So, here they is.  All recorded between 2006 and 2008 in Somerville MA with nothing but an SM57 and a laptop.  You’ll notice many mistakes and missed notes as well as lots of thing that don’t make sense… I hadn’t really worked em out.

2006-2008 Sketches by keepalive

In June, I’m headed out on the road with the Klezmer Madness, and then back to Chicago for some work in the public schools.  Definitely looking forward to that.  Then it’s back to the kitchen with big man Osvaldo Golijov for some new music involving some of my absolute favorite peeps including MJWB, Jamey Haddad and Kayhan Kalhor.  Needless to say I am honored to be sitting next to these people and it makes me realize that things are good.

be good.

Commissioned by the great James Sommerville - local hero here in Boston, this piece was slated for French Horn, Clarinet, and Bass Clarinet.  Quite an odd mesh of sound, but it works.  James remarked during the concert that he didn’t know of any other pieces for the same instrumentation.  One audience member mentioned that he had a sample on one of his records that was quite close, but I’m not sure how it differed.

In any event, the piece went off quite well, if not for my mistakes, but such is the case when you’re not just pushing play on the laptop (or any other instrument for that matter).  Many thanks to the players James, Steve and Michele - they really dove into my ideas and weren’t scared.   Also thanks to Martin Van de Ven for the photograph.

After that bit of hooliganism, I headed south to Georgia to perform some sweet music from the big man Osvaldo Goljiov.  This time around it was the suite from Youth Without Youth, the film by Francis Ford Coppola.  It was received quite warmly, and I think it finally came of age with help from the brilliant Mr. Spano.

So now it’s back to diaper duty and planning to finish a record of material.  I’m thinking two “sides” with different singers on each side - collaborations… lots of strings.  I don’t know yet.  More details when I get a second to think.

I’m also working on a new piece with Cambridge composer Shirish Korde.  We are doing some really cool things with prerecorded voices and rhythms.  Really looking forward to seeing this one happen.

Adios

I think I have just finished the ending, now It’s just tidying up some horn melodies and then notating the whole thing.  Then I’ll hit it with a scalpel and cut up the parts that aren’t necessary.

woo.

At the moment, I’m trying not to write the piece about the birth of my son, Samuel, but it’s pretty friggin hard.  The event and its aftermath (ie: completely changing my life around to take care of him) has had a pretty big effect on me and how I look at things.  It’s also given me a shorter fuse, which some people might view as a good thing with regard to my music.  I might actually have some shifts of mood all within one piece (which is very weird for me).

Anyway, that’s what’s going on here.  The performance in Canada is scheduled for January 23rd at 10:30 in the evening for all you party people in the Toronto area.  Hopefully it will come out great and there will be more performances of it.  I absolutely love hanging with Jamie, the horn player that commissioned the piece.

I’m in the process now of re-dubbing all the electronic parts so that they can be performed live with the musicians.  This is always an exciting part of the process for me, because I end up changing things at the last minute which is of course not advised.  Somehow I love the uncertainty.

More information about the specifics can be seen at the Chicago Symphony’s website.

You can see photos from my recent performance at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall on facebook if you are a member.   It went very well, and Olga and I have vowed to make it happen again, hopefully with more music.  Keep your eyes peeled.

The pieces is called Three Songs, which is really generic because the three songs are really separate little songs that are meant to stand on their own.  They are for Voice, Guitar, Laptop, Percussion, Piano, 2 Cellos, Viola and Double Bass.  Truly a cool sounding ensemble - I hope y’all can make it out to check it.

We’re using some cool old samples from the WNYC archives to create rhythms, etc.  It’s pretty awesome.

Pimp!

In what little free time I have while I’m out here I have been frantically writing for my piece called Self Destruct which will be performed on the Chicago Symphony’s Music Now series in June.  It’s about prolonged freaking out and how it messes with my head.  I’m also working on the slow movement for the Carnegie Hall commission which to this point has been called Three Songs, but I’m not sure if that will stick.  Big bad Olga Bell found this totally ace poem by Elizabeth Bishop that we’re going to set called Keaton.  It slays me.  In any event, anyone in the Chicago and/or New York City regions, I hope to see you at these performances if you can make it out.

In Other news, I’m off to Europe with the craziest party on stage - David Krakauer’s Klezmer Madness.  If any of you are near Austria, Poland, Swizterland or France, let me know and I’ll hook you up with the infos.  I’ve been working on some beatbox and Videogame inspired jams for this tour - and I’m pretty stoked.  I think it’s going to work well.

So what has happened since then? Well, I went to Hawaii and lived on the ocean for two weeks.  Then I did some consulting work. In October I rocked some Olga Bell Supernovas at Bard College and rekindled a love affair with bowed string instruments.  I also started writing my music down for the first time since music college.  It’s amazing what it does to your thought process - I immediately started thinking too hard about things, trying to be too “clever” and put in notes that were “cool.” Thankfully a night of listening to Low and Lightning Bolt kept me grounded.

I buttoned up some work on Animas Perdidas, the juggernaut of a documetary that my homegirl Monika Navarro made.  It will be coming to an outlet somewhere near you, keep your eyes peeled at animasperdidas.com for up-to-the-minute information.

I’ve landed another sweet gig in film, and will drop more about it when I have more time, suffice to say it is shaping up to be an awesome film.  Right now I’m in NYC rehearsing the Ainadamar circus for a performance in Carnegie Hall on Sunday, then it’s back to Boston for a few weeks of editing work, then recording overdubs for the aforementioned film, then editing and dubbing the film, then a few tours, one off concerts and a couple commissions and the next thing you know it’s July 2009.

Plans are in effect to record a bunch of material that is imploding from the SmOlga project for Carnegie Hall.  I hope to record these songs in Brooklyn in July with an all star cast of associated players.  There are a few of you out there that have been waiting for this shit for years.

So I’ll leave you with the newish track that is posted in the player to the left called “on the cob” … dirty, nasty, slow.  Virtually all of this track is Nord Modular.  I set out trying to make a track without playing one note on a keyboard.  It’s all “virtual analog sequencers” having their controls automated.  I can’t remember the last time I did that.  Ok, ok, ok - /geekout.

ciao