and I'm at work.

Selling Messiah tickets.

The Community of Christ Church (formerly RLDS) sponsored an annual performance of the Messiah that dates back 90 years. After the performance 2 years ago the church announced they were letting it go after the 2005 performance. Well in swoops our E.D. (read about him here and/or here) and "saves the day" by taking over the performance. Great. Now we get to sell 2 performances of the Messiah. As if o1 isn't bad enough.

I first heard Messiah complete when I was a junior in high school.
I heard it again 2 years ago. The only reason I went was because Jaques was performing the alto solo (not too shabby; actually he was pretty awesome!).

That makes it 10 years between performances. I guess that's okay.

I think perhaps we should use Messiah as a yardstick of good taste. If you ask a person if they like Messiah you can probably deduce that they have little in the way of good taste.

Perhaps we should use Sir Thomas Beecham's orchestration next year!

It's Sir William Herschel's Birthday...

...He discovered Uranus (1738).

A Sad Film Score Friday

Basil Poledouris died two days ago of cancer. This week's Film Score Friday will honor his memory with the following:

Big Wednesday
Conan the Barbarian
Flesh and Blood
Robocop
The Hunt for Red October
Lonesome Dove
Quigley Down Under
Starship Troopers
Les Miserables

Reich at 70

On October 25th the Warrior Bard and I made the trek (in the rain) to St. Louis for the symphony which, in conjunction with Synergy Vocals, gave a concert celebrating Steve Reich's 70th birthday.

The concert was, for the most part, great. I'm not going to nitpick too much simply because I don't get to hear this kind of programming closer to home that often. It never struck me until the downbeat of the concert just how difficult Reich's music is to actually perform. I take it for granted because the recordings are all pristine and flawless yet still magical. Anyway, you could tell David Robertson and the performers were without a doubt committed to the performance even if it wasn't perfect.

The Program:

Proverb
City Life
New York Counterpoint
You Are (Variations)

I could go on and on about how great most of this music is, but that would be redundant.

It was a great show.

Thank God That's Over

Die Frau and I sing in the Saint Joseph Community Chorus.

"But Herr Vogler, you and die Frau live in KC. Why do you drive an hour every week for this chorus? Surely there must be one closer," you ask. True. We first started dating as members of this chorus so we have kind of a sentimental connection to it. Additionally it's directed by the choir director from our undergraduate college for whom we both have a great deal of respect.

A week ago Sunday (10/29) we had a concert. It was one of those pull out all the stops concerts where we had an organ (the concert was in a church with a really nice organ; actually it was the church at which I was paid to sing for 4 of my 6 undergraduate years) and an orchestra. Luckily there were no dancers.

Now a little background. Early this summer an anonymous donor gave a large sum of money to the chorus to present this concert. So somewhere along the line someone heard a new cantata by Mark Hayes and said, "HEY! I'VE GOT A GREAT IDEA! LET'S PERFORM THIS!". But wait, there's more. They also decided that we should do more-or-less an entire concert dedicated to his...uh...music. And "HEY! WE CAN HAVE HIM COME UP HERE AND PLAY PIANO, TOO!!! THAT'LL BE GREAT!!!"

For those of you that don't know who Mark Hayes is, consider yourselves lucky. His music is supposed to be liturgical but is in reality awful schlock that tries to be spiritually deep where really it's just trite and pedantic (and annoying to those of us that feel it's merely superficial and pandering). We performed several of his anthems and a new cantata, a Te Deum (or tedium if you prefer). Basically it was enough to make my head feel like a tomato in a microwave. To make matters worse, all I heard during the Te Deum was warmed-over John Rutter and even a snippet of "Think of Me" from Phantom of the Opera. There's nothing spiritual about it. It is merely self-serving and says, "Listen to how pretty I am". There's no glorification of the Creator of the Universe anywhere in this music, just glorification in the creator of the music. All things being equal I'd rather have performed some Rutter.

Anyway, I feel very strongly about the programming and there just doesn't seem to be enough new or interesting music being presented. For example, we also performed Randall Thompson's Frostiana set for chorus with piano, orchestra or band this past weekend. It's a nice series of Robert Frost settings (a couple of them are completely uninteresting, but others are good), but I've performed with this group six out of the last eight years and this was the third time(!) we'd performed it (though only the first time with orchestra).

Anyway, for more than just artistic reasons die Frau and I feel as though our time with this group has run its course. We just don't have the time or the resources (not only are we expending fuel, we have to pay dues, too!) to devote to it anymore. In a way it's sad, but we all have to move on sometime and this seems to be the time. So after Carmina Burana in the spring that'll be it.

That's A Winner!

Yay! The Cardinals are World Series Champs!!!

Cards Win! Cards Win!

Being the devout baseball man that I am (a man has to get his religion somewhere) I just thought that I'd throw that out there.

I believe I requested a Cardinals/Tigers World Series?

Excellent.

Instant Steve Reich Collection, Just Add Water (and a Negligible Amount of Cash)

It pains me to admit it but I have very little of Steve Reich's music in my CD collection...until now.

Die Frau and I were in one of the local Barnes and Noble stores this past weekend when this lovely box of wonderful music attracted my attention. This 5-disc set immediately got my attention because it's basically a "best of" collection (though you could probably include anything by the man in such a thing) and was astoundingly priced at $35.

This retrospective is absolutely fantastic and even includes the recent works You Are (Variations), premiered by Grant Gershon and the Los Angeles Master Chorale a few years back, which costs $20 all by itself. If that's not enough, you get basically all the seminal works of this most influential American musician. Music for 18 Musicians, Tehillim, Proverb, Different Trains, Eight Lines, Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ, and Drumming (and then some) are all included. The only drawback for me is a lack of extensive liner notes. But even that isn't a major concern because you can find all that online at the Boosey and Hawkes website.

Anyway, it's a great set. If you like Reich's music and don't have much or are just plain interested check it out. It's awesome.

Composers in Community

This past weekend die Frau and I made the long, long (looooooong) trek to Orange City, Iowa. For those of you that don't know where this is, it's a half hour east of South Dakota and a half hour south of Minnesota. For those of you that do know where this is...why?!?! Why did we go to such a place, you ask? I'll tell you.

I had a piece programmed on a new music festival that was a joint effort of the Iowa Composers Forum and the Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers and hosted by Northwestern College in Orange City. It was my first festival selection which made it all the more exciting. Well that's not entirely true. I've been programmed on 4 conferences/festivals, but they were all at Truman State so I think those kind of tipped the scales in my favour in those instances.

Anyway, the piece was my Two Movements for Flute which is an unaccompanied solo which also has the distinction of being my first 12-tone work. It's also a quite difficult work, full of complex rhythmic ideas and wide intervallic leaps. And if that's not enough there are little surface features that really function as background features that unify the piece on a long-range scale. Ugh, can you tell I had been studying Schenker at the time I wrote this piece, too? The soloist, whom I met the morning of the performance, performed the piece very well. She managed to bring out some of the aforementioned "long-range" elements of the piece rather than focus primarily on its gestural nature. I was pleased. Everyone seemed very complimentary especially with the knowledge that this was indeed my first 12-tone work.

The whole conference was pretty amazing. 1 day, 4 concerts (long concerts), 2 paper sessions and seemingly endless variety. It was incredible to hear all this music by so many composers and so much of it was different from everything else that was heard. In addition everyone seemed genuinely supportive of each other's work. Many and constant congratulations abounded throughout the day in the halls, during concerts and during meals. Another nice aspect of the conference was getting to see Dr. Gooch again. It was, afterall, his suggestion that I join the Forum. His Monodies for cello and piano were performed right before my piece.

One of the most difficult aspects of being a composer in a situation such as this is trying to find the balance between enjoying what you're listening to and listening on a more analytical level. I found myself trying to find this at many points throughout each of the concerts and would say that, in my own opinion at least, was fairly successful. If you do nothing but listen analytically you might miss the point. If you do nothing but listen for enjoyment (though there's nothing wrong with this from time to time) you might also miss a larger point. Balance is key, Daniel-san.

Overall the experience was really great. One I look forward to again soon.

Gonna Fly Now

Maynard Ferguson died Thursday night at the age of 78.

For those that don't know Ferguson was one of the greatest jazz trumpet players who ever lived. He could play ridiculous high notes. He quit school at 15 to start his own big band and played with a lot of other big bands in the '50s. He gave the Stan Kenton Orchestra its signature sound (screaming high, screaming loud).

He scored a big hit in the 1970s with his cover of Bill Conti's "Gonna Fly Now" from Rocky and almost instantly made the big band a viable art form again only this time fusing rock, jazz, bop and anything else that caught his fancy (like Indian classical music).

I got to see him in concert once.

It was the end of my freshman year and he and his band, Big Bop Nouveau, came to play at a church in Kansas City. 2 others and I made the trek from Saint Joseph to south Kansas City for the concert. One of the guys, Kevin, was also a bop trumpet player (an extraordinarily talented one with an ego to match) who had heard Maynard play so many times that the road manager recognised him and he eventually earned a tour jacket...which you couldn't actually buy. We got to the church and I realised I was about $15 short. Kevin paid for my ticket for which I will be eternally grateful.

Move over, Gabriel, you're playing second trumpet now.