ANOTHER SUMMER, ANOTHER INSPIRATION

If you read my previous post yesterday about Four Ethereal Planes, the introduction to this blog series is similar:

Several years ago, I wrote a blog series documenting the compositional process for my first concerto - a piece for double bass and chamber ensemble that was commissioned by Matthew Gibson, a then-current doctoral student at Michigan State University. This helped me be able to better articulate the ideas I had for the piece during this process, along with documenting how some of the decisions made during that process ultimately helped shape the work into what it eventually became. Furthermore, it was the first time I opened up more about my own compositional process for creating new music.

This blog series for Summertime Echoes will mostly follow a similar path to the one written for the double bass concerto. There is also another ongoing blog series for my other concerto to be written this summer, a work for solo jazz piano and big band. With both of these series, I intend to delve further into the compositional process for these works and, in a way, discover how much this process has changed in the few years that passed since my last blog series. With every new commission and project, one of the most important goals I always strive to accomplish is to go a different direction in my compositional process from the last piece I've written. Both of these series will explore these approaches as well.

So, this first blog post serves as an introduction to the piece and some of my initial inspirations -

Summertime Echoes was commissioned by and is being written for Dr. Jordan VanHemert, the newly-appointed Assistant Professor of Saxophone and Jazz Studies at Hope College. Dr. VanHemert and I previously had worked together in organizing one of the Millennium Composer Initiative's first collaborative concerts, an event which included the world premiere of my first saxophone quartet. I've been fortunate since then to have been able to see how brilliant he is as a fellow musician, artist, and composer. His background and knowledge for both the classical and jazz worlds, particularly for saxophone, is outstanding in every regard. I'm thankful to have been granted this opportunity to write this new concerto for him.

With this piece, it wasn't actually any musical concepts that came to mind first. It was the title; the movement titles; and, its ultimate inspiration.

Summertime Echoes will be three movements in length, capping in at about 10-15 minutes of music in total. The basic premise for the entire concerto stems from depictions of the various adventures, thrills, and journeys that one could experience during a summer vacation, alone and/or with friends and loved ones. With this piece, I'm also interested in exploring the dichotomy between the memories that could be gained from these events, whether they can turn out to be good ones or bad ones on reflection and exactly how these memories as a whole could help to shape these experiences.

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The roles I've envisioned for the concerto sees the soprano saxophone as the quintessential storyteller - the third-person, omniscient narrator describing each of these stories - and the wind ensemble as the musical depiction of each of these experiences. Hence, the movement titles are as follows:

I. Youthful Adventures - self-explanatory in a way, but essentially the road-trip movement with thrilling new sights and sounds to behold. Exciting, maybe a little dangerous, and perhaps unforgettable in some ways.

II. Idyllic Chronicles - the idea of youthful romance, whether it's just beginning as the summer starts or if it's the continuation of something already begun. Is it a romance truly fulfilled? Or, is there something else beyond the surface? Does this romance continue into the fall and onward? Or, does it end before/when summer ends? 
This particular title is my favorite of the whole concerto because it's also a misnomer in a sense. "Idyllic" is the picturesque, idealized, romanticized aspect of storytelling that may not necessarily lend itself to truth. Yet, the word "chronicle" suggests the story is factual, an exact written account of what actually happened. So what's the actual truth here? This movement will explore that idea further.

III. Blazing Spectacles - Every summer lends itself to some fascination of sparks and spectacles, whether that's coming from fireworks or the embers of a camp bonfire. Beautiful and alluring, yes, but also dangerous. A thrilling conclusion to a whirlwind summer vacation.

Dr. VanHemert will give the world premiere of Summertime Echoes on November 22, 2019 in Holland, Michigan with the Hope College Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Gabe Southard. We have opened a consortium for both ensembles and soloists that you can join today! Flexible pricing/tier options are available and it will be open until October 1. You can check out the link given above to join the consortium as well as to learn more details about what's being offered for the consortium exclusivity.

In the meantime, as this blog series continues, I'll be occasionally posting further excerpts (audio and visual) of the piece's progress as I continue to write it over the summer. I'm excited for my continued collaboration with Dr. VanHemert on this new concerto, and I'm excited to see where this piece will go! More to come soon.