AWEA Duo | Joseph Sowa

2012 was a good year, but 2013 promises to be even more exciting.

Certainties

In 2012, blogging was my neglected step-child. This year, expect a steady and frequent stream of posts as I keep you in the loop about how my music is progressing, what I’m listening to, and what other thoughts and cool things I find over the coming year.

The next couple months I launch into my largest project ever: an hour-long Easter oratorio for choir, soloists, chamber ensemble, and dancers. The text comes from the Bible, primarily the four gospels. I’ve already started work on the music, and in the coming weeks, I’ll blog more details about the work and its upcoming performance.

Once that piece is done, I have several other projects on deck. For the AWEA Duo, I’ll be integrating fangled contraption into a set of bagatelles for flute and saxophone. I’ll also be writing a flute duo for Amber Seeley and Nicole Okeson. Later on, I intend to dust off my performing chops and write myself a piece for violin and electronics. All this composing should take me through spring, which brings us to . . .

Possibilities

In addition to those for sure pieces, I have at least half a dozen other ideas and requests. In the coming months, I need to sort out how serious they and I are about those plans. Could this be the year I finally write the tuba ensemble piece I’ve been imagining since 2007?

So far I’ve attended three different summer festivals: EAMA, Brevard, and highSCORE. They’ve all been great, but I’m still not sure where I’ll be headed this summer. Will I go back to one of those? Will I go some place new?

This year I also hope to expand my exposure by applying to more contests and calls for scores and by reaching out to create more collaborative opportunities. This year might be the year I start my doctoral work. In any case, it’ll certainly be my year of “how to stay happy and fed while establishing a career.”

So, stay tuned for news on these and other escapades. Do you have any suggestions for the coming year? Pieces I should write? Places to go? People to see? What are your dreams for 2013?

“It's the most Janus-like time of the year.” — “It’s the most Janus-like time of the year.”

It’s been a good year for composition. It hasn’t been such a good year for blogging, so it’s time to highlight the best of 2012 and the opportunities coming in 2013. I’ll start in this post with 2012.

Second Performances

My biggest milestone this year was finally having pieces enter performers’ regular repertoire. I wrote “Icarus and Daedalus” in February for Arianna Tieghi, who since performed it twice this summer.

“night flocks of angels trumpet” was an excerpt from A Field Guide to Natural History that I arranged for violinist Katie Jensen, who performed it earlier this month. It’s my favorite movement from an otherwise long, difficult, and unusual quartet (read “unlikely to be performed”). Field Guide was performed twice in 2011 in its original form, and now with this arrangement for violin and piano, I hope the music will have a continued life. (Violinists, I will soon post an excerpt from the performance. Seriously. Check it out: it’s really pretty.)

Finally, “fangled contraption” continues to be my surprise hit. It was performed only once in 2012 but already has 5 performances scheduled for 2013 by the AWEA Duo, at which point it will have been performed 10 times. Sure, the New York Times won’t be picking up the story any time soon, but it’s sure cool (and reassuring) to see my music starting to have a life among performers.

Master of Music

In other significant news, in April I finished my MM in Composition at Brigham Young University. Seven years of study later, my time as a BYU student is finally over. Studying at BYU gave me exceptional performance and teaching opportunities and honed both my musical perceptions and my ability to articulate them. Perhaps in another post, I’ll give more highlights.

Since then I haven’t really gone anywhere. I still work for the College of Fine Arts and Communications as an editor. But being on campus doesn’t feel the same when you’re staff. Considering the lack of finals (or any assignments), great checkout priveldges at the library, employee discounts at the Bookstore, etc., it’s better.

highSCORE Festival

Over the summer, I attended the highSCORE Festival in Italy, where I made some good friends, heard their great music, and got to have a new string quartet performed. I also got to have some inspiring lessons from Amy Beth Kirsten and Dmitri Tymoczko.

Collaborations with Neil Thornock

Some of the most fun I had this year was in collaborating with Neil Thornock. Dr. Thornock was my composition teacher for part of my undergrad and much of my grad work. He’s also a great organist and carillonneur. In January, he commissioned me to write “Marginalia” for organ, which was premiered on a Salty Cricket concert in March. Later in the summer, I wrote “Under an Orange Sky,” which we recorded in November.

All in all, 2012 was a good year for me. I was able to work with some great performers, expand my network, and grow as a composer. Stay tuned for what’s coming in 2013.

Tag: AWEA Duo

“. . . Ring in the new”