They're Relentless!

I have yet another project on my hands, so I'm really having to rethink the order in which I'm composing these pieces. Here's an update for you.

The oboe solos, which I've titled Sketches of Pan are almost complete! The last two movements are composed, and my immediate project is to finish the first one, which will hopeful get done over the weekend. The movement titles are as follows.

I. The Giant Toad

II. The Pale Man

III. The Faun

To anyone who hasn't seen Pan's Labyrinth, there is really no coherence to these character pieces. If you have seen the movie, then you know what I'm talking about.

As for my setting of "Jabberwocky", I'm still in the preparation stages, aka, I've finished reading Alice in Wonderland and am currently reading Through the Looking Glass to familiarize myself with Lewis Carroll's style as well the context of the poem. I still plan to score the piece for marimba and singers, although I'm still not sure which voice types/how many. It will come, but I have a lot on my plate, so I'm sticking to reading for now.

For anyone who caught my Facebook updates, it's Joker's Interlude that's making the biggest advancement. I've scored II. Hearts from top to bottom and am now in the "cleaning up" process. I hope to have it performance ready in time for an April concert, so be on the lookout.

Something I haven't mentioned in depth yet is the hard work I've been putting into my musical The Glass Puppet. I finally decided an instrumentation one day and got to composing some of the billions of ideas I've gleaned over the years, and I'm well into the opening number "Blasted Days of School." So far, it's scored for a small handbell choir, chimes, and two pianos, and of course our singers. It's been quite a ride already, and I can't wait to see where it goes, so I'll keep you all posted.

Now, my "yet another project" arose out of a recent necessity. I discovered that the oboist who was going to perform my Sketches couldn't make the particular concert date I had in mind. So, since I can't go a single concert without presenting, I've decided to compose something new from some material I haven't gotten a chance to use. It's a melody/harmonic experiment I started where, basically, I determine a set of playable tones from the keyboard and then compose from only those tones. So, far it's created some interesting effects, so I'd like to experiment further.

The result I hope to make into a duet for piano and marimba which, God help me, I can have ready to perform by the aforementioned concert. I'm excited about seeing where it goes, but for goodness sake, isn't there such thing as two many ideas at once? I'm sure there isn't.

Anyways, like I said, I'll keep everyone posted. Wish me luck. I'm going to need.

P.S. The photo is from the Joffrey ballet's rendition of you-know-what. That ballet served to inspire the story from which I'm getting this material for the duet, but I can't tell you about that yet. It's not ready. Shhhh . . .

P.P.S In case you haven't already watched it, this is a must-see for anyone who knows composers.