I am excited to announce the world premiere of the wind version of Song of the Phoenix by Dr. Kevin Sedatole and the Michigan State University Wind Symphony. The concert is tonight at 7:30 PM at the Wharton Center in East Lansing. It also features a world premiere by Dr. Jere Hutcheson, and music by Joel Puckett and Mason Bates among others. The concert will be broadcast live tonight on www.banddirector.com 

This past Sunday, we had a wonderful three-hour recording session with the MSU Wind Symphony at Grand Ledge High School. I felt super spoiled to have a great ensemble, an amazing director, and a team of conductors pouring over my score listening for the slightest error. Very dangerous to get used to.

What an exciting week. Within six days I had three pieces premiered at three different venues. I will be posting separate posts for each piece over the next few days/weeks as I have the recordings to upload.

First up was the MSU premiere of Song of the Phoenix by Carlos Botero and the MSU Symphony Orchestra.  Last year, this piece was chosen as the winner of the MSU Honors Competition, and as such was premiered along with concerto performances by several of MSU’s finest.  I could not be more happy with the performance, as Carlos and I worked closely before and after rehearsals to make sure we got the details just right. After adopting a few changes from our collaboration, the new score and parts should be available very soon.

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I am very excited to announce that the Detroit Symphony Orchestra will be reading one of my pieces, Song of the Phoenix, as well as works by other MSU student composers, during their rehearsal on Saturday, January 30th, 2010. Details are soon to follow.