This isn’t particularly exciting, but I’ve added my travel schedule to the site. This shows, as of now, where I’m headed over the next year for gigs. I’m sure I’ll forget to update it, but for those looking to become certified stalkers, you’ll know where to find me.

Gotta run. Wataru is coming over for dinner, and there are key lime bars and spicy orange-flavored chicken to prepare!

“Redline Tango” exists in three versions. First I wrote the chamber version, “Breakdown Tango,” in 2000 for choreographer Robert Battle. It’s scored for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. The group for whom I wrote it, Antares, has played the original version nearly 150 times, and commercially recorded the piece on the Innova label.

In 2002, I rewrote the piece for orchestra on commission from the Brooklyn Philharmonic. That version, the first to be called “Redline Tango,” premiered in early 2003.

In 2004, I made the band version, which has received about 95 performances.

Number of performances of the orchestra version: 6.

For some reason, this really started to bug me within the past few days. I have three great live recordings of the piece, but for whatever reason, I’ve never sent them out to try to generate more performances. (I think I’ve become spoiled by the band world, to tell the truth.) So, that’s the project for today. Scores and CDs are going to every conductor or orchestra with whom I have any personal connection, whether direct or indirect. It’s unlikely anything will come of it, but it doesn’t hurt to try.

And for those who are curious, I just posted one of the recordings — officially — to the site. This is the performance from last summer at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, conducted by Marin Alsop (now the Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony, and recent winner of a MacArthur Genius Grant — although I kind of doubt the MacArthur committee was particularly impressed that she had done “Redline Tango”). I hadn’t posted this recording before because I didn’t know if it was okay. Union orchestras have incredibly tight restrictions on the use of audio recordings. Fortunately, the Cabrillo orchestra is not a union orchestra. If you’ve never heard the orchestra version of “Redline Tango,” check it out!

As for me — I’m off to the post office. Here goes nothin’!

Inspired by Newman’s blog, I went through a few of my old — like, really, really old — pieces, and decided to post some of them here. I started with the oldest, “Elegy and Fantasie,” which I wrote when I was 15 & 17. (Wrote “Fantasie” when I was 15; “Elegy” when I was 17. Combined them into a single work during my Freshman year of college.)

Be kind. I was just a dumb kid. I thought it might be fun to put up some really early stuff, though, especially since some of the people who read the blog are young composers, and this will give you the opportunity to listen to my early stuff and be like, “that dude totally used to suck. Oh wait — he still does.”

I remember working on “Elegy” in the break room at Pizza Hut, where I worked every summer through high school. I still really like “Elegy.” Part of me thinks it’s better than a lot of my more recent works. “Fantasie,” on the other hand, is pretty weak, but fun to listen to just so you can hear how derivative it is. (If you’ve ever listened to the Barber Piano Concerto or the Barber Violin Concerto, you’ll see what I mean.)

Here’s the link to the page with both pieces — complete with MP3 files and a PDF of the full score so you can read along. Again, be kind! And enjoy that beautiful Finale 2.63 engraving! Hooray, Petrucci font!

In a few days, I’ll post a “mid-college” work — something from my sophomore year. And wow, won’t that be exciting.