I hope everyone is doing well. 2012 has been a very good year for me so far. Since January, I have had a music premiere or performance every single month.
January: Tad Wind Symphony premiered Metropolis in Tokyo. An honor band in Chicago hosted by St. Xavier University performed Fanfare Della Vittoria.
February: Desert Winds performed Metropolis in Las Vegas.
March: New Mexico State University Symphonic Winds performed both Fanfare Della Vittoria and Metropolis.
April: James Shearer and the La Catrina String Quartet premiered Cauterizing The Soul (tuba and string quartet) in the Great American Tuba Show in Las Cruces, NM. James Shearer and the El Paso Brass Quintet also performed an arrangement of Fanfare Della Vittoria for Organ and Brass on Easter in El Paso, TX.
May: Desert Winds and the Coronado High School band premiered and performed Ballad For Winds at two seperate concert events in Las Vegas.
June: The Edge of Texas Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Barbara Lambrect, will perform both Fanfare Della Vittoria and Dreams of Flight on their concert in El Paso, TX.
Future projects, you ask?
I am currently working on a commission for A.J. Moreno: a 6-mallet marimba and 10 voice choir based on the poem The Bells by Edgar Allen Poe. I am also constructing and sketching out Symphony #1 for Winds. It is my first time attempting anything of this scope, but I feel I have enough material to get started. Wish me luck. So far I have one group in bids for the premiere. Any one else?I am also adapting my Mad Hatter Suite into a Wind Ensemble work for St. Xavier University thanks to my friend, Jeff Maleki.
I feel fortunate enough to have all of these things going on but the fact is I am still not where I need to be. I want to wake up every morning and compose. I want it to be my main source of income. But how? What am I doing wrong? What am I missing? I wish my pieces had more exposure, I wish I had more commissions, I wish I wish… I wish I did not have to have a regular job to get by, because it is affecting my creative mind and I sometimes just want to crash and sleep instead of do my writing. Who has the solution? Are you out there? Are you reading this?