WMV Music Web Log

I finally bit the bullet and sat down for about 12 hours over the weekend to figure out how to scan, correct, and transpose a score using Photoscore and Sibelius. It worked! There was a need: Gary Poster and I are doing a program of songs by African-American composers at the Lithuanian Embassy on September 20, a benefit event involving our artist friend Joyce Ellen Weinstein and Helanius Wilkins' Edgeworks Dance Theater, to bring them all to Europus Parkus in Vilnius. One song by Thomas Kerr (7 pages in length) is just a step too high for Gary's bass voice. I had no previous knowledge of music composition programs, so it was the usual software hell. But I was motivated! Gary and Karyn and Bran came up from Fredericksburg for a rehearsal today, and the songs sound great. One song by Charles Brown is based on a blues song by Blind Willie Johnson. Joyce's art show is up at the Lithuanian Embassy, and Helanius will dance as part of the program. It is open to the public, but tickets are $100, so I don't expect to see many of my friends there. This music software will be quite powerful once I get better at it. I even managed to download Sibelius' Mac version of Kontakt to save the scores as audio files so I can burn them on CD.

Well, the venue we had in mind for DC composers doesn't seem to be working out, but oddly enough the Lithuanian Embassy gig will partly fulfill that purpose - we will do a beautiful song by George Walker. He is a composer I have been eager to perform for years. I have scores for several of his works, including songs, a cello sonata, and especially a really interesting viola sonata. Three violists have turned it down already, but I am still confident that we will perform it when the time is right.

Masatoshi Mitsumoto and I got together to run through the September 11 program without Sally McLain (she's busy until September 1), and I can tell it's going to be exciting. You probably don't know the Piano Trio by Chopin, since it is not in the standard repertoire, but can probably imagine what it is like - there's an awful lot of piano! I figure, why shouldn't I shine once in a while? Reservations are coming in, so I think we'll have a good crowd.