If you feel like venturing out this weekend in the New Haven area, here are a few free/donation music events happening:
https://music-tickets.yale.edu/24564/24565
https://events.newhavenarts.org/events/yale-camerata-with-yale-glee-club
https://events.newhavenindependent.org/calendar/event/9313476/2024/02/09
I recently learned that my first orchestra conductor passed away just before Thanksgiving this year. I hadn’t thought much about him in years, but his passing hit me hard.
Dr. Robert Hart Baker was the man who introduced me to Dvorak’s 8th Symphony when I was 14. It was the piece that made my teenage self know in her very bones that she wanted to be a musician forever. He’s the entire reason I play the piccolo. It’s been 25 years since then, and I’m still trying to be a musician forever.
His passing has left me reflecting on what it means to carry on the torch a teacher or mentor lit for you. He’s no longer here to share his music with the world, but I’m still here sharing the music he influenced me to make. His students and colleagues now light others’ torches with flame he gifted us.
Thank you for everything you taught me, Dr. Baker. Your legacy lives on.
Provided to YouTube by DistroKid Absence · Carolina Eyck Elegies for Theremin & Voice ℗ Butterscotch Records Released on: 2019-09-27 Auto-generated by YouTube.
One of my favorite ways to encounter new music is to stumble into it quite accidentally. I recently ran across a 2017 video of Carolina Eyck performing Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold,” set for voice and theremin, and I was mesmerized. This stand-alone track sent me off in search of more of her music.
Ms. Eyck’s most recent release, from October 2019, is the aptly-titled “Elegies for Theremin & Voice” (available on all major streaming services). She goes off on explorations of the technical capabilities of the instrument and its compatibility with the human voice.
One of my favorite tracks on the album is "Absence." Haunting and hollow, it creating a space in the listener where longing creeps in. In one nearly five-minute track, she takes us from the quiet beginnings of separation and guides us to the edge of an empty void in our souls.
Throughout the album, her vocals are stellar as is her skill on the theremin. Even in the gentlest passages, her voice maintains a vibrant, warm sound that draws the listener in deeper. The theremin is strikingly versatile in her hands, and Ms. Eyck's ability to coax so much depth from the instrument is remarkable.
You can learn more about Ms. Eyck's performance and teaching her website, https://www.carolinaeyck.com/.
“I remember that time you told me, you said
’Love is touching souls’
Surely you touched mine
’Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time”
I was a freshman or sophomore in college when a friend asked me if I liked Joni Mitchell. When I sheepishly replied that I’d liked what I’d heard of her but didn’t know very much of her work, he handed me a pile of her CDs and told me he hoped I would enjoy them.
One of those CDs was her seminal album, Blue, released in 1971. Her fourth album, Blue was the first of her records to reach platinum on both the US and UK, even going double platinum in the UK.
Truth be told, I don’t think there’s a bad track on this album, but one in particular caught my attention when I first heard it and again when I stumbled across it recently. “A Case of You” is probably my favorite song on Blue. The combination of her sparse mountain dulcimer and compelling story-telling is irresistible. Like so many of Mitchell’s songs, “A Case of You” is about a relationship, but what makes it stand out to me is the complexity that she captures in just under 4 1/2 minutes. This lover is by turns infatuating and infuriating, and though it all, she never fails to perfectly illustrate how they are “so bitter and so sweet.”
My first publicly available arrangement is now available for purchase! The score and parts for woodwind quartet are live on Sheet Music Plus.
This arrangement of "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" sets the traditional carol for woodwind quartet (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon). Arranged to be easily accessible to early intermediate players in schools and churches alike, the arrangement stays true to the original carol with limited original writing added to highlight the unique timbres of a woodwind quartet. The arrangement is approximately 1:30, perfect for a short interlude and easily repeatable to provide more material.
If you'd like to see this re-arranged for other quartet, drop me a note and I'll get right on it. I plan to post others anyway, but if you have one you'd like to see first, let me know. And if you purchase and perform, please share with me! I love knowing my music is out there in the world.