June in Review

The lineup from the June 4 concert

June was a busy month! On June 4, my music production company, Composite Chamber Players, put on our second concert, this time of vocal music at Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill, MA. The program included works by 5 living composers, including myself, plus Brahms’s Zwei Gesänge, Op.91. Thanks to Nina Gojcaj for performing my Three songs for Mezzo Soprano and to Alec House-Baillargeon for performing my song “Entreaty.”

From June 14–22, I was at the Walden School Creative Musicians Retreat for the eighth consecutive year. CMR is always a wonderful time to connect with other composers and performers, learn new repertoire, and workshop pieces. 

At CMR, I was fortunate to have Sarah Riskind and the festival choir work on a choral piece of mine, “A Winter Twilight.” The text is by Angelina Weld Grimké, a poet and playwright widely anthologized during the Harlem Renaissance (if you’re not familiar with her, see this fascinating biography by the Academy of American Poets). I also sang with/accompanied the chorus for two other pieces, played two preludes for piano by Loretta Notareschi, and participated in performances of Terry Riley’s “In C” and George Lewis’s “Artificial Life.” I’m already looking forward to next year’s festival!

Coming up: 2 weeks at the Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, from July 19 to Aug. 2. I’ll be working on a piece for solo clarinet.