It occurs to me that in the past three years, in terms of the time it takes to play it, I have composed three hours-worth of music, mostly for large orchestra, including two long symphonies, a full-length orchestral ballet, and a choral Mass. That all totals over a thousand 11 X 17 pages of score and countless hours of work. Maybe the end product is like the small amount of maple syrup you get from many gallons of sap, or like this iceberg.

And again feeling too philosophical, I can see that the ebbs and flows of this music, with its tensions and reposes, very much reflect the rhythms and flow of life. It makes me wonder if life itself is the real piece of music. Perhaps we all “compose” our lives, often by our own choices, sometimes by others’ – for better or worse. Rarely, though, has the music I was writing been in sync with the pace of my real life at the moment I wrote it. One is usually slow and peaceful while the other is fast and crazy.

During these past two weeks, though, life and music have been in sync. Both have been crazy, because I’m now under a deadline to get the ballet music edited and the individual players’ sheet music parts prepared in time for the orchestra to play it in June. Picture me burning the midnight oil in front of these computer screens and hiring someone to mow the lawn. It’s still too cold some days to plant the garden, anyway. I’ve been under deadline pressures several times, though, so I ought to have learned to take it in stride. Once, in the case of finishing the orchestra piece on time that was my doctoral dissertation in composition, I even broke out in hives.

Even Mozart had deadlines, though. My Concerto for Harp and Orchestra was once performed in the great Czech castle in Prague, and during my visit I took a tour of the city. They brought our little tour group to stand on the very spot where Don Giovanni was premiered (Mozart was visiting there from Vienna at the time), and the guide explained that to finish composing the opera, Mozart had to pull an all-nighter in the building next door the night before the premiere! They said the ink was still wet on some of the last players’ parts as they were hand delivered, page by page, to the orchestra moments before the concert, and those players had to sight-read the music at the premiere! I can hear them grumbling. Nowadays, the musicians union would never allow it. They want the parts six weeks in advance.

Nonetheless, one simply must take time for certain things, like writing this blog (which doesn’t take too long) and  celebrating the birthday of my dear wife, and celebrating Easter. The latter two closely coincided this year, and Crystal had a four-day holiday from work, so we celebrated in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and she had a full hot-spring bath and Swedish massage as her present from me. We took a rural hike up and down a mountain and a long walk through a nature preserve having its annual tulip festival (see photo). Upon our return home, we had a lovely birthday dinner with about fifteen friends at a very cool restaurant called Geist.

Last week I finally signed contracts with my record company and its affiliates, Parma Recordings (the parent company) / Navona (their classical label) / Naxos (their distributor), and with the 92-piece European Recording Orchestra. (Eight glorious French horns, count’ em!) We are to record my massive new Symphony No. 3: English on September 7 and 8, for release in early 2025. I had hoped to record the ballet on the same trip to Europe, but alas, that will cost even more, because it requires longer studio rental time than the symphony. That will have to be done on a separate trip later. Still, I’ll be happy to get at least one of these recordings made and happy to be working with Robin Fountain, the same terrific conductor from my last two albums and for the upcoming ballet. I love how Robin uses the orchestra’s time so efficiently on the podium, which is especially crucial when the recording studio clock is ticking.

Behind-the-scenes peek: Our ballet production team is gearing up its publicity, and I’m afraid I’m putting too much of it on Facebook – sorry!  Here is an early iteration of the logo (left) – it might get some tweaks. And next to that, one of the latest set designs from the design team. You can see their drawing here superimposed on an actual photo of the proscenium arch of the 2,500-seat Morris Center where the ballet will be. I think that set will take some impressive carpentry work to build.

That’s all the news I have to share this time, I think. I’ll give a progress report next time and welcome you back to the Hilltop then! Thanks for dropping by! Oh, here are a couple of new costume sketches I snagged from the ballet page: