Monthly Archives: August 2007

Get Luke to New York

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Luke Di Somma, a friend of mine, has been accepted into the Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at New York University. He is based in Christchurch and is a fantastic composer and musical director and has many shows to his credit. You can check out his bio at his site, but my point is, for him to get to New York he needs $200,000. Yes, that’s correct. How is he going to get it? That is a very good question.

www.getluketonewyork.co.nz

Go check out his site and read up on all the awesome stuff he has been up to. If you happen to have a spare $200,000 sitting around then make sure you get in touch with him. If you don’t, he would still love to hear your support.

Where to from here…

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Okay so I’m at the stage where a number of projects have now concluded … so what’s next? Well I had a good “getaway” on the weekend – definitely not a holiday though. We went on a two day tramp in the Hunua Ranges and now … I am VERY sore. lol Anyway was good to get out of the city for a bit.

So now I have numerous projects to get back to which I have been dying to get some time for over the last month or so. These include various compositions – some piano pieces, an orchestral work plus revisions to Rakaia and Guardians of the North. Also needing to finish a string arrangement for Rhian Sheehan which will hopefully be leading to some more work, and have another scene coming through to orchestrate from Scott Hunt.

So I’m looking forward to spending some good quality time on these projects over the next few weeks. Stay tuned for ongoing details.

Kristin Symphonia gets Bronze @ KBB Festival

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Hey everyone, well this week one of my orchestras, the Kristin Symphonia, performed at the KBB Music Festival at the Auckland Town Hall. They did very well indeed. There was some interesting acoustic problems going on as the timpani especially was positioned so far away. Generally though they did extremely well … the first movement from Dvorak’s Ninth in particular was superb.

In the end we got a BRONZE award. A little way off gold (we’re saving that for next year) but we are very happy with the result, as it is the first time in the orchestra’s history that they have received an award at the Festival.

It was my first Festival of this type, so listening to the other orchestras and seeing how everything works makes me excited about the prospects for next year.

Rakaia … premiere

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Well well well. This afternoon was the premiere of “Rakaia” and it went very well. I wasn’t playing in it so could really enjoy it. The percussion finally got it all together and sounding fantastic and the strings got (almost) all of their notes in. Everyone gets a little excited as it goes through … including the conductor, so the tempo pushed a little but overall it was fantastic and had heaps of great feedback from the audience.

Rakaia Premiere

Above is a photo of Auckland Symphony during the premiere.

By the way I just want to clarify … it said in the programme that I won the 2006 Young Composer Award. This was in fact not the case, I was commended at these awards. I hope no one is mislead by this. Not sure who wrote my programme bio up.

If any of those reading this went to the concert, I’d love to get your comments and feedback. Please send them through to me here.

I’m looking forward to next week’s concert at the Bruce Mason Centre. For details see the news.

Rakaia … final rehearsals

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Okay so as per my last entry, yes we spent a good amount of time on “Rakaia” on Wednesday night. It was fantastic. Everyone finally got their head around it (… it seemed so anyway). I think many of the players are not familiar with this sort of music, so it has taken a while for things to sit naturally. Technically it is not too challenging but things just do not sit as you may expect as a player. Anyway after that rehearsal I went home a happy composer.

Then … today was the final rehearsal. We ran it twice and it was FANTASTIC!! I am so pleased with how it is sounding. I’ve been pretty pedantic about how I want it, and only today I felt that all of that paid off. Of course on concert day (tomorrow), it will rise to another notch so I can’t wait.

By the way, if any of the members of Auckland Symphony are reading this, then THANK YOU so much. It is sound fantastic and I know a lot of personal practice and perseverance has gone into it. Many many thanks.

Stay tuned for how the premiere went.

Rakaia … rehearsals

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Well we’ve have a few rehearsals now for “Rakaia”. It is definitely coming along nicely. Finally the percussion are getting into it so they are driving it which is fantastic. The violins are getting more notes in every time we play it as well. lol Anyway big rehearsal tonight where hopefully we will be spending heaps of time on it so looking forward to it. Stay tuned …