Here’s a real live music video for you, made during the recording session with cellist Inbal Segev for Agita a couple of years back. Jump cuts; jump scares, even! See me put my hand inside the piano and take it back out again.
Molto agitato
Individual tickets for my February 23rd Carnegie Hall recital just went on sale today. Get ’em while they’re hot.
A brief note to say that I’ve just put up a 2023–24 season calendar, which includes a few rather exciting things. As usual, more to come as dates are confirmed.
Are you writing from the heart?
Above, the view from the music table during Illinois tech. The show opens Friday; things are sounding and looking stupdendous. It’s been a joy to spend time immersed in this music, with these people. If you missed your chance at tickets for this month’s run at Bard, never fear: future productions are materializing, including one in Chicago this winter.
I’ve had to tear myself away for a few days for a long-postponed jaunt to Britt Festival in Jacksonville, OR. I’ll join Teddy Abrams and the Britt Festival Orchestra for a performance of The Blind Banister on Thursday.
Sufjan Springs Eternal
I’m very pleased to help trumpet the announcement of Sufjan Stevens’s new album Reflections, a two-piano ballet score that I recorded with Conor Hanick. The brilliant video above, directed by Brian Paccione, is a performance of the first track, Ekstasis. The full album is out May 19.
In other Sufjan-related news, I’ve created new arrangements and orchestrations for his 2005 album Illinois, which has been choreographed in its entirety by Justin Peck, premiering June 23 at Bard Summerscape.
That’s all he wrote
Happy new year. In an heroic act of procrastination from writing, I’ve made a new subsection of this site listing the various things I’ve written about music over the years. Thanks to all the artists and record labels who have asked me to write about their recordings; doing so always teaches me new ways to listen and think about music.
The Hornet’s Nest
I’m very pleased to present my new work for natural horn quartet, Loud Ciphers. The piece is somewhat atypical in that it was composed, recorded, filmed, and released over the course of just a month—a rare instance of immediate gratification in the usually glacial world of commissioning new work.
The piece was commissioned and performed by the extraordinary young natural horn specialist Isaac Shieh, who I was introduced to by Nico Muhly (thanks, Nico!). The above performance seems all the more remarkable with the knowledge that it was made during the past week’s intense European heat wave.
Here’s a bit more about the piece, and you can also purchase scores and parts.
Johannes Moser’s new album Alone Together is out, which includes my eight-cello piece Ogee alongside many other new and exciting works with multiple electric cellos.
UPDATE, 6/16/22: everything in the store should be up and running smoothly. As always, please let me know if you think something is not as it should be. I may even reward you with a “bug bounty.”
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A quick word of advice for those of you here to purchase scores: the Andres & Sons Bakery shop is in the midst of a transition to a new backend service, which should be completed in the next week. In the meantime, you may find that certain pieces are unavailable; rest assured our crack team of webmasters is on the case. For urgent inquiries, please contact the bakery. Thank you for your patience.