GWBrown

We are finally somewhat settled here in Vermont. I took a job teaching at the Putney School for the year, which has worked out really well for me. We are enjoying being back in New England and looking forward to the snow after four years of Georgia “winter.”

A trombone quartet that I wrote last year has been published by Gold Branch Music. You can order your copy through their website. [Who doesn’t need at least three copies…?]

I was chosen to part in a poster presentation at the national ACDA convention in Miami this March. The poster session will take place on Wednesday, March 7 from 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM in Rooms 116/117 of the Miami Beach Convention Center. Please stop by if you get a chance.
[My paper, which is on the Brahms Gesang der Parzen, is already available online for viewing.]

A short article that I wrote this fall [English version] has appeared (in a translation by Teresa Cascudo) on the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian Music page. [The Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian is roughly equivalent to the Smithsonian in the US.]

[Archived images: front page and article page.]

My calendar for the Spring includes the following events:

• Feb. 15 — Simone Fontanelli Residency Concert: Preparing the Berio Folksongs for Mr. Fontanelli, who will conduct in concert.
• Feb. 16 — Guitar Trio: The Athens Guitar Trio will perform my 9 Bagatelles for Guitar Trio as part of the Simone Fontanelli Residency.
• Mar. 27 — UGA Concert Choir Concert: Singing the Stravinsky Mass as well as many works by Morten Lauridsen as part of his week-long residency.
• Apr. 5 — Mahler 2: Singing with the UGA choruses and orchestra in a performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony.
• TBA — Matt Anderson Recital: Narrating the Castelnuovo-Tedesco guitar piece Platero y Yo.
• TBA — Stephen Lewis Recital: Preparing and conducting new works by Stephen Lewis.

A selection from the album that I am producing for the Athens Guitar Trio is being featured on the website of noted guitar maker Kenny Hill. [All three of the guitarists in the Athens Guitar Trio play on guitars by Kenny Hill.]

I fought for a while with LaTeX * to get a double sharp, since there isn’t one in their standard fonts. Maybe this might save someone else the same trouble:

[for the header]
\usepackage{pifont}


[for the double sharp itself]
\raisebox{.01em}{\kern-.19em\scalebox{.6}{\rotatebox[origin=c]{45}{\ding{67}}}}\kern-.017em


It’s not perfect, but it’s better than \divideontimes. If someone has a better way, by all means, let me know!

* - [It’s a typesetting program, pronounced lah-te-ch…]

With help from super-neighbor Katy Carter of okradesign.com, my CV now looks a good deal more like a professional document, and a lot less like something that got into a bad fight with Microsoft Word. See the shiny new (InDesign) version here. [The old version lives here (…though it’s not for the faint of heart!)]

Here’s a brief update on current events:

• I’m teaching sophomore theory and conducting the Women’s Glee Club at UGA for the Fall ‘06 semester.
• I’m writing a short item on Fernando Lopes-Graça’s choral music for the Fundação Gulbenkian website.
• The Athens Guitar Trio (see below) has asked me to produce their upcoming album. We’ve had three recording sessions thus far with two more to follow.
• I’m updating my composition page… click here for a preview. [It’s not done yet, so don’t expect everything to work, etc.]
• “natus/natatus,” my 6 hour (yes… 6 hour) piece that I am giving to a good friend’s newborn as a welcome-to-the-world gift is nearly complete. I am having technical issues since the sound file is nearly 3GB and not many programs like to work with files of that size. I also don’t know how I am going to send it to his parents to play it for him…
• I’ll be singing and conducting some new music this Friday in the first Loop 10 concert at UGA. The guidelines for the series are that an organizing principle and a group of composers are chosen only two weeks before the concert: It’ll be interesting.

I just came across a paper I wrote at Amherst as part of a summer geology project. It’s funny to re-read through a paper I haven’t seen or thought about in nearly ten years.

The Variation of Tourmaline Chemistry in Metamorphic Grade in Southwest Maine
Carlos Alonso, University of New Orleans
Gregory Brown, Amherst College
Karen Jager, Pomona College

[If it sounds exciting, come ask me about it sometime… I’ll see if I can still explain it.]

The Athens Guitar Trio, who premiered my Bagatelles last spring, are recording a CD this summer (Bagatelles included…). I’ll have a link to the finished product when it is available.

Here are some of their audio clips, and, of course, the ubiquitous MySpace page.

UPDATE:

The AGT will be performing a free concert this Sunday (Aug. 6) at the Athens-Clarke County Library at 3:00pm, including some of my stuff.

http://graduate.gradsch.uga.edu/etd/brown_gregory_w_200608_dma.pdf

[This is a large document, so be forewarned, dial-up users. Also, I don’t know how long the link will be active… they may move it to a more permanent web location at some point.]

I’m happy to report that I finished editing my document today and gave it out to my committee for review. It’s nice to have it out of my hands for a bit, actually. I’ve been doing nothing else for what seems like months and I’m looking forward to some time away from it. Onward to the defense…

I am back in the States and finishing up my document in preparation for an August 2006 graduation. My trip to Portugal was a wonderful success and I managed to make some great new friends in the Portuguese and Spanish music community. As soon as I finish the edits on the paper I presented there, I’ll post it along with my other papers.

Here is the program for my April 11th recital. The concert is at 6pm in Ramsey Concert Hall, UGA Performing Arts Center. It is free and open to the public… please join us!

Bagatelles for Guitar Trio
1. Budongo Magic
2. Twisted Pair
3. q.n. ≈ 70
4. Berceuse
5. march/hymn
6. Adagio lamentoso
7. Icosahedral
8. Impish
9. bright/rhythmic

Dusty Woodruff, Rylan Smith, and Matt Anderson guitars

Are you an Anarchist?
Jacob Coleman piano

…brevissima, in nomine pace
Mark Chilla bass, David Gresham tenor, Julia Butler-Mayes alto, Kelly Taft mezzo-soprano, Kathryn Sabol soprano
Greg Brown conductor

Suite for Solo Cello
i. doggerel
ii. paradelle
iii. cut-up

Josip Petrac cello

Concertino for Horn
1. Janey O’Malley
2. Air
3. Three Swift Things

Heidi Lucas horn
Janice Crews oboe
Michael Eckerty bassoon
Greg Haynes marimba
Daniel Kaplunas, Qiao Solomon violins
Marta Blalock viola
Chris Johns cello
Sallie Lupis bass
Greg Brown conductor

[Electronic portion:]

Subduction
quadrophonic amplification units

Ichabod
midi-controlled piano

• I’m happy to report that the first draft of Appendix 1 is complete. It is nearly 70 pages of Finale work and I’m so glad to have it done so that I can get down to the business of actually writing about the music instead of typesetting it! Now on to Chapter 2, which is a discussion of the scores in terms of Lopes-Graça’s writings, and in the context of other composers, etc. The presentation in Portugal in April serves as a nice sub-deadline, but it feels very close at the moment…
• Last night I was inducted into the UGA chapter of Pi Kappa Lambda, which was a fun banquet and a nice honor.
• I’m putting the final touches on my Brahms paper for presentation this Thursday.
• Rehearsals for my April 11 composition recital are coming along well. I met with the vocal quintet tonight and had a very productive session.
• Next week will be somewhat insane: Monday night is the dress-rehearsal for our Tuesday night Concert Choir concert and Thursday night and Saturday morning are dress rehearsals for our Saturday night Beethoven 9 performance… and then we begin to rehearse in earnest for Belshazzer’s Feast on April 20.

My paper on Brahms’ Gesang der Parzen has been accepted for presentation at the 2006 Music Research Symposium on March 23. The paper is available here for reading.

After nearly a year of work and planning, the UGA Concert Choir is announcing the first Arant Choral Composition Prize. I came up with the idea last spring and have been slowly putting all of the pieces together. Check out the website for more information: www.ugaca.org/arant.

The list of presenters for this April’s congreso in Coimbra, Portugal has been posted online. [I’m in group 4, if you are curious.] For more information about symposium, see this previous posting.

I have a few papers and editions that I am creating a new page for. “Digital monographs” seems a little over-blown, so until I get a better term, “Digital self-publications” will have to do.

I got an email today that began:

“Dear George,

The Franklin College Fee Allocation Committee is pleased to inform you
that you have been chosen to receive a grant for travel expenses
to the conference you will be attending as a presenter. etc.”

I was excited, even though I had no idea who Goerge was. In the end I was glad to find out that they had simply read my name wrong (!?!). In any case, this is great news and it will be a big help in getting me to and from (and all around) Portugal this April.

I just got back from my DMA Recital this evening. Everything went better than I could have hoped and I have posted the recordings online in the concerts area to share with friends and family who were too far away to be here tonight. Thanks to the UGA Concert Choir for their magnificent work!

Monday Nov. 21 at 8pm, Ramsey Concert Hall in the UGA Performing Arts Center

I will be conducting the UGA Concert Choir in a free program consisting of:

   4 Early American Hymns - Supply Belcher
   Lobet den Herrn, BWV 230 - J.S. Bach
   Drei Volkslieder, op. 49 - A. Schoenberg
   Serenade to Music - R. V. Williams
   3 selections from the Canções Regionais Portuguesas - Fernando Lopes-Graça

      See the concerts section of the main site for audio and more info.

I just found out that I’ll be presenting a paper at an April 2006 international congress in honor of Fernando Lopes-Graça (about whom I’m writing my DMA document) in Coimbra, Portugal. The paper: “The Canções Regionais Portuguesas of Fernando Lopes-Graça: methods and significance of the adaptation of folk-materials into the choral medium,” will eventually be a chapter in my document.

The sketches for Schoenberg’s Drei Volkslieder, Op. 49 (part of my DMA recital) are available online at schoenberg.at.

I’ll be leaving for a five-day research trip to Portugal soon. Included on my trip is a visit to the Museu da Música - Casa Verdades de Faria for the opening of its new space. This is part of my research into Portuguese composer, performer, musicologist, and teacher Fernando Lopes-Graça. In particular I will be focusing on his Canções Regionais Portuguesas, a collection of over 240 harmonizations of traditional Portuguese songs, and developing a resource to make these works available to the general (non-Portuguese speaking) public.

Wednesday Oct. 19 at 8pm, Ramsey Concert Hall.

The UGA Contemporary Chamber Ensemble will present (among other things) a performance of Varèse’s Ionisation featuring me playing the siren parts on my laptop. We don’t have appropriate sirens among the percussion departments holdings, so I was asked to design an instrument using CSound. If you are interested in using the instrument, check it out here. It is fully functional and relatively easy to learn how to use. At the very least, it is much cheaper than renting the real things. If you’re curious to hear what it sounds like, here is a short excerpt.

For a while now I thought it would be nice to have an area where I could put up notices and not have to fuss too much about updates. With a little work, it seems that this (altered) blog will serve the purpose nicely. Look here for notices of upcoming concerts, family stuff, or whatever.