Change of direction

As I sat in the audience at the Glenn Glasow concert on May 18, 2009, I read the bio I sent to Jeff Miller.  I read something, a statement, that has been on my bio for at least the past five years, but probably longer.

"Other recent compositional projects are Off you go... a large scale, multi-movement composition for flute, cello and percussion and Dream Cycle for alto voice and piano, written for Nicole Davis." 

"Dream Cycle for alto voice and piano, written for Nicole Davis." is the statement to which I am referring here.  When I read that again I thought to myself, "I really need to finish that piece."  This thought has stayed with me for a few days.

I began working on Dream Cycle in 2002 while I was a student at Bowling Green State University.  During the 2001-02 school year I met Nicole.  She was a student in a class for which I was the graduate assistant.  We became friends during that time.  When I finished my master's thesis Obscured Ruminations for bass trombone and chamber orchestra I needed something else to compose.  I still had about a month and a half before the end of the school year and I was still taking lessons from Elainie Lillios.  In talking with Nicole the idea of writing some songs for her came up.  I figured why not, it would be fun.  Well, here we are 7 years later and only 2 songs have been composed.  Even then the 2 songs were composed about 5 years apart.  Nicole and I had agreed on at least 3 texts.  I am thinking the whole cycle will consist of up to 5 songs.  It just depends on how I feel about the cycle after I finish the original 3 songs.

During intermission of the concert I was talking with David Stein my former music history professor who is now retired.  He asked me if I have written any choral music.  To date, I have not, but I am now thinking about it.  In away to me this is also indirect encouragement to finish Dream Cycle.  Maybe this will lead me to compose my first choral work.

I have decided to put the brass quintet aside for now.  I do have some great ideas for the piece, but I think that I need to focus my energy on the song cycle.  This is far overdue and something that I am determined to complete.