Hi Friends,

Hope you’re staying safe and well. I’m really excited to let you know about some of the upcoming premieres and performances in the year ahead:

This week, the remarkable Omega Ensemble gives the Australian premiere of Nervous Systems, a new clarinet quintet jointly commissioned by Omega alongside the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, Third Angle New Music, and Chatter. They’ll perform the piece in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, and Newcastle.

Kaleidoscope gave its first run this past June in LA, and I’m excited about upcoming performances in October in Portland and this coming April (details forthcoming) in Alberquerque. 

This coming October 7 and 8, Conspirare and Miro Quartet will give the world premiere of Wind Phone, Goleta CA, April 2022, a work for choir, string quartet, and rotary phone inspired by the remarkable concept of a wind phone — a concept that originated in Japan that has spread throughout the world, including to California where I experienced one. My regular collaborator Stephanie Fleischmann contributed a gorgeous text, a letter to a lost loved one. Craig Hella Johnson conducts.

Speaking of Stephanie, I’m really honored that our opera In a Grove will have its second production within a few months of its world premiere. I can’t say how lucky and I excited I feel about that fact—the dream is for a work to live beyond its first run. Director Joachim Schamberger and conductor Alan Pierson will lead four performances at Northwestern University in November; it’ll finally land at LA Opera next season in Mary Birnbaum’s original production.

Looking a bit further ahead is the May 2023 world premiere of The Year of Silence, a new work for singing narrator and orchestra featuring Dashon Burton and co-commissioned by the Louisville Symphony. Inspired by a magical realist story by Kevin Brockmeier, it has eerie parallels to the last few years. My good friend and ongoing collaborator Teddy Abrams will conduct it. 

I’ll be writing a new work for tuba (!) and prepared piano at the behest of the Music Academy of the West. I was asked to write a work for the winner of their duo competition, and the remarkable Joshua Williams and Tingting Peng blew everyone away. I’m excited to explore this world again. The premiere will happen in June 2023 at a to-be-announced date. 

Lots more is happening, and you can view much of the emerging calendar here. Currently, I’m finishing up a draft of Beaufort Scales for Lorelei Ensemble, which will be workshopped this coming spring and tour the US in 2023 and 2024.
 


Finally, much of the past year’s work remains available for your consumption: the video of Pittsburgh Opera’s production of IN A GROVE will always be available at inagroveopera.com; Johaness Moser’s recording of Exhalation is available on all streaming platforms; a new arrangement of Liminal Highway for saxophone  (performed by Julian Velasco) is available on all streaming platforms; and the world premiere performance of The Last Message Received at Northwestern University (conducted by Donald Nally) is available here.

Thanks for reading—I’m aware this one was long—and please stay safe,


Chris