Monday, April 22, 2013

Woah, I have enough super exciting news to justify a newsletter this month too.

ISSUE #2, APRIL 2013 | www.mormolyke.com
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April 22, 2013

Woah, I have enough super exciting news to justify a newsletter this month too.


Oooh, I am so intense. And slightly smirky.Heya! It's only been a month since the last newsletter, so imagine my surprise when I discovered that I have accrued yet more interesting and unexpected musical things to announce.

Newsworthy things:

  • OK, the first thing isn't so unexpected because I spoiled it in the previous newsletter. Tesla's Pigeon is being given its New York premiere by Jessica Lennick and Tim Ribchester  tonight! (That's April 22, in case you're one of those lucky people who isn't compelled to check their e-mail every day.) The free-admission event will be held at Christ & St Stephen's Church (120 West 69th St) in Manhattan at 8PM. If you're in the area, come out and say hi! And I mean that -- come and find me at the show and say hello. Click here for more details.
     
  • Here's a big one that you probably weren't expecting because it was super-secret news up till now: I can officially announce that I have been selected as the 2013/14 composer for the Choral Arts Laboratory held by the award-winning choir Volti in San Francisco. Yay! They'll be flying me out in October to workshop a new commission in progress, which they will premiere next Spring. This is a huge honor, and a rare opportunity to write something truly adventurous for a choral group with mad skills. Trust me, composers don't get chances like this very often.
     
  • A couple of years ago, the super-fun and eclectic new music collective Anti-Social Music premiered a piece I wrote called Handshake that was rejected by a, shall we say, less adventurous ensemble who thought it wasn't Serious enough for them. As in, they wouldn't even read it. Seriously, ASM did a smashing job, and the piece remains one of my favorite of my own compositions, despite the fact that Very Serious Music People are sometimes left scratching their heads. Anyway, earlier this year I wrote a piece for solo violin and "tape" (I don't know why we still call it tape. I don't even remember the last time I even saw a tape.) that falls into the same rough attitudinal category, and ASM will be premiering that on May 9 in Brooklyn. It's called Theme and Variables: Scallops and Bollocks for Tea, and the "tape" portion was made with Nintendo Entertainment System VST instruments and a recreated sample of the first ever computer-generated music: a snippet of the Colonel Bogey March performed by an Australian computer known as CSIRAC. It is Fun.
And of course, as I mentioned in my last newsletter, Tesla's Pigeon is being recorded by the Curtis Symphony next week. And when that's all over, I have an opera to finish this summer. It's a busy time! Here's hoping I get to see you at a concert sometime soon... (like, tonight, if possible).

Cheers,

Melissa Dunphy

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