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September:
Looking forward to concerts in New York and Vermont with fantastic cellist Evan Drachman, sponsored and organized by the Piatigorsky Foundation of which he is the director.

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Recent Concerts, Recordings, and Other Stuff

I'm most busy right now getting ready for my September performances. The month starts out with a bang: two concert tours organized and sponsored by the Piatigorsky Foundation (New York, September 3 and 4; Vermont, September 7–14). Then it's back to New York to rehearse for a high-profile performance in the Times Center with Callisto Ascending, my baroque instrument group. This performance is presented by the Gotham Early Music Scene (GEMS), a new organization formed to promote New York early music—why should Boston have all the fun?

Upcoming items of interest, about which more detail will eventually be posted: the release of Carson Cooman's songs disc on Albany, October 1 — the release of Leland Smith's piano and chamber music disc on Naxos, sometime in November, with a launch concert as part of The Memorial Church at Harvard's Pusey Room Recital Series.

I recently finished my one-year appointment as assistant conductor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, one of Harvard's prestigious undergraduate choruses. My work with them included assisting in the preparation of Bach's Mass in B minor and conducting a set of a cappella music in late April. I can't express how much I appreciated and enjoyed the opportunity to work with such intelligent and committed students—not to mention such fun people.

I've been really busy with some exciting recording projects. In May, I recorded two CDs at the beautiful space formerly known as the Sonic Temple in Roslindale, MA. He had the opportunity to collaborate for the first time with soprano Amanda Forsythe in a recording of song cycles and piano miniatures of Carson Cooman, for fall release on the Albany label. Carson's songs are a particularly sweet part of his output. They aren't tonal, of course, but dissonance is fleeting and expressive, and there's no angst to the settings. The endearing and characterful piano miniatures are mostly from his younger years—they were intended as "pieces for children," but they ended up being too hard for that!

The second disc was even further removed from standard repertoire: piano music of Keith Barnard, who writes music in a quasi-mysterical style. I have to say, after spending some time with the music, I really came around to appreciating the experience of listening to a 55-minute long piece. It sort of reminds me of light reflecting in a slowly rotating prism...

I'm looking forward to the November release (on Naxos) of my recording of piano and chamber works of American composer Leland Smith. (I recorded the disc last fall.) Mr. Smith is primarily known for his work while a computer science professor at Stanford on the SCORE Music Publishing System, commonly considered the first system to notate music on the computer. (Read about my work as a music engraver to find out more about SCORE.) Before he became a computer (and publishing) legend, however, Mr. Smith was a very successful composer—his catalogue, for example, includes an opera written with E. E. Cummings for the San Francisco Opera and a symphony for the Chicago Symphony.

My baroque ensemble, Callisto Ascending, is in the process of planning its upcoming concert season. The group—Katharine Dain and Laurie Rubin, sopranos, Jessica Powell, viola da gamba, and me, harpsichord—performed concerts this past year at the Bruno Walter Auditorium (NY Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center), SUNY-Stony Brook, and churches in Manhattan. Already planned is a residency with the New Amsterdam Boys Choir and the group hopes to organize tour of the East and West Coasts for spring and fall '09. Callisto Ascending is looking forward to exploring several new programs of interesting repertoire this year. Check back for more information soon.

I've continued myactivities as a music engraver, including extensive work for the estate of Leroy Anderson and nearly constant work from Zimbel Press. Check out my music typesetting samples on my music engraving page.