Letter about style from Iain Hamilton, 1978

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm trying to clear out my archives. Scan it, digitize it if it's interesting, and usually throw it out. Every now and then something pops up that is worth looking at, listening to, and cherishing.

I found a letter from 1978 from my first composition teacher at Duke, Iain Hamilton. He had resigned his position to focus on composition. Until Duke figured out what to do about a composition teacher (eventually they hired Robert Ward, for which I am eternally grateful),  I went over to take composition at the North Carolina School for the Arts and one of the teachers there I found nettlesome because of his modernistic, atonal approach to composition. Back in those days, writing in that style was more de rigeur than it is now, thank goodness. I love rereading his words:

"Indeed never allow any style to be forced on you. We must attend to technical skills especially those of the great periods of counterpoint in the 16th and 18th centuries but those essential disciplines are something different from being channeled into a particular style in our own time--that is something we must discover for ourselves and I have often said whatever one writes it will be new and fresh if one has originality within oneself."

In opera, I've always found style to be a situational device, to be influenced by the story line and characters. Shows like SPEED DATING TONIGHT! deliberately juxtapose a variety of styles to match the variety of daters. Other operas like my recent ALICE RYLEY, CORPS OF DISCOVERY, or SLAYING THE DRAGON deal with cultural clashes that are depicted through musical styles.

Dr. Hamilton was a shy, formal man with a twinkle of humor. I always remember him letting me into his office for a lesson and then scurrying behind his desk to look at my weekly scribblings. A catchphrase I remember was "There's nothing you can't learn from ____" (Mahler, Bach, Mozart). His operatic work was not done all over the US, but there was a production of his ANNA KARENINA at the Los Angeles Opera. Here's the last page from the piano vocal score in his tight, efficient calligraphy.

Albuquerque Speed Dating Tonight!

(Courtesy of Mary Brzezinski)


Here's a nice article in the Albuquerque Journal about the upcoming production of SPEED DATING TONIGHT! at the University of New Mexico. It refers to SDT! as "wildly popular." I guess it is. The actual information is forty two productions since the 2013 premiere, with eighteen this season.

Radio Interview about SPEED DATING TONIGHT!

Here's a link to a radio interview about the University of New Mexico's upcoming production of SPEED DATING TONIGHT! I love that they call it "high stakes musical chairs."

SDT! at GSU

Nice picture from the group that's doing SPEED DATING TONIGHT! at Georgia Southern University October 21 and 22. More info here.

Marriage of Figaro at Amarillo Opera

Time for a little Mozart at Amarillo Opera. Photo is by Susanna, Madison Leonard and is from Amarillo's Cadillac Ranch, not to be confused with the Mustang Ranch. It is nice to see Darren K. Stokes again who is singing Figaro.

I recently posted this little bit of advertising (bragvertising?) on facebook--

It is gratifying, to say the least, to see how well SPEED DATING TONIGHT! is doing this season. 

This fall it is playing at Auburn University, Georgia Southern University, Lawrence School of Music, University of New Mexico, Amarillo Opera, University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, Otterbein University, and University of North Carolina at Greensboro, I supposed it would be nice to have written a profound and lengthy show like SUSANNAH or THE CRUCIBLE, but we are what we are! 

This one and the next one

I had a great time earlier this month remounting ALICE RYLEY for Savannah Voice Festival. It was a great honor to me that SVF decided to revisit ALICE so soon.

They have announced the second one act I'm going to write for them. ANNA HUNTER. I'm going to attempt to chronicle her efforts to save Savannah's historic character in the 1950s. The full opera is going to be called ALICE AND ANNA.

Old media

I was too busy last summer, so this summer I took July off, at least in the sense of not being on the road. Some home renovations included the floor of my studio, so it has been a good time to throw stuff out and reorganize. I've kept two scanners busy--sometimes both at once, digitizing old programs and contracts. 

I have lived through an age of technological change for the way music has been recorded. I have reel to reel tapes, cassettes, Digital Audio Tapes (DAT), CDs and digital files. I have 5.25 floppy disks, 3.5 disks, and something called an Imation Super Disk. 

I've spent the last couple days converting cassettes into digital files. The only way to do it is to actually play them. There are some moderately depressing aspects--piles of tapes of songs that never got heard by anyone--but many good things. Just a few of the notable performances are an orchestra piece called FLOOR EXERCISES which imagined an olympic gymnastic competition. Each piece was preceded by witty narration by David Manning. My music doesn't rise to the standard of David's delightful parody. It was performed in the mid-eighties in Durham, North Carolina. Another great performance was BUOSO'S GHOST at Chicago Opera Theater in 2000. It was beautifully conducted by their maestro at the time, Lawrence Rapchak.

I've always found getting rid of stuff a bit difficult, but I was inspired by this article about Marie Kondo in the New York Times. 

I'm probably going to end up sending a big box of cassettes to Washington state for recycling. Fortunately they can go "media rate."

SHOT! opens tonight in Buffalo

production photo by Glenn Murray

For nearly a month, we've been at Nickel City Opera in Buffalo helping birth a new opera, SHOT! by Persis Vehar. About the assassination of President McKinley at the Pan American Exposition, the opera has been given a beautiful production. It should go well tonight!

SPEED DATING TONIGHT! at UTEP

Nice interview here about the upcoming SPEED DATING TONIGHT! production at University of Texas at El Paso. Tickets to their production include a dinner.