John Adams!
Two weekends ago I went to Atlanta to see John Adams’ second-newest opera, Doctor Atomic, along with my composition teacher Dan Forrest and fellow grad composer Brian Buda. The performance was the best I’ve heard (I’ve heard a recording from the SF Opera production, have the DVD of the subsequent performance in the Netherlands, saw the production at Chicago’s Lyric Opera, and heard a few clips from the Met’s recent new production). Conductor Robert Spano led the chorus, orchestra, and soloists (led by the spectacularGerald Finley) in a breathtaking performance of this (mostly) spellbinding work. We had brought several cd’s for the long car ride back, but after hearing such a profoundly moving piece, any other piece would have sounded pretty insignificant and trite. Doctor Atomic is in a class all of its own– a class in which we might also include Adams’ post-9/11 work On the Transmigration of Souls. Anyway, we were fortunate enough to get a picture with Adams. Dr. Forrest has posted it on his site: http://www.danforrest.com/?p=336.
I’ll hopefully be posting soon about recent developments on the composition front. I’m nearly finished a choral work, a setting of Rukeyser’s Sonnet, as well as a fun song for bass. There are also several exciting things in the early commissioning process, so hopefully soon I’ll be able to post about them. Both offer new challenges for me: one involves setting a non-Western language (ack!) and the other demands writing for a solo instrument with which I’m not as familiar as I ought to be… 
December 8th, 2008 at 4:31 am
Great website, I really like what you have done. Keep up the great work.
December 11th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Mark! I didn’t know you had a blog!!! I stumbled upon it through Dan Forrest’s site. =) I shall eagerly follow your promising future as a composer…Keep up the good work!