1/16/12: Happy new year! I have a few performances coming up in a few weeks, and a couple more lined up through the summer. I just found out a few days ago that the UNT Wind Symphony programmed Lift-Off on their first concert of the semester, on February 16 at 8:30 Eastern, 7:30 Central. A video feed of the concert will be streamed live, and you'll be able to link to it from their wind studies webpage. Just before that performance, I'll be taking part in a symposium at the University of Oklahoma called 4x4 prizes, where four composers and four conductors are selected to participate. The orchestra will be rehearsing Green Flash, and if chosen as the winner or runner-up, it will be performed on February 12th. I've also got upcoming performances of a new work for organ in early February and Phobos by FiveOneMusic on March 10 in Cleveland, as well as another performance of Lift-Off by the University of Michigan Concert Band on March 11.
I was informed recently that one of my choral works received honorable mention in the Pacific Chorale's Young Composer Competition. I've put in a media player below for the chosen work, Invocation. It is a reading by the USC Concert Choir, with the rehearsal piano part, but it is meant to be an a cappella piece. Invocation has not yet been performed, so if you are interested in arranging the premiere, please contact me.
I've also been commissioned to write a new work for the Salt Bay Chamber Music Festival, held in August in Maine. I'm also working on a new work for basset clarinet and piano for clarinetist Peter Wright, to be premiered at ICA's ClarinetFest this summer, and a cycle for soprano and violin for two of my colleagues from my studies at Peabody.
I'll leave you with a new video of Dark and Stormy Night for piano with ping pong balls and obligato page turner, performed by Kayako Matsunaga and me last October at the University of Michigan.
11/18/11: I've had a very busy semester so far, and have a great new performance to share with you. My recent work, "Fight or Flight" for violin and guitar was performed at Indiana University as part of the Midwest Composers Symposium. You can read a very nice description of the events and review from the concerts on sequenza21. Fight or Flight is an extremely virtuosic work that I intended to be a musical adrenaline rush, and the performance of the two IU students, Delyana Lazarova and Jonathan Godfrey, was amazing! I hope you have a few minutes to watch the video of them below.
Finally, the premiere of my clarinet concerto, Bennu's Fire, went extraordinarily well at ClarinetFest 2011. Alexander Fiterstein's interpretation was extremely sensitive, and the performance of the California State University Northridge wind ensemble under Larry Stoffel was energetic and brilliantly colorful. I have recordings from the premiere posted on my Bennu's Fire page, and I embedded a video of the second movement below. Here are some notes regarding this second movement:
Many firebird myths state that the bird's cry is a singularly beautiful song. The second movement seeks to represent this, highlighting the beauty and lyricism of the solo clarinet over a series of varying textural accompaniment intensities from a lone vibraphone to a clarinet and saxophone duet, a timpani roll to a full-bodied brass presentation of the melody. Following a cadenza from the soloist, the full ensemble plays an expansive elaboration of the original song. From this, the solo clarinet descends gently to a place of calm and serenity.
6/16/11: I just posted two more videos - the Road Triprecording session and last February's Phobos premiere by the FiveOne new music ensemble in Cleveland (embedded below). I edited the performance video with the video created for the piece by Ross Wilbanks. I must say that FiveOne's performance that night was stunning - Phobos has some wicked technical demands, especially in the last two minutes, and they pulled it off extremely well. Enjoy!
6/10/11: The premiere of my violin sonata, subtitled "Beautiful Savior," went extremely well. The musicians from the Chicago Ensemble, Mathias Tacke (violin) and Gerald Rizzer (piano), did a superb job tackling what may be my most difficult composition. The performance also received an excellent review, and there is a possibility that it will be programmed again during their next season.
I have also just posted new recordings of my string quartet, Road Trip. It was recorded in surround using 7 different mics, though the recording I have posted is just a stereo mixdown of the surround version. The quality is a huge step up from what it was before, and I definitely encourage you to head over to the Road Trip page and give it a listen.
I've also updated my performances page with some new information. I found out that my clarinet concerto, Bennu's Fire, will be premiered on Friday August 5, and my performance of Geometries in Memphis later this month was moved up one day to June 25. Violinist Joe Kneer, for whom I wrote "Beautiful Savior," will perform it in Baltimore sometime in September, exact date and time TBA.
5/18/11: The clarinet concerto, Bennu's Fire, is finished! There is now a page dedicated to that work, and I will post a recording when it is available after the premiere this August.
Since I finished the concerto, I've been significantly updating this website. I have created numerous pages for works that didn't have their own pages previously, and I have also added Paypal links to most of my compositions to allow easy and secure purchasing. Among the compositions with new or updated pages to go up are Dark and Stormy Night for piano with ping pong balls and obligato page turner, Green Flash for orchestra, Road Trip for string quartet, Roaring Fork for orchestra, Geometries for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, Northern Lights for piano trio, and a number of my compositions for string orchestra.
I have also posted a couple new recordings and will have more coming soon. Below you can listen to my electroacoustic composition, Blue Screen of Death, as well as watch a video of the premiere of my organ composition, Ecstatic Prelude.
3/28/11: This has been and continues to be an unbelievably busy semester, but the end is in sight. I have had a number of great performances recently and I will post recordings from some of them soon. Lately my big project has been a concerto for clarinet and wind ensemble that is a commission from the fabulous clarinetist, Alexander Fiterstein (he recently premiered my chamber work, Geometries). This commission would not be possible without support from the California State University, Northridge and the University of Minnesota. It will be premiered at ClarinetFest® 2011 this August with the Cal State Northridge Wind Ensemble. Stay tuned for more updates...
12/26/10: I have created a page for my string quartet, Road Trip, that includes recordings and purchasing information. It's a fun piece, what with the second movement being a blues and mariachi mashup, so check it out!
12/9/10: My latest composition is a work for multi-percussion and prerecorded electronics called Janus, the Roman god of foresight and hindsight. On December 5, Joel Boss premiered it here at the University of Michigan, and the video of his performance up on youtube. I've set up a page for it with program notes and more information as well. It was a thrill to work with Joel, and his performance was phenomenal. Enjoy the video!
Janus premiere by Joel Boss:
11/21/10: I have a few more videos and recordings available online now. You can watch the CCM Wind Symphony, directed by Rodney Winther, perform the wind ensemble version of my work, Aerodynamics, as well as the premiere of Geometries at the UBS Chamber Music Festival of Lexington below. I also have posted recordings of my latest chamber work, Road Trip for string quartet, on my chamber music page.
Aerodynamics
Geometries
11/2/10: The performances of Aerodynamics for wind ensemble and Prelude and Fugue for Viola and Piano went very well in the last couple weeks, with William Johnston's viola recital receiving a nice write-up on the "Lincoln in Cleveland" blog. I'm now getting ready to head to Dallas at the end of this week for two performances of my Li Po Songs. In addition, my recently completed string quartet, Road Trip, will receive its first performance here in Ann Arbor on Monday, November 15. Expect videos of each of these performances to be available here via youtube within the next month or so. I just uploaded video from the Prelude and Fugue premiere (in the very beautiful Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music), and you can watch it below.
10/19/10: I'm heading to Cincinnati tomorrow for two performances of my wind ensemble transcription of Aerodynamics by the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music Wind Symphony, Rodney Winther conducting. The second performance on Friday is part of the opening night concert of the Midwest Composers Symposium, a two-day event that brings together composers and performers from the University of Michigan, the University of Iowa, Indiana University, and the Cincinnati CCM. Recordings and/or videos will be coming soon, and will be available on my Aerodynamics page.
In other news, I have a few more performances coming up later this month and early November. My Prelude and Fugue for viola and piano will be premiered on October 31 by William Johnston, the violist for whom it was written, at 2 PM at the Cleveland Institute of Music. It will be on a program featuring recent American music. The following week, I will be traveling to Dallas for two performances of my Li Po Songs, arranged for Mezzo, Flute/Alto flute, Viola, Guitar, and Percussion. It will be played by the Ars Nova Dallas ensemble conducted by Jordan Smith.
9/14/10: The performance of Aerodynamics from the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music will be broadcast on KUSP.org at 10 PM Eastern/7 PM Pacific tonight!
8/31/10: The premiere of Geometries on Saturday August 28 went extremely well and it received a fantastic review by Rich Copley. You can read the whole review here and below is an excerpt:
Geometries is about math.
I hate math.
But listening, even a math dunce like me can detect some of the mathematical structure of the work. But what really comes across in the two-movement, 14-minute piece is a passion.
In Fractals, the first movement, a theme starts in the clarinet at then moves through the other three instruments - piano, cello, and violin. It’s a sweet, simple theme that seems born from sunrise over the landscape surrounding the Fasig-Tipton Pavilion where the festival takes place.
The second movement, Tangents, introduced several themes that move toward each other for a symphonic finale. Zare, who has been composing mostly for orchestras recently, got the most of the quartet, making it sound like a much larger ensemble, particularly through the piano and clarinet.
This may have been Zare’s biggest accomplishment: He gave Beethoven a tough act to follow.
8/18/10: I'm having an amazingly rich and productive summer. The Omaha workshop was an incredible way to start the summer and I received a fantastic performance of The Other Rainbow from Thomas Wilkins and the chamber symphony. After that, I spent two weeks working at the Sarasota Music Festival before I headed to Aspen, CO for the composition masterclass program, and that was another amazing experience. Below you can see the premiere of my 2010 work, Oneironaut's Journey, written for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, and premiered by Adam Matthes, Paul Dwyer, Sean Connors, David Friend, with Sydney Hodkinson conducting.
After Aspen, I attended the 2010 Conductors Guild Conductor/Composer Training Workshop at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, where my orchestral work, Aerodynamics, was performed by the superb festival orchestra twice on the "In the Works" concert with conductors Christopher Lees and Jordan Smith. This August 4th concert will be broadcast on KUSP on September 14th and streamed online on KUSP.org. In early September, I will also post recordings from the UBS music festival in Lexington, Kentucky.
5/7/10: I added another trip to my summer plans: I was selected, along with four other composers, to participate in the Omaha SymphonyNew Music Symposium, a workshop and performance with the Omaha Chamber Symphony that will happen June 1-3, with Joseph Schwantner in residence. My work, The Other Rainbow, was selected, and it will receive its first professional performance on June 3rd. It was originally written for the New York Youth Symphony as a First Music commission in 2005.
Also, I posted the recording of White on White for clarinet and piano from David Snyder's master's recital on March 29th. Click on the title on my solo music page to listen to it.
4/2/10: I'll be adding another trip to my itinerary this summer. I was one of three composers chosen for the Cabrillo Music Festival Composer-Conductor workshop in Santa Cruz, CA, in the beginning of August. Aerodynamics will be performed on an "in the works" concert on August 4 by members of the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, conducted by two or three of the conducting participants. I am very much looking forward to working with the composer in residence, Jennifer Higdon, and the festival conductors, Marin Alsop and Gustav Meyer. For more information on the festival, visit http://www.cabrillomusic.org/
Also, I uploaded the video from my recent performances of Basho Haiku for soprano, percussion and string quartet (finished January 2010) at the University of Michigan Museum of Art and embedded it at the end of this entry. A recording of my other 2010 composition, White on White, for clarinet and piano will be posted soon.
3/3/10: After the two performances of Time Lapse with the ACO, I was lucky enough to have a third performance less than a month later with the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, with Dana Sadava conducting. For this performance, I created a version of the piece for double winds and 4.3.3.1. brass to allow some of the larger textures to be more expansive. This performance, on February 25, went extremely well, and a recording is posted on my Time Lapse page.
My plans for this summer are becoming clearer. I will be working at the Sarasota Music Festival during the first three weeks of June, after which I will be heading to the Aspen Music Festival Composition Masterclass Program until July 23rd. There I will work with Christopher Rouse and Steven Stucky and will receive a premiere of a new chamber work as well as an orchestral reading. Towards the end of August, I will be the composer in residence of the UBS Chamber Music Festival in Lexington, Kentucky, and I will have a premiere there as well.
1/31/10: I just returned to Michigan after a very successful premiere of Time Lapse by the American Composers Orchestra. The rehearsal process was exhilarating and I think the piece came together amazingly well. The New York Times gave a good review, and I will post a recording of the work as soon as I am able to.
