Aah What a year

well, 2005 is over. That was the year I retuned to the US. To live.

I worked on a set of pieces for Wind Band. All based on hymn tunes from the...wait for it....shapenote music! Gee, am I still doing that? But they are nice pieces, if I must say so myself. And I do. Three movements - Kedron, Parting Friends and All is Well.

I wrote a work for the Baroque Northwest in 2005 - Loop and Swirls for flute, guitar, theorbo and bass gamba. It was performed October 1 in Seattle. I want to revise it a bit; writing for those plucked instruments is not easy, and I want to make it sound easy. I have many pieces for early instruments, I need to put them into one file someday.

Several choir pieces joined my collection as well - Prospect, Elysian, and several others. I sang in a Methodist church choir in Hamburg and also composed a few works for them. Now that was a challenge and fun! They sang all the music so enthusiastically and so musically. I am really proud of this group!

I also wrote a set of piano pieces, also based on shapenote music.
I went down to Tallahassee and jammed with Charles Baker and Ted Stanley, using a Mac and many lovely software programs.

I guess I didn't write too much more than that last year, this year I will compose a lot more.

Happy New Year!