I know I promised a PhotoBlog entry about my recent performance with the Minnesota Orchestra, but I haven’t had any free time. Preparing for the move to LA is taking a lot of work, and I’m leaving town again tomorrow — this time for northern California. As I’ve mentioned before, next Saturday night, Marin Alsop will perform “Redline Tango” at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, California. (Read about the concert here.) If you’re in the neighborhood, I hope you’ll stop by! Also, all rehearsals are open and free, and I encourage you to check those out, too!

I’m off to the West Coast! More soon!

I took some photos during my trip — not many, but a few — and I’ll be posting those, along with a weekend debrief, hopefully tomorrow. Until then, here is an excerpt from the review in today’s Star Tribune, written by Larry Fuchsberg:

“The juiciest nine minutes of Saturday’s Sommerfest double-header came at the beginning, courtesy of 31-year-old John Mackey, an Ohio-born New Yorker. Mackey’s “Redline Tango” (2003) is a streetwise orchestral showpiece that has nothing to do with illicit lending practices.

The music is pleasantly in-your-face, its brashness just a mite self-conscious. Mackey’s handling of large forces is assured, his timing unerring. {Yes, I added the emphasis, although I think they should have put that bold-face in the paper, too! Heh heh.} The piece’s middle section, a kinky coupling of klezmer and tango, would not sound out of place in a red-light district.

The composer’s shifty rhythms posed no obstacle to conductor Andrew Litton and the Minnesota Orchestra, who swept through the score like a well-regulated hurricane.”

Indeed. The orchestra and Litton kicked ass. More later…

In a few hours, I’m leaving for Minneapolis. Andrew Litton is doing the original orchestra version of “Redline Tango” with the Minnesota Orchestra this weekend. I’m pretty excited about it. The orchestra is financially strapped, so I have to pay my own way to attend this concert (and that’s turning out to be a much more expensive 36 hours than I expected), but it’ll be great to work with Maestro Litton again, and hear this fantastic “band” play my piece.

I haven’t been in Minneapolis since the end of my “Music Alive” residency with the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphony, so I’m looking forward to going back. I’m especially excited about having dinner tonight at the downtown Chipotle.