Later this week I’ll venture up to Binghamton, NY for a concert and workshop presented by the local chapter of the American Guild of Organists. The program features some of my favorite pieces, covering a wide variety of style. The next morning, we’ll gather for a workshop presented by yours truly on economy in music (to borrow a term I first heard from David Hurd). Our discussion will cover practical topics including rehearsal and practice efficiency, great hymn playing at the foundational level, and economical registration, among many others, leading to more philosophical discussions on how we can use this approach to influence our lives as artists. I hope you’ll join us for one or both of these events!
Friday, 18 October 2019; 7:30pm. United Presbyterian Church, Binghamton, NY. Bryan will give a recital sponsored by the Binghamton Chapter of the American Guild of Organists that features the Guilbault-Thérien organ. Details are forthcoming and a program can be found here.
Saturday, 19 October 2019; 9:30am. United Presbyterian Church, Binghamton, NY. Bryan will present a workshop: Economy in our Musical Lives. Open to the public.
The orchestra is already back at work after an exciting performance of Mendelssohn and Beethoven. This week, my colleague Bryant Denmark and I are conducting the Mannes Orchestra in a performance of works by female composers associated with Mannes – one of them, Kim, a current student! I will lead her piece in its world premiere performance along with the Beyer. These are wonderful works and I hope you’ll join us Monday for another afternoon performance.
Monday, 7 October 2019; 3:00pm. Tishman Auditorium, The New School, New York, NY. Bryan conducts the Mannes Orchestra with his colleagues in a performance featuring works of Johanna Beyer, Ruther Crawford Seeger, and Haeyun Kim. Free and open to the public. Details are here.
This week is my first week back conducting the Mannes Orchestra with my colleagues in the conducting studio. Today (Friday) we present our first performance at 2:45pm in Tishman Auditorium. I’ll be leading the orchestra in the Overture and Scherzo of Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, an incredibly brilliant piece that we’re so excited to share with you. Following this my colleagues will continue on through Beethoven’s great Eighth Symphony. I hope you’ll join us!
Friday, 27 September 2019; 2:45pm. Tishman Auditorium, The New School, New York, NY. Bryan leads the Mannes Orchestra alongside his colleagues in a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 in F Major and selections from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Free and open to the public. Details are here.
I’m writing this update from Buffalo, NY; it’s my first visit to the city and I’m excited to share the news with you from whence it originates. This is the first week in a new position for me: Julius Rudel Conducting Fellow at the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. My duties include assisting music director JoAnn Falletta and guest conductors in preparation for concerts and events at the BPO, cover conducting for these concerts, and learning about the administrative operations of the orchestra. JoAnn and everyone at the BPO have been so welcoming to me this week; I can’t wait to continue working with them this season and hope it’s the beginning of a lasting relationship.
Should you ever be in Buffalo, I hope you’ll go hear this great orchestra perform (in their wonderful concert hall)!
At the end of the summer, Robert McCormick asked if I would arrange Charles Wood’s Mass in F for string quartet, harp, organ, and choir. The project took about two weeks and what a rewarding process it has been! Wood’s music lends itself well to additional part-writing and it’s been a personal joy to bring together my orchestra and choir lives to write something for strings and choir.
The choir parts were to be left unaltered, but everything else was up for grabs. I used Wood’s language and notes to create a new accompaniment shared between the instruments. Although the score is not particularly “orchestral” in that it’s not always obvious Wood was imagining an orchestration of the piece, I tried to get in his head and imagine how he might score something similar. Of course there were some obvious imitative sections which wrote themselves such as the harp arpeggios in the Sanctus and string quartet writing in the Benedictus.
I can’t wait to hear this piece performed on Christmas Eve at Saint Mark’s and am privileged to have helped create it. I hope the new parts bring out the beauty of what Wood composed and draw the listener into the serenity and awe of the Nativity.
More details and a score preview can be found on the compositions page. If you have a use for this score and would like to perform it, please let me know!
