Back in the Fall, I blogged about an amazingly fun project that I’ve been writing juicy, fully orchestrated and grandiose scores for (albeit with cheese-ball MIDI sounds) called Voyage Trekkers. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the web series, to oversimplify, imagine a Star Trek meets Star Wars meets Galaxy Quest meets Arrested Development space-fantasy where the politically incorrect and error-prone Voyage Trekkers crew keeps messing up space-missions and putting their own space-priorities before the space-well-being of others. To better illustrate this, watch one of my favorite episodes — called Birthday Surprise — from Season One (it’s less than 3 minutes long):

Since the release a few months ago, the project has received an amazing amount of support and enthusiasm here in Arizona and now writer/director Nathan Blackwell is plotting the misadventures of the crew for Season Two. Among one of the more exciting things to show up in the second season is the desire to build a spaceship “bridge.” You know, a bridge — it’s that cool room where all the action takes place, where the captain sits and gives space-orders, and where all the cool 1970’s computer-y junk is.

Well, that said, cool “bridges” don’t come cheap which is why the Voyage Trekkers team has launched their own online fundraiser aimed at making their bridge as cool as possible. One can make a donation for as little as $5, or for $20, you get a friggin’ cool DVD to the complete first season! There has already been tremendous support — as you can see by that big bold number on the right — but with hopes that this might spark interest in some kind of feature length project someday, every dollar helps to make Season Two dressed to impress. Filmmakers in Arizona are already masters of shoestring budgets so you can bet your contribution will go a long way… like, maybe even, like, a few light years… but don’t take my word for it:

For my own contribution to the second season, I’m hoping to collaborate with a university orchestra to record some live cues for the series, and hopefully, at the least, the Voyage Trekkers Main Theme. How cool would that be?? Bridge + Live Orchestra = Crazy Awesome Space Adventure Good Time Great Job.

I was happy to have finished the first draft to my latest piece As Midnight on a Moonless Night before I flew to California for a short visit and performance of Dreamland at California State University, Fullerton. While Dr. Marc Dickey (who recently penned a wonderfully interpretive and equally analytical article on Shine for this year’s MBM Times Magazine) has been on sabbatical, I was introduced to fantastic young conductor, Dustin Barr, who took the reigns as interim director in addition to his fulltime gig as director of bands at Mt. San Antonio College. As you can see and hear by the short YouTube clip above, he made amazing music with the Fullerton Symphonic Band. I can’t wait for us to collaborate like that again! Seriously. Amazing conductor. Amazing guy.

Then it was off to Chicago for what was my fifth Midwest Clinic.

In the photo above, John Darling, Kevin Jedele, Christopher Tucker, and Jeff Gershman all pose for a patented “Markowski” photo. 2 years later and it’s still fun to make fun of. I guess.

It’s always good to catch up with friends and colleagues that I haven’t seen all year, and even though I’m no longer published with Manhattan Beach Music, it’s still good to catchup with the Manhattan Beach family of composers, like Joni Greene and Frank Ticheli. 

This was a particularly fantastic Midwest experience because I had the honor of having two — TWO! — remarkable performances of my music. The first was Turkey in the Straw performed by the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts Wind Symphony under the direction of Mr. Shawn Barat. As you can hear by the short video that I was able to sneak during their dress rehearsal, they gave an incredibly tight and eccentric performance — and T.i.t.S. has got to be that flavored, otherwise all the details and fragments just sound like, well, as YouTube aficionado Randomnessocity858 stated in a comment directed towards the Hong Kong Tak Ming Philharmonic Winds’ performance:

“sounds REALLY broken up, it was like listening to 10 seconds of random playing, then 3 seconds of melody, and then more random playing. Maybe a simpler arrangement would make it sound more solid? I know what Turkey in the Straw should sound like and this was disappointing since I was expecting an orchestra to make it sound epic, but instead there was just too much amelodic filler crammed in.”

Haters gonna hate.

You would think the awesomeness would end there, but no way. The next night, the Springdale Har-Ber Wind Symphony, under the direction of Mr. Jeremy Ford, gave an incredibly moving performance of Shine to a packed Midwest Clinic ballroom. Seriously, there had to have been a good 1,500 people in there, but then again, my eyes are often bigger than my stomach. Again, as you’ll hear from the short clip I snuck on my iPhone during their dress rehearsal, this band made some mad beautiful music.

It was a perfect Midwest Clinic this year. AND it even snowed on the last day. Definitely a win.

The last two weeks have flown by, partly because I just turned 25, partly because the first draft of the new commissioned work, called As Midnight on a Moonless Night, was due this morning. I think I’m at the part of the process where I think everything both sucks and is awesome at the same time. Basically, I can’t trust myself anymore, and until I hear the piece with living, breathing musicians, those sucky/awesome feelings are going to linger over my shoulders, taunting me, for the next few weeks.

That’s why I’m here, blogging about it, proudly, as new parents often do, cutting the umbilical cord and bringing this new piece into the world. I don’t expect you to unconditionally praise it as “cute” and “adorable” because deep down, I imagine you probably think it’s kinda gross and hard to look at/listen to (like I probably would). I mean, I don’t really even have an accurate MIDI mockup since I’ve recently re-orchestrated a bunch of stuff (though this one should do for now), but I do have the most recent (as of yesterday) sample score for you to see. And like any newborn baby score, it’s a little ugly and needs some cleaning up, but with a little tender love and care and a fancy black and white cover, in a few weeks, this baby will be prime for selling! I ain’t givin’ this one up to the orphanage, though.

By the way, Shadow Rituals just turned 6 years old! Wow; time flies.

Ryan, Elizabeth, Gary Wilson, Me

Just a day after I received the recording to Walden, I received an amazing recording of Dreamland as performed by the San Jose State University Wind Ensemble, conducted by Dr. Edward Harris. I’ve already wrote about my trip at length, so I’ll keep this short and sweet, but if you haven’t listened to any of Gary Wilson’s music (which I proudly quote in the first 12 bars of my piece), I hope the picture above will arouse your curiosity. Unfortunately, I can’t find the track that I quote (”A Very Small Town” from Mary Had Brown Hair, Stones Throw Records, 2003) on YouTube, but here’s a little taste of one of his juicier instrumental tracks:

And here is the latest performance of Dreamland:

DREAMLAND (DOWNLOAD MP3)
San Jose State University Wind Ensemble
Dr. Edward Harris, conductor
October 17, 2011

As I mentioned recently, Lawrence Stoffel at California State University, Northridge just conducted the world premiere of my newest, most lyrical piece called Walden. I just received the recording from their concert earlier today and am very excited to share it! So, here it is!

WALDEN (Download MP3)
California State University, Northridge Wind Ensemble
Lawrence Stoffel, conductor
October 13, 2011