Wow, I’m really falling behind with these blog posts. But then again, no one really reads them anyway (especially when there aren’t any pictures… like this one). Oh well.

A few months ago, I was contacted by a Masters students at Bowling Green State University, Christopher Baumgartner. He emailed me a few questions about Shadow Rituals and I pretended like I knew what I was talking about, but more importantly sent him a few other references and articles on the piece that would probably explain the ‘inner workings’ of the piece better than I could. Last night, surfing the web, I came across his Masters thesis paper entitled A Performance Analysis of ‘Whirlwind’ and ‘Shadow Rituals,’ Ticheli Composition Contest Award Winning Works in 2007. 

I am always so amazed when I learn about people who are studying that piece and writing about it. So far, I guess this would be the third. Dr. Keith Kinder first analyzed the piece in Manhattan Beach Music’s publication MBM Times #2. Dr. Shelley Jagow wrote about it, disecting the piece even futher, in a chapter of GIA’s Teaching Music Through Performance in Band, Volume 7. And now, Mr. Baumgartner — with his 60-something page paper (granted: half of those pages are dedicated to Jody’s piece, Whirlwind).

Geez. All these doctors and masters writing about my music and here I am without a degree. I’m pathetic.