Welcome to Recital Overload!

Spring Break was great, working on compositions, hanging with friends, brewing my beer, I can't complain. Our Purim party was a great success, involving many unique retellings of the story of Esther. Let's just say mine liberally infused the original tale with some plot elements from Aladdin and the Duck Tales Movie, so it was awesome. Me, Scott and Zane even spent a night in Columbus with Scott's buddy Tony, but now we've entered into the notorious end-of-the-year recital season.
Of course very few people can plan ahead enough to have their recital before spring break, so it's a mad rush for good spots from now until the end of the semester. We've already had a couple undergraduate composition recitals (for Max and Brooks) which were really great, and it made me think of just how different this place is from Bowdoin. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved Bowdoin, but there are so many talented/passionate composers here it just boggles my mind. I love it. And then there are bassoon recitals and harp recitals and piano recitals and so on, it never ends, which I equally love. We go to as many as we can, and I really learn something new from each one.
I had a craving for green beans recently, so I asked for mom's meat/green bean recipe. For a first try, it turned out great!
And let me remind you that this was taken after I served myself an ample first helping. Maybe next time I'll use less green beans, or just a bigger pan. Man it was good though.
Then yesterday was another huge event. The American Pianists Association holds a competition every three years looking for new musicians to parade around, and we've been fortunate enough to have seen most of their concerts over the past year. Don't ask me how, but they commissioned me and nine other Butler composition students, as well as our very own Professor Felice, for 11 3-minute piano pieces, which were performed last night. My piece, entitled "Asiatic Cobra Dance," was played by Igor Lovchinsky, who just blew my mind. Not only did he memorize my entire piece, he played it super fast, and super amazingly. I almost cried. Here's a review from the Indianapolis Star, and here's a nice picture of 9 of us 'posers:
And the obligatory crazy photo:
So yeah, we're all still trying to calm down from last night's craziness. In other news, we've got some graduate composition recitals coming up these next few weeks, and then Schelle himself is having one shortly after mine, which is going to rock. Oh yeah, I put most of the video up from our last Composers Orchestra concert, check it out on youtube.
I think that's it for now. I'm still working on my thesis, and job-hunting, but there's a good chance I'll just hang out here until I'm done with everything and can get my shit together. Can't wait to see everybody in a few weeks!

Spring Break!

The past week and a half has been insane. So many awesome concerts, here's a glimpse of what my life is like:
Thursday, 2/26-Zane, Professor Felice and I perform downtown at IUPUI during their electronic music concert. We perform our Ebow pieces again, my wonderful 'Contracurrency' and Felice's 'Seven by Three.' The performance space was really beautiful:
Plus there was a good crowd, and some other really cool pieces on the program. One piece involved four of the students using wii-controllers as musical instruments, as they were hooked up to a laptop program and creating some really cool loops/sounds.
Friday, 2/27-Zane and I saw the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra downtown. The program included some Copland, Bernstein, Rhapsody in Blue, and a new compostion by a current composer. We enjoyed some pieces better than others, but all in all it was great.
Saturday, 2/28-My roommate Josh and our friend Meredith performed downtown at the Indy Convergence, putting together a show of modern dancing, acting, and even an operetta based on Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater. It was very cool.
Sunday, 3/1-The Romantic composition professor, James Mulholland, had a massive concert of only his pieces. Seriously, it was 2.5 hours of pure Romanticism. Every single piece was about love, no joke. He had some cool moments, but we got the idea after the first 10 minutes. For the big finale, he had the Butler Orchestra, a huge organ, the Butler Choir, Butler Chorus, Kentucky Chorale, and Indianapolis Children's Choir singing his version of America the Beautiful. Jesus Christ it was the biggest thing I've ever seen.
Monday, 3/2-A bunch of Butler composers performed downtown in front of some unsuspecting old people who don't really "get" new music, but are open to the idea of it. Here's Josh on stage as the MC tries to explain why people shouldn't give up on new music, and Professor Felice on the right helps describe why our music is just as valid as anything from two hundreds years ago.
Tuesday, 3/3-Kate Boyd, a piano professor, gave her faculty recital. It included some Beethoven, another Mulholland piece (kill me), and some Chopin. She's great though.
Thursday, 3/5-Composers Orchestra concert, which included my piece for Ensemble 48 called 'Re-Hearse,' which I will try to put on youtube as soon as I transfer the tape to my computer. It also included our improvisation for one guitar, two performers. It was basically me and Zane playing one guitar at the same time, doing some improvisations, then molding into the solo from Stairway to Heaven, then dissolving into more improv, doing the solo from Freebird, then ending with more improv. It was awesome.
We look like an Indian goddess.
There was also a piece we all co-wrote that involved our interpretation of the fourth movement of Ruth Crawford Seeger's famous string quartet, which involved three of us coming on stage with pillowcases over our heads, and duct tape over our mouths and wrists. It was great. And at the end we did our rendition of 'Andy' by Frank Zappa. What a great concert.
Friday, 3/6-Ensemble 48 performed downtown at this big artsy/hipster warehouse. We improvised a soundtrack to 'The Man with the Movie Camera' again, and it was awesome.
Now it's spring break, time to focus on my thesis, my recital, and whatever the hell I'm gonna do after graduation. I brewed my newest batch of beer yesterday, this one's an Irish Stout. It's so dark and scary!
That'll be ready in about a month, hopefully by the time everyone comes for my recital! Oh yeah, and there's our annual Purim Party coming up! I can't wait.