Head over to New Music Box to check out my blog posts from the Buffalo Philharmonic Earshot readings. You can read post one out of four here. My thoughts on the whole experience are up there to read; to summarize, I’ll just say “orchestration lesson on steroids”. Matt Kraemer and the orchestra did a fantastic job with Bounce, and a big thank you is also due to the folks at the ACO for putting together a amazingly useful week of seminars.

The Trio Chiaroscuro premiered my new flute, bassoon and piano trio Tudo Bem? Tudo Bom? at the end of January. The title is the Portuguese/Brazilian equivalent of “how you doing?” (he says in his best north-Jersey Tony Soprano accent.) While there are a lot of tightly coordinated rhythmic grooves in Tudo Bem? Tudo Bom?, I wasn’t really going for anything musically Brazilian in the piece…it’s actually inspired by the phone conversations I have with my wife while one of us is traveling; a playful kind of conversational capoiera where we fit all of the minutes of our time with details from our day. Check out the video below (assembled from amateur capoiera footage and a live performance by Trio Chiaroscuro), or click here for more info on the piece.