Unfortunately the summer is quickly drawing to a close.  So, for those interested here are some quick blurbs on what I have been up to!

Learning French:

I have my secondary language exam coming up in the fall at Peabody.  The three options for languages are Italian, French and German – not surprisingly.  However in my high school naïveté, I assumed I would be in California forever, so learning Spanish would be the best choice.  To be fair to Peabody, I could petition to use Spanish on the exam, but in all honesty, I would have to study Spanish just as much as if I was learning a new language…  So I decided that instead of just trying learn “for the test”, I might as well actually try and learn the language of my choice – which happens to be French.  I have been trying to devote at least some time everyday to learning it, but it is NOT easy!

Sitka Fine Arts Camp:

I don’t think I have the words to describe my experience at the Sitka Fine Arts Camp this summer.  It was so invigorating to be around artists of such high caliber and students who were voracious to learn about making art.  I had students in the band who were also taking Shakespeare, Improv, Mime, Animation, Figure Drawing, Rock Band and  Native American Carving in addition to about 55 other subjects!  I was so impressed with not only the beauty of Sitka itself, but the camaraderie of the community to be able to pull a camp of this magnitude off – AND to do it after just inheriting a campus with over “10 years of deferred maintenance”.  It has also inspired me to take up pencil-sketching and doing more with my photography.  You can see some of the pictures I have taken over on my photography page

Life Events:

In addition to celebrating eight wonderful years of marriage to a very supportive and incredible wife, two other major events happened this summer.  Our family flew out to California in June to celebrate the wedding of my brother-in-law.  Much fun was had by all, and we welcome our new sister-in-law into the family!  Also, I became “Uncle David” just this past week in July when my sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy!

 

The MUSIC I have been working on so far:

Persichetti – Symphony No. 6 – I will be conducting this piece in early October with the Peabody Wind Ensemble.  It will surprisingly be the first Persichetti I have done!  Bucket list: CHECK!

Reich – Music for 18 Musicians – ’nuff said.  This piece changed my life, so happy to be working on it!  This is for the opening concert with the Great Noise Ensemble

Lash – Hush – this will be a world premiere on the same concert as the Reich

Mackey – Redline Tango – I will be conducting this piece in the Spring with the Peabody Wind Ensemble, but it is never too early to start!

 

For the Johns Hopkins Wind Ensemble:

The fall concert will  explore the many different ways in which composers express spirituality in their music.  The title of the program will be Spirtualis Itineris, or “Spiritual Journey”.  The pieces that I am considering are:

Hailstork – New Wade n’ Water

Colgrass – Old Churches

Hovhaness – Suite for Band, Op. 15

Bach – something by him, haven’t decided yet!

Clark – Hymn of St. James

Copland – Variations on a Shaker Melody

Newman – Moon by Night

McBeth – Kaddish

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am currently studying Igor Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments and I thought it would be interesting to post my discoveries regarding the tempos that this piece has been recorded at. For those not “in-the-know”, the tempos in Symphonies have metronome markings that all relate to one another. There are three tempos:

• Tempo 1: eighth note = 144
• Tempo 2: eighth note = 216
• Tempo 3: eighth note = 288

You will notice that Tempo 3 is twice the speed of Tempo 1. In Tempo 2, 2 eighth notes are equal to 3 eighth notes in Tempo 1 (3:2). The same goes for Tempo 3 to Tempo 2 (3:2). Because of this obvious interrelationship, and my upcoming performance of the piece, I wanted to get these burned into my brain! I currently have seven different recordings of Symphonies of Wind Instruments, so I set out to discover if any of these conductors were close to the written tempos. I used a “tap-tempo” feature on my iPhone “Tempo” app from Frozen Ape and began to track all three tempos in each recording. I soon realized that many of the conductors were taking a different (often more indulgent) tempo in the final chorale of the piece, so I added a 4th Tempo to see if that proved interesting. The recordings I studied were as follows:

Detroit Chamber Winds and Friends – H. Robert Reynolds, conductor







Nash Ensemble – Sir Simon Rattle, conductor







Netherlands Wind Ensemble – Thierry Fischer, conductor







United States Marine Band – Col. Timothy Foley, conductor







Prague Chamber Harmony – Libor Pesek, conductor







Berliner Philharmoniker – Pierre Boulez, conductor







Columbia Symphony Winds & Brass – Robert Craft, conductor




There are also 2 versions of Symphonies of Wind Instruments – the original 1920 publication and the revised 1947 edition.  I included both in this study since the tempo indications are the same in both revisions.  I also included information on how much each tempo deviated from Stravinsky’s markings in order to come up with a “total deviation” score.  Considering the fact that the tempo does fluctuate occasionally and the metronome “tap-method” is not exactly 100% proof positive, I included a “handicap” of about +/- 5 clicks per tempo, which brought the total deviation score down by 20.

Well without further ado here are the results…

(This is BY NO MEANS a commentary on which recording is “better” or even which one I prefer, but merely a quasi-statistical look at tempo in Symphonies)

Conductor/Ensemble	SCORE
1. Timothy Foley – President’s Own Marine Band	0 *
2. Robert Craft – Columbia Symphony Winds & Brass	21
3. H. Robert Reynolds – Detroit Chamber Winds	37
4. Simon Rattle – Nash Ensemble	40
5. Thierry Fischer – Netherlands Wind Ensemble	47
6. Libor Presek – Prague Chamber Harmony	58
7. Pierre Boulez – Berliner Philharmoniker	65

*Foley’s score was actually 10, but with the handicap it goes to 0*

Opening Tempo I:
BEST:  Foley/Rattle
WORST:  Boulez/Pesek

Tempo I (Chorale)
BEST:  Foley/Boulez
WORST:  Pesek

Tempo II
BEST:  Foley
WORST: Boulez

Tempo III
BEST:  Foley
WORST:  Reynolds/Rattle

1920 Original
BEST:  Foley

1947 Revision
BEST:  Craft

Widest Margin of Deviation
Presek – Tempo I (Chorale) – nearly 40 clicks under!

Interesting things to note:
*   The Reynolds and Ratttle recording tempos are very similar
*   Pierre Boulez also has a video with the LSO – the tempos are the same…
*   ALL the conductors took the final chorale a little under tempo, though some more than others.
*   Reynolds, Rattle and Boulez took Tempo III under by about 25 clicks or so

For anyone who is interested in seeing my spreadsheet data, let me know and I can send one to you.  Any feedback is welcome.  This was not meant as strict science, but merely as a teaching tool for me as I study this incredible piece!