The Minstrel Boy

The Minstrel Boy, a piece I wrote nearly 25 years ago during graduate work in Computer Science at Cornell (with a minor in Music Composition), received its first public performance yesterday at the Unitarian-Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock. I had shown the score to the music director there, Stephen Michael Smith, who has a track record of fostering new works and composers, and to my surprise and pleasure, he very quickly arranged for a group of singers—Leslie Craigie, Farah Chandu, Leslie Pirchinello, Chee Shun Tan, and Brace Negron—to perform it as part of the regular Sunday service. (Pianists Evan Solomon and Akira Eguchi assisted during rehearsals.)

The piece is a setting for SSATB (with solo sections) of Thomas Moore's poem of the same name. It's normally sung to the tune of "The Moreen", and I used that melody heavily in my setting. The composition teacher under whose supervision I wrote it, Steven Stucky, was not, I think, entirely on board with my wholesale appropriation of these existing materials—he might reasonably have felt that I should be producing my own music instead of rehashing others', at least on his watch—but I persisted anyway.

This was the second world premiere of my work in as many months: In April, TracyLynn Conner performed a song I wrote for her, as part of a American Cancer Society benefit concert.

Both of these events were big thrills for me. If you don't count my music for theater, arrangements, orchestrations, or works for personal occasions, the last time I had a world premiere was in ... 1984.

The Emperor's New Clothes

I posted Ray Mason's video of The Emperor's New Clothes, a Theatre Three Children's Theatre production of a show that Jeff Sanzel and I wrote together, on my Facebook profile and my YouTube channel, broken up into scene length segments.

See the links section in the right-hand column -- you'll want to look at the YouTube version unless you're my Facebook friend, and even then you might prefer to watch the YouTube playlist, something for which there is no analogue in Facebook ... is there?

I haven't bothered to post to MySpace this time around.

Joshua Rosenblum's site

Josh Rosenblum has a website worth checking out:

http://rosenblummusic.com

The site was designed and implemented by Josh's 13-year-old son, Julian.

And don't be afraid to go ahead and buy those albums! :-)

Concert at Kosciuszko Hall

I attended a lovely concert at Kosciuszko Hall in Manhattan on Monday night. Cellist Mairi Dorman-Phaneuf and composer-pianist Joshua Rosenblum performed works by Schumann, Brahms, de Falla, Prokofieff, Rosenblum, Bolling, and others, assisted by soprano Joanne Lessner, bassist Bill Ellison, drummer Bruce Doctor, and special guest Julia Murney.

Mairi's particular interest (she referred to it as an obsession) is in performing songs with the cello taking the voice part, and she made a compelling case for her obsession in the songs of Schumann, Brahms, and de Falla. I particularly liked Brahms' Wie Melodien.

The concert included the world premiere of Josh Rosenblum's setting for soprano, cello, piano, and contrabass of T. S. Eliot's poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I liked it a lot, and I hope to make a recording of it soon so it can be shared with others.

I was very pleased to see that the three CDs on sale in the lobby were all produced (or co-produced) by me! Not surprising, of course, because they all feature Josh Rosenblum's music:

• Sundry Notes
• Bush is Bad
• Fermat's Last Tango

There is another Peierls-produced Rosenblum album, Impetuosities, but it wasn't on sale at the concert.

Another world premiere of Josh's music can be heard at the upcoming performance of the dance company, The Chase Brock Experience. Chase Brock commissioned a ballet from Josh, and I produced a recording of the piece for use during the performance. It's called ... are you ready? ... Cut to the Chase.

Magic in the City

If you're looking to hire a magician for a New York City area children's birthday party, Jazzo the Great comes highly recommended:

The Red and the Green

So wine tastes better with an expensive price tag. And I thought I just had good taste.

Babel

Jeffrey Sanzel writes (referring to this posting):

Here are the words I understood on your blog:

blog
Tim
Peierls (to an extent)
A (in context)
of (in context)
There
All

Fifth of July

It would have been more appropriate to post this yesterday, I suppose:

Michele Oliver blogged about the song "This is America", on which Ilene and I can be heard as part of the backing chorus near the end of the song. It was recorded in 2001, partly in response to the 9/11 attacks.

Blurb in Yale Alumni Magazine

The class notes section of the current issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine includes some notes I submitted in the fall.

Tim Peierls (JE) (tim@peierls.net) writes that 2006 was exceptionally busy, with his hand in a wide range of diverse ventures: "I helped produce fellow JEer Josh Rosenblum's musical show, Bush is Bad; the title says it all. I co-wrote a book, Java Concurrency in Practice (Addison-Wesley). If the title makes sense to you, then you need the book; if not, then ... not. I co-produced (with Gary William Friedman) an album by jazz vocalist Stevie Holland, More Than Words Can Say. And I developed an online ticket sales application that went into production in November. See www.SeatYourself.biz for details."

Rescued from Nokia

[The links are out of date.]

I had been unable/unwilling to download the many photos I had accumulated on my old Nokia phone. Today, however, I put the Treo head-to-head (well, head-to-side) with the Nokia, and I transferred them all over IR to the Treo, then down to the PC, then up to my public gallery with Picasa.

For example, this was my phone's background for a long time:

The full album:

Rescued from Nokia

Inspired by Natto blog

I created this blog because it seemed like the easiest way to post a comment on The Natto Project. (The link is to a page that no longer exists, which is a shame.)