It has just been officially announced that I am one of nine finalists in the Frank Ticheli Composition Competition sponsored by Manhattan Beach Music. How cool is that?! The actual winners will be announced in about week “1 minute to Midnight” on March 15th. For each of the two categories, there is a 1st place, a 2nd place, and a 3rd place. That gives me a 33% chance being one of the winners. How much cooler could it get?But wait, it gets even cooler. Unlike many composition competitions, Manhattan Beach Music is actually giving something back. No, not our scores or just a letter saying “Thank you for entering but…”. They are actually giving every composer who entered the contest a free issue of their recently launched magazine MBM Times AND a free score of Sanctuary personally autographed by Frank Ticheli. Bravo Manhattan Beach. You’ve raised the standard for composition contests. If you sponsor another contest in the future, I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of composers who enter increase dramatically. We love free stuff! And that small token is encouragement and inspiration to many of us. Thank you.

It’s sad how Monday’s can start off with an extra 50 minutes of traffic but end in a beautiful Arizona sunset (thank you very much Phoenix smog!). I’ve been cramming all weekend for 3 tests that I took yesterday and today but now, it’s all downhill. And the best part is, Spring Break is only a few days away.

But it wasn’t all studying. Monday night, I filmed the Dobson Symphonic Band again with the group in more casual clothing.Dan is back from his much-needed vacation to Colorado with Bob Moody and brought his heavy-ass recording rig for tonight’s performance. Thank god I don’t have to run everything at once like the other gig. The midwest application specifies that the recordings and video are not to be edited in any way. So if we can’t edit, we’re gonna make the best damn recording straight up. I think Dan used a total of seven mics (though I lose count) and ran a two track mixdown from his rig straight to my video camera so we get the best possible sound on the video rather than using the onboard mic or even my boom. G was very pleased with the performance. Some of Dobson’s finest. Ever. The midwest guys will never believe that our application is genuine. Dan and G joke that we’ll have to edit it to make it worse (in all modesty, I’m sure). But what was that sexy little number from the Producer’s called? If you got it, flaunt it…… Dan now schedules all of his female appointments at 11 because of that show. Now I’m just rambling.

Well, I’ve still got a lot of work to get done including finishing mvt II of the marching show by tomorrow evening. I’ve got most of it done; I’ve just got to wrap it up. Then, it’s on to mvt III! And endless, endless corrections.

So after class this morning, I hung out with my buddy, Ryan Downey. We were surfing the web and came to my private composition teacher’s website (www.karlschindler.com). Karl’s main work of the past year or two has been putting together a collection of haunting songs based on text from Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology. If you’re unfamiliar with the work, it’s a collection of poems with each poem from the perspective of a character in the fictional town of Spoon River. The cool part is, they’re all dead.

I had the opportunity to see a first production of the 30 minute cycle several months ago and I just noticed that Karl has video now posted on his site. It’s probably been there a long while and I just haven’t noticed. The work is incredibly beautiful and chillingly creepy. Check it out!

The next performance of Karl Schindler’s Ghost Voices: Songs from a Cemetery will be May 9 at Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix, AZ. Also on the concert is the premiere of a new work, Wie die Blätter des Herbstes Herabfallen [As the Autumn Leaves Fall]: The Heiligenstadt Testament, by Kendra D’Ercole. Kendra does some fantastic writing as well~

I’ve also aquired through Downey through a friend of a friend of a friend a recording of joyRiDE live at Carnegie Hall. It’s really awesome to finally hear what was all a blur at the time (bad orchestration or fuzzy memories?). For a time, you can download the recording at the link above. Enjoy!