Summer Sounds: Amazing Kids, More Shows, and a Novel

Composition Recital at St. John's

First thing's first, I guess: Wow! (Is that verbose enough to describe something that really amazed me?) I attended, and performed in, a composition recital that featured both kids and adults. The recital was held at St. John's Episcopal Church in Chico, which has a very well-maintained piano and pretty awesome acoustics. I knew I was going to enjoy these kinds of performances because I love discovering what kinds of techniques, styles and patterns other piano composers use when they write music. I had the privilege of hearing these students play their original work, which included compositions that featured multiple instruments. Writing for more than one instrument takes an enormous amount of know-how and creativity, and kids as young as twelve were able to pull this off.

Okay, so now that I'm inspired... moving on!

Composition Recital at St. John's Episcopal Church

Got a House?

The idea of doing house concerts originated way before the composition recital, so the performances by the budding composers didn't actually give rise to this idea. It did, however, motivate me to look into this more closely. No dates have been set yet, but I've spoken to one person who may be interested in hosting a house concert over the summer. House concerts are exactly that -- a solo concert (in this case, a piano concert) in someone's home. I'm shooting for June, but the time frame remains to be seen and I'm hoping to have a narrower time frame in the next week or so.

There are really nice things about house concerts, including the fact that it's a more intimate setting -- and the fact that it's easier to hurl tomatoes at me if I don't play well ;) Okay, so I'm kidding about that last part.


The Lost Enemy -- off the shelf and on my desk!

My novel The Lost Enemy has been an on-going project for so many years now that it's difficult to pinpoint exactly how long I've been refining it. It has gone through many revisions, and up until last month it sat on the shelf (so to speak) for quite some time. I decided to get back into it one last time and finalize the entire project. It's hard to say when it will be ready to publish, but I'm definitely hoping by August. I've already looked at companies that are able to bind and print the novel, what their rates are, and what they offer.

As far as the last revisions and the final edit, the events in the story haven't changed since the last major modification in which I added an entire chapter to the book. The format, however, has changed slightly. Originally, each chapter was represented by one of my songs, and instead of calling these "chapters" they are now headings in the text, and each chapter may contain two or three headings. This works out better organizationally (Is that a word? Sure it is!) and it just seems to make more sense with regard to how the events are divided up in the story.

Another idea I have is to eventually provide the CD's of the music in the back cover of the book itself. Either way, one thing is for certain: the revision process can be tedious. Somehow I still find it thrilling and I grow more and more anxious as it gets close to completion.

I have a feeling, for some reason, that this summer is going to be exceptionally productive. Time will definitely tell, as it always does.