Notices about upcoming concerts that include my music.
Clarinetist Jessica Speak and guitarist Troy Gifford will reprise their premiere performance from last year of my Samba Variations, this time on September 17 at 3 p.m. at Stetson University’s Lee Chapel / Elizabeth Hall. This is part of a larger program of music that includes pianist Hannah Sun.
3:00 p.m., Lee Chapel, Elizabeth Hall
421 N. Woodland Blvd., DeLand, FL 32723
(386)-822-8950
Admission is free.
The 16-voice ensemble VoxO, directed by Claire Hodge and joined by pianist Libby Chippeaux, violinist Julia Gessinger, cellist Jamie Clark, and harpist Haley Rhodeside, presents a first-of-its-kind program ever heard in Orlando: regional or world premieres of choral works written entirely by living Central Florida composers.
The works in this program explore the depths of the emotional and spiritual human experience, from the Korean lullaby Jajang-ga by ChanJiKim to Alex Burtzos’s setting of Shakespeare’s Come Away, Death. New spiritual works set in Latin, like Brandon Martin’s Ave Maris Stella, Stan Cording’s Exaudi Me, and Alan Gerber’s Ubi Caritas, complement the secular deeply poetic expression found in works like Troy Gifford’s Like Water, Chaz Underriner’s Forget Sleep, and Charlie Griffin’s In After Time.
The singers of VoxO are:
Sopranos: Pam Armitage, Jenni Ayers, Brittany Payne, Stephanie Rosario
Altos: Ashley Duvé, Alice Fortunato, Jennifer Hunt, Corrie Shaw
Tenors: William Ayers, Michael Clossey, Larry Fortunato, Enrique Ynaty
Basses: Michael Andrew Creighton, Jason Ernst, Linden Gould, Andrew V Smith
Saturday, September 16 · 7pm EDT
Harriett’s Orlando Ballet Centre
600 North Lake Formosa Drive Orlando, FL 32803
Many, many thanks to The Awesome Foundation for their support of this project, along with Full Sail University, University of Central Florida, Valencia College, Track Shack, and Tom Dyer.
Experience the adventurous spirit and wide-eyed wonder of childhood through music as Orlando Contemporary Chamber Orchestra partners with 16-voice sensation VoxO for “Through a Child’s Eyes.” This exciting concert features five world premieres that contemplate life’s joys and sorrows from a youthful perspective.
Let William Blake’s poetic ode “A Cradle Song” transport you to a place of innocence shielded from life’s harshness. Feel the liminal space between dreaming and waking in Ella Higginson’s mystical “Dawn.” Learn music’s magic alongside Robert Louis Stevenson’s whimsical verses. Marvel at the child-like visual poetry of e.e. cummings’ imaginary world where effortless love reigns in Charlie Griffin’s setting of who knows if the moon’s a balloon, rearranged specifically for VoxO at the request of their director, Claire Hodge. Grieve a child taken too soon yet find resilience in his spirit with Abby Henkel’s setting of Mary Craig’s elegiac “Perigee.” Dance with shorebirds on sandy shores through the playful lens of “Gymnopedie.” And wander in awe through a meadow’s symphony of shimmering lights.
Under the direction of Todd Craven (OCCO) and Claire Hodge (VoxO), this imaginative program will be performed on September 9 at 8pm at the Alexis and Jim Pugh Theater of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. Experience choral music anew as “Through a Child’s Eyes” offers a kaleidoscope of perspectives, allowing you to reconnect to life’s beauty.
Blue Bamboo Center For The Arts — 1905 Kentucky Ave, Winter Park, FL. Saturday, August 19, 2023 @ 8PM. Tickets are $25.
Experience contemporary chamber music at its finest when Performing Arts Matter presents the Orlando Contemporary Chamber Orchestra and Central Florida Composer Forum in “OCCO Deconstructed: Landscapes of Shadow and Light.” Hear music by award-winning composers performed by small ensembles of OCCO’s outstanding musicians.
The program includes Alex Burtzos’ “King | Cawdor,” depicting the emotional turmoil of political power; Sharon Omens’ “Thoroughfare,” contrasting urban loneliness and natural connectedness; Troy Gifford’s energetic string quartet works “Lumina” and “Lacerta”; Dan Crozier’s haunting “Nocturne” for cello and piano; and Christian Yom’s “Sansori,” merging traditional Korean music and lush strings. The evening concludes with Charlie Griffin’s “Cambiando Paisajes,” a piano trio work inspired by Latin rhythms.
With passionate performances and thought-provoking new music, this evening of shadow and light is not to be missed. Experience contemporary music as it was meant to be heard – live on stage.
The performers for this event are:
Jamie Clark – Cello
Nora Lee Garcia – Flute
Julia Gessinger – Violin
Elliot May – Bass
Haley Rhodeside – Harp
Jazmin Skipper – Bassoon
Jessica Speak – Clarinet
Hannah Sun – Piano
Anabel Tejada – Viola
Andreas Volmer – Violin
The Orlando Contemporary Chamber Orchestra launches its 2022 summer concert season in partnership with the Central Florida Composers Forum, (CF2) with each concert featuring a premiere by a local composer member of CF2. The first concert of the series is called To There From Here, and features my Looking Up in Perfect Silence at the Stars, an 18-minute work for 18-piece chamber orchestra, along with David Wilborn‘s Rhapsody for Bass Trombone and Chamber Orchestra (featuring the composer on bass trombone), and Kyle Throw‘s Myth and Dreams.
The concert will take place at Harriet’s Orlando Ballet Centre (600 N Lake Formosa Drive in Orlando) on June 18 at 7pm. Tickets are $25 and are available here.
PRELUDES AND SERENADES — New Music for Piano
Friday, October 1, 2021 – Timucua Arts Foundation
2000 South Summerlin, Orlando, FL 32806.
at 7:00 PM and 8:30 PM
Tickets $20/$10 students, veterans, Timucua & CFCF members
Pianists Will Daniels, Rose Grace, and Barry Snyder perform a striking and stimulating program of new music by local composers.
Join us for the Central Florida Composers’ Forum’s fall concert, which will present new music for piano by local composers. Pianists Will Daniels, Rose Grace, and Barry Snyder perform a striking and stimulating program of music by ChanJi Kim, Keith Lay, Troy Gifford, Stan Cording, Charlie Griffin, Jamie Wehr, Erik Branch, and Alex Burtzos.
There are two performances of this program, one at 7 PM and one at 8:30 PM.
Tickets available at:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/preludes-and-serenades-new-music-for-piano-in-person-tickets-166806656199 (to attend in person)
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/preludes-and-serenades-new-music-for-piano-live-stream-tickets-169003145959 (for the livestream)
Phase Variations is a five-movement set of variations for solo piano that uses as its theme Steve Reich’s classic and seminal 1967 minimalist masterpiece for two pianos, Piano Phase. This was Reich’s experiment with replicating a bug/feature of tape recorders whereby slight differences in the play speed mechanisms between two machines would incrementally create phasing between them over time. The germinal material of Reich’s Piano Phase is a stark twelve-note motive that, in the original, is played in unison rhythm by two pianists that are then asked to phase apart just like two tape recorders would do. This is “process” music at its finest.
In Phase Variations, the Reich theme emerges by the end of the first variation. Each subsequent variation dresses the theme in different ways, as variations do, and ends with a process-derived variation of my own. The finale, which follows the fourth variation without break, is a toccata whose rhythmic patterning is based on the famous Fibonacci sequence. This is a growth pattern seen in nature based on a series in which each number is the sum of the previous two numbers.
The international musicians of the Fernwood String Quartet perform a program of world-premieres by acclaimed composers working in Central Florida. The program promises to be a buffet of styles and moods from some of the best known composers living and working in the Orlando area. Alex Burtzos’s OMAHA (all the things you could be you are you were) is a piece about memories – their creation, retention, and ultimate dissolution. Troy Gifford’s Lumina is a lyrical and gorgeous serenade. Charlie Griffin’s Billing’s Portrait pays tribute to the father of the American choral tradition in a set that reimagines three of William Billings’ best known pieces, including the fiery Let Tyrants Shake. These and other new and refreshing works will be brought to perfect life in a way that only the masterful Fernwood Quartet can.
Personnel:
Julia Gessinger, violin
Andreas Volmer, violin
Daniel Cortes, viola
Hanrich Claassen, cello
Program:
Five Miniatures, Austin Ashe
OMAHA, Alex Burtzos
Gigue, Stan Cording
Shock of Waking, Jim Croson
Lumina, Troy Gifford
Minimalist Madness, Joseph Gray
Billings Portrait, Charlie Griffin
Unfortunately Not A Samba, Jamie Wehr
There will be two performances on that day: One at 7pm, and one at 9pm.
The concerts will take place at the Alexis & Jim Pugh Theater. Designed to seat 300, the Pugh will be rearranged with just 82 seats in a cabaret-style setup, with tables in the front and additional seating in the back. This socially distanced seating and the rest of the Dr. Phillips Center’s extensive COVID protocol offer you the safest indoor arts experience possible.
This performance is a Covid-interrupted one and has been switched to live social distancing and a simultaneous online stream. I composed Two Songs from a Sinking Ship as part of this institutional collaboration between Central Florida Composers Forum and Burrow Press.
The James Madison University School of Music presents the JMU Percussion Ensemble (Casey Cangelosi, director) on Friday, February 7, 2020 at 8 pm at The Forbes Center for the Performing Arts.
Program:
Chain by Kazunori Miyake; Away Without Leave by Bob Becker; Inventions on a Motive by Michael Colgrass; Departures by Emmanuel Séjourné; The Persistence of Past Chemistries by Charles Griffin; Ogoun Badagris by Christopher Rouse; Earth and The Great Weather by John Luther Adams; and Beneath by Caleb Pickering.
Wednesday, January 29.
The Abbey – 100 S. Eola Drive, Suite 100, Orlando FL
Show starts at 7:30pm, doors open at 7:00pm
$15 in advance, $20 at the door
What happens when six composers from the Central Florida Composers Forum collaborate with six storytellers from the Orlando Weekly “Best of 2019” Orlando Story Club on a predetermined theme? The result is “Joyland,” a one-of-a-kind and first-of-its kind event in Central Florida, produced by the Downtown Arts District. Storytellers will perform compelling personal experiences accompanied by original scores by local composers. The stories and styles are as diverse as our city.
The pairs are as follows: Bobby Wesley with Mark Piszczek; Jesse James with Charlie Griffin; Logan Anderson with Erik Branch; Madeline Potts with Paul Austin Sanders; Daniele Ziss with Alex Burtzos; and Aquanza Cadogan with Holly Cordero.
The storytellers will perform with live music by players drawn from the local Alterity Chamber Orchestra, a group known for its dedication to performing contemporary music at the highest levels: Tina Edelstein, flute; Beatriz Ramirez, oboe; Jessica Speak, clarinet; Kathy Thomas, horn; and Christian Eberle, bassoon.
