Of our six CANOE composers this semester, two have already turned in their final compositions! I’m expecting to receive the remaining four, this week! It’s going to get even more exciting after this point, because the new works will be prepared for rehearsal and public performance. It won’t be long now before we experience the exhilaration of premiere performances; and, although at first glance it may seem completely redundant to claim, in this particular case the assertion is entirely justified—we will experience first "premiere" performances! These composers will hear their introductory works rehearsed and then given their world premieres by the Civic Symphony of Green Bay in the fall!
And yes, that’s a bit of a wait after working so intensely on a piece of music, but as I often say to composers in this process, that’s how the concert music world operates, with orchestras planning concerts sometimes years in advance. For our CANOE composers, we are lucky and thankful that the Civic Symphony has so graciously added our works to their regular concert season! So in actuality, our wait is less than the delays that might otherwise be experienced by the professional composers.
Another saying that comes to mind is acknowledging the tenacious work of the composers, because it’s not such an easy thing to do successfully, to stick with it I mean. Many people who play music in high school for example, drop music from their lives to pursue other careers after graduation. It’s simply life I suppose. But it’s also true that if composing written music was easy, more people would be doing it. There are way more performing artists, improvisors, singer songwriters, instrumentalists, than there are literate composers—”literacy” in the literal sense—as in writing the music down. The process requires a deliberate meticulousness to the written page that frustrates the faster real-time pace of performing-in-the-moment.
Our 2105 CANOE participants have stepped up to the challenge, and are succeeding in it! Congratulations to our six composers; we are looking forward to the fall premieres!
And yes, that’s a bit of a wait after working so intensely on a piece of music, but as I often say to composers in this process, that’s how the concert music world operates, with orchestras planning concerts sometimes years in advance. For our CANOE composers, we are lucky and thankful that the Civic Symphony has so graciously added our works to their regular concert season! So in actuality, our wait is less than the delays that might otherwise be experienced by the professional composers.
Another saying that comes to mind is acknowledging the tenacious work of the composers, because it’s not such an easy thing to do successfully, to stick with it I mean. Many people who play music in high school for example, drop music from their lives to pursue other careers after graduation. It’s simply life I suppose. But it’s also true that if composing written music was easy, more people would be doing it. There are way more performing artists, improvisors, singer songwriters, instrumentalists, than there are literate composers—”literacy” in the literal sense—as in writing the music down. The process requires a deliberate meticulousness to the written page that frustrates the faster real-time pace of performing-in-the-moment.
Our 2105 CANOE participants have stepped up to the challenge, and are succeeding in it! Congratulations to our six composers; we are looking forward to the fall premieres!
Reservation resident Shawn scribing a few finishing touches to his recently completed composition.
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