There haven’t been any updates for a while, but it’s been a busy week. As such, there are fun entries coming up, detailing a recent trip to the Los Angeles County Fair, my birthday dinner, and several days in New York. (One highlight of that trip: meals from chefs Thomas Keller AND Jean-George Vongrichten in the same day.)

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is teaching day, but Thursday, there’ll be a new posting, I assure you. Until then…

As I’ve written in two previous entries, the trip to Michigan State was great — and that was even before the concert. The dress rehearsal last Sunday morning came early (who knew the east coast had a 10am?!), but the group sounded incredible.

I love this picture of the double bass player.

And this one of the low brass. I love the low brass section. When is somebody going to commission a trombone choir piece from me? I’d love to write one of those… Hint. Hint.

The concert included a performance of the William Bolcom “Concert Suite for Alto Saxophone and Band,” performed by MSU’s extraordinary sax teacher, Joseph Lulloff. He sounded amazing both at 10 in the morning…

… and at the concert that afternoon.

As I mentioned before, William Staub did an absolutely beautiful job with my new piece, “Turning.” That piece is terribly difficult (I think it’s my most difficult piece to pull off effectively), starting with the extreme trombone rip on the first downbeat, and going through the dynamic extremes ranging from “pppp” to “ffff” (often within the same bar) until the whole thing ends on an extremely quiet, sustained chord bitonal chord with a waterphone ringing on top. Shaping this piece is a huge challenge, and Bill was wonderful. I can’t wait to receive the recording so I can post it.

Kevin Sedatole conducted the hell out of “Redline Tango,” giving one of the best performances I’ve ever heard of the piece. As I wrote before, the Eb clarinet player in particular was incredible.

After the concert, the Sedatoles hosted a very nice reception at their home.

The olives were especially good.

Here’s my little plate of tasty reception treats — couscous, bacon-wrapped chicken (everything is better wrapped in bacon), little crab puffs, and a pork tenderloin sandwich. Kevin had gotten up before sunrise to grill the pork long before that morning dress rehearsal. It was pretty spectacular.

There was also a wide selection of desserts, including one of my favorites — carrot cake with cream cheese icing. Major points for Kevin on this one.

Mighty tasty.

After the reception, I went out for drinks with several of the MSU students. We went to Old Chicago, a pizza place that has something called the “World Beer Tour” — a program that encourages people to drink 110 different beers (not in one sitting). Somehow, Doug reached this milestone on that night.

What do you get for drinking 110 beers, each averaging probably $6? Well, for your $600+ expenditure, you get… a sweatshirt. (I think he also gets his name on the restaurant’s Plaque of Young Drunkards. Not sure they call it that, but I think it’s close. Oh to be young and in college…)

We were all very excited for Doug and toasted him enthusiastically. Here, Bill Staub tops off his own beer. Cheers to you, too, Bill!

The Eb and bass clarinetists were a little less enthused about having photographic evidence that they were part of this festive evening.

It was a great trip, from the first day of rehearsals, through the visit to the CHRISTmas store in Frankenmuth, to the concert (and post-concert festivities) on the last day. My sincere thanks to Kevin and his whole crew for an awesome trip — and a phenomenal concert.

Oh, and the bacon-wrapped chicken was great, too.

Back in March, I had possibly the best premiere performance I’ve ever had — and it was by a group of high school musicians. The recording of the premiere, of a new piece called “Kingfishers Catch Fire,” is now available on this page.

The work is two movements, lasting around 12 minutes. From the (current – but likely to be revised) program note:
A “kingfisher” is a bird with beautiful, brilliantly colored feathers that look in sunlight as if they are on fire. Kingfishers are extremely shy birds and are rarely seen, but when they are seen, they are undeniably beautiful.
The first movement, “Following falls and falls of rain,” is suspended in tone, but with hope, depicting the kingfisher slowly emerging from its nest in the early morning stillness, just after a heavy rain storm. The second movement, “Kingfishers catch fire,” imagines the bird flying out into the sunlight.
The work features optional antiphonal trumpets placed behind the audience. The trumpet solo in the first movement is played from the back of the hall, and the trumpet flourishes in the second movement are played by the antiphonal trumpet choir. You may catch the reference to Stravinsky’s “Firebird” at the end of the piece.

Ha! Get it? A kingfisher is a bird that looks like it’s catching fire – so I referenced (but didn’t quote) Firebird. What’s more brilliant than a musical pun?! Okay, it’s not especially clever, but it works well in the context of the piece, I think. Or at least I hope.

The slow movement is unusual for me because — well, it’s slow. Not a lot of Mackey slow music out there. The fast movement is unusual — again, for me — because it’s not driven by percussion, the meter changes are relatively straight-forward, and it’s really, really happy. And not the kind of happy where I get all cynical about how happy the piece is. No, it’s just happy.

I posted the recording (have you ever heard a high school group sound like this?! Japan is something else) as well as the PDF of the score. Enjoy!

Oh, and if you want to hear the piece live and you live in Texas — big news! The Texas 5A All-State Symphonic Band (that’s the top group!) is performing the piece, under the baton of Thomas Lee, at TMEA in February. Until then, though, this recording will do just fine.

(Don’t worry; that’s not a kingfisher. It’s a chicken at the LA County Fair. There’s a picture of a kingfisher on the Kingfishers Catch Fire page, but I didn’t take the photo, and what’s a blog entry without an original photo?! And there will be plenty more LA County Fair pictures to come…)

(Maybe I should do a series of bird pieces. Kingfishers Catch Fire… Chickens Catch Salmonella… I can practically smell the dollar signs.)