The End of Year One

The spring semester continued to be a crazy one, and since my last post things got worse before they got better. I have been happy with the progress I have made in the ways I approach music as a composer and a thinker, but it seems the more I know, the more I realize I don't know. The end of my first year of grad school was marked by a couple of performances of my pieces on our April composers concert, followed by recording sessions for both pieces a few weeks later. The first was a revised version of my saxophone solo Are You Sure? and the second was the guitar duet, System Break, that I mentioned in one of my earlier posts here. I am extremely happy with how both turned out, and even did a little bit of video editing for both to go with the audio. This summer I can't slow down too much, as I have to finish writing my piano + electronics piece, write a piece for the NouLou Chamber Players that will be performed in November for our New Music Festival, and figure out what I am doing for my thesis next year. There is a lot to do, but all of it is enjoyable, and I am happy to be doing what I am doing.