I just learned that Andrew Litton is going to perform “Redline Tango” with the Minnesota Orchestra this summer. (That’s the original version, of course, not the band version.) Woo hoo!

Litton’s performances of the piece with the Dallas Symphony last summer were unbelievable. He told me then that if I made the piece look a little simpler on paper — just clarifying notation, not changing the actual music — for example, changing 12/16 bars to 3/4 — that he’d do the piece again. I ended up taking the changes I made when I wrote the wind version and transcribed those back into the orchestra version. So, now the orchestra version is a transcription of the band version which is a transcription of the original orchestra version. It’s like playing that game Telephone. Pretty soon, the piece will sound completely different. (Maybe it’ll end up sounding like this if I’m not careful.) Anyway, the changes made enough of a difference, it seems, as he’s stuck by his word!

More details to come — as soon as I get ’em! All I know now is that the performance will be at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, sometime in late July. (Will it still be snowing then in Minneapolis?)