The concert is the annual New Music from Mannes Faculty and Alumni. Also on the concert are compositions from Carol Bevan, Wendy Griffiths, Faye Ellen Silverman, Jonathan Bell, and Andrij Legkij.

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Pamela Stein, soprano

Today the New Jersey Daily Record offers a sneak peek at this Sunday‚Äôs Seasonal Sunday Salon “Edgar Allan Poe” concert. No, Andrew Pecota and I did not co-write a piece, but we both have pieces on the concert. The centerpiece of Sunday’s concert is a new mini-opera by Robert W. Butts based on Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart.


The article can be read here.

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Soprano Marjorie Berg sang my “The Tune is in the Tree” in a special chamber music arrangement, and soprano Pamela Stein sang “When Time is Over.” Aaron Dai was the day’s accompanist. A fantastic reception followed, and we are all looking to our July 25 concert, “Songs of a Sultry Summer.” For more details on that concert (and more pics), go to In Mid Air Productions. For now, here are several pics from the Emily Dickinson concert. (Click to enlarge.)

Jessica Castro as Emily Dickinson

soprano Pamela Stein with Richard Russell. She sang “When Time is Over”

soprano Marjorie Berg with Robert Butts, conductor, performing “The Tune is in the Tree”

Richard Russell, Marjorie Berg, Bud Masters at the reception

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Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

My friend Haim Avitsur participated in a performance of “Orbits” for 80 trombones, soprano, and organ. (Haim was not the soprano, and he doesn’t play the organ!) The piece is by Henry Brant (1913–2008) and was performed at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

In a New York Times review of the concert, the critic Anthony Tomassini writes that Brant

…regarded space as the fourth dimension of music, along with pitch, time and timbre.

As you can see from the picture, the space of the Guggenheim is quite an evocative arena to make use of space as a compositional element! I have argued in my audio podcast that the “missing element” of music is form, but I thought I would toss this in — space — as another possible element of music for composers to consider experimenting with.

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A little bit of trivia: Tiffany performed the premiere of this piece way back in 2002 when it was written with piano accompaniment! Many thanks for keeping this piece going all these years.

The concert was an impressive mix of older and newer material, including a few songs by Chopin! I had always heard he wrote a few songs, but had never heard them before.

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If there are obvious errors or oversights in your score, yes, by all means correct them.

But to the question at hand: what about using your own material in fresh, different ways? More and more I learn this is a tried and true technique, and you should definitely consider it.

For instance, my Three Songs of Carl Sandburg was recently performed again, and a request came up to rescore it for soprano and marimba. Well, why not? I’ve come to learn that many very big names in composition reorganize their music to fit the bill, whatever that might be. Something you wrote as a movie theme might become the basis for a symphony, etc.

This is especially useful during any time you feel “stuck” and don’t know what to write. Repurpose your older music for a new venue, and continue to keep writing every day. This will help you keep your discipline and may even lead to some fresh, new inspiration.

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