Two pieces of mail came today from the American Composers Forum, of which I am a member.
The first is in cooperation with Vocal Essence, the group that had the Christmas Carol competition that I did not win last fall. (I heard the winner on NPR’s Performance Today. It was very pretty.) They’ve announced a call for scores for their Essentially Choral program, an opportunity for “emerging composers.” I guess I qualify.
Anyway, the deal is an SATB piece, either a capella or with instrumental accompaniment, up to five instruments. No keyboard by itself. Any text. No previous public performance. Deadline is March 14.
The second opportunity is in cooperation with the American Music Center and the Minnesota Orchestra, and it’s the 8th annual Composer Institute. Up to nine lucky “emerging composers” will work for a week with Alan Jay Kernis and the Minnesota Orchestra, finally hearing their orchestral work performed.
The deal here is orchestral work, not choral, 15 minutes or less in length (although longer works will be considered). Not previously performed or read by a major orchestra. Deadline is March 7.
So now the question is, will IV. Lento-Allegro be ready by then? One would hope. If I’m actually writing a symphony to be performed this summer, I would need to write one movement every 47 days or so. I need to be finished with this one by mid-February. So that might actually be doable.
The choral thing I’m not so sure about. I’m not sitting on any text that I feel the need to set. I know one of my Lichtenbergian goals is to set Edward Lear’s “The Jumblies,” but I really was thinking that might be my aprés-symphonie oeuvre.
In other news, I did hear from Noah, so he’s alive and well. He was indeed closing on a house, plus some heavy-duty work on some big internet clients, so he hadn’t had time to finish getting lichtenbergian.org up and running. Maybe this weekend. And then…
In other other news, I sent out an appeal to GHP staff for photos, and now I have probably more than I can use, which is great. So I’ll be spending this weekend and Monday getting the video reassembled. Sunday is for composing.