NeverSummer Orchestra Premiere

On Wednes­day, April 1 “Nev­er­Sum­mer” pre­miered at the Jim Wise The­atre in the Kupfrian Hall of the New Jer­sey Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy in Newark, NJ. Mae­stro Robert W. Butts con­ducted the Baroque Orches­tra of New Jer­sey in a con­cert of new music.

Every com­poser knows it is a rare and won­der­ful expe­ri­ence to have an entire orches­tra pre­miere his or her piece. This piece has had a very long ges­ta­tion, hav­ing orig­i­nally been writ­ten for a small ensem­ble of 4 play­ers, but I could never “get it right.” It turns out that what the piece needed was to be orches­trated, and, at the invi­ta­tion of the con­duc­tor, that’s what I did. Also on the pro­gram were com­po­si­tions by Dr. Butts, Vaclav Kucera, and Ting Ho.

Before my piece was per­formed, I got up to say a few words about the com­po­si­tion. It is named for a moun­tain range in the Col­orado Rock­ies, and the word sim­ply cap­ti­vated me and made me want to rep­re­sent it in musi­cal form.

Here are sev­eral pic­tures from the rehearsal as well as the performance.

The Baroque Orches­tra of New Jersey

Robert Butts con­ducts the rehearsal

The crowd enters the Jim Wise The­atre of NJIT

Richard D. Rus­sell intro­duces his piece as Robert Butts looks on

The per­for­mance