New head, wish me luck.

First time, a little scared.

The hotest dance company in town, literally.

Limon Motor

Last night, I received this lovely video from Sydnie Mosley. My connection with this project was a new experience for me: a musician transcribed a solo piano performance of mine and played it live for this concert. The track, "Limon Motor", was originally composed around 10 years ago for the Jose Limon Company. I used chord changes from a Schubert song and the framework of a piano technique exercise to build the piece. It is "hand exercise" that practices distinction between outer melodies and inner harmony. I pick any chord changes or a jazz standard and move through them slowly as an improvisation. My first summer at ADF, I took 7 minutes to play through "All the Thing You Are" during the musicians concert. Mark Haim approached me that summer and aksed me to work on his new piece for the Jose Limon Company. The music was often performed live and it would change from night to night.

Thanks and good luck to Sydnie. Her piece is entitled, "A Side of the World for a Canvas" and is part of her MFA Thesis work at the University of Iowa. The performance was held at the Space Place Theater - Iowa City, IA - April 2, 3 & 4. Limon Motor starts around 5:40 in the video, enjoy!

A Side of the World for a Canvas from Sydnie Mosley on Vimeo.

Margaret Morris Movement

After 5 recording sessions and hours of editing/mastering, two CDs of music to accompany the movement of Margaret Morris are complete. The project was led by Odette Blum, a scholar of Labanotation. I had a great time recording the beautiful Steinway in Weigel Hall, played by Chein-Hui Wong. This work will help preserve both the music and movement concepts of Margaret Morris. I am very proud to have been asked to be a part.

Odette is traveling to Scotland to continue developing the project.

ADF 2009

Kegwin and Company

Monsters vs. Aliens

I recently floated $13 across a counter to purchase a ticket for Monster's vs. Aliens. The whole experience made me think of riding my bike down to 7-eleven to pick up the red and blue glasses for Captian Eo. It is awesome to watch images that match the shape of the sound. Lately, I have been tooling around with more 360 degree audio environments, in Logic. Seeing this movie reminded me that ACCAD is a 2 minute drive from my office and I will be heading over there again real soon. I did bump into one of the senior music faculty at OSU, Marc Ainger.

History of Education

This video was created by Sean Layne, Focus 5 Inc. and sent to me last night. It briefly describes the history of education in the United States and the importance of arts integration within our current approach to schooling. I found the short clip, which will be used by Kennedy Center's Education Department, very touching. Thanks Sean.

Silhouettes of People There

This is an excerpt of a larger work from Dancer/Choreographer Jess Wontropski. We had never met before she emailed me earlier this year requesting permission to choreograph along with some of my music. Jess used a collection of my tracks to score the entire piece and I was really pleased with her new work. Thanks again to all of you who continue to keep my music alive with fresh movement.

Social Climb Part 4

I received this video from Daryl Cooley recently. He choreographed a lovely duet to a piece of my music, "Social Climb Part 4". I wrote the score for "Social Climb" almost 10 years ago for Lisa Race. Ironically, we never ended up using this music in the final version of the dance. I liked the section and decided to hold on to it for the future.

It is a very delightful, and sometimes humbling, experience when a choreographer will choose to create a new work using an old composition of mine. Thanks again Daryl.