It's been pretty quiet here for a while; time to break the silence with some music news, a first for this blog.
I'm giving the first recital of my doctoral degree this Sunday at the University of Utah. You can find the details on the included posters; below is the program:
Burlesque (1995) - Robert Gulya
Autumn (2008) - John Stevens
Sonate b-moll, BWV 1030 (~1720) - J.S. Bach
- intermission -
Dialogue for Horn, Tuba & Piano (1992) - Anthony Plog
Dance of the Ocean Breeze (1979) - Roger Kellaway
Adagio und Allegro, op. 70 (1849) - Robert Schumann
While DeAunn and I moved out here for school for a number of reasons (to get our terminal degrees that are expected when applying for college teaching jobs, to master the art of winning orchestral auditions, etc.) this is one part I eagerly anticipated when we signed on for the program. I really enjoy performing solo repertoire, and I haven't had the opportunity to play a full solo recital in quite a while. I did play a half-hour slot at the Midwest Regional Tuba-Euph Conference (MWRTEC) in Michigan just over a year ago, and DeAunn and I played a joint unaccompanied recital just before we moved in August, but the width, breadth, and depth of the repertoire, resources, and time commitment involved for this upcoming event are much different.
As much as I like solo playing, and as much as I've looked forward to doing this, it really wasn't until a couple months ago that I started going through my library to pick out a program. All told, I didn't start working up this until just over a month ago. Some of the works I've had kind of on the back burner for a long time, but most are brand new to me. It's been a month of ass kicking, to be certain. I've performed the Gulya twice before, but it's an undertaking every time, and the Bach turned out to be a much more involved and expansive piece than I'd planned. The other pieces are not short on musical and technical challenges, either; I don't really care for playing too much filler or third-rate dreck. Would I like to have planned in more prep time? No doubt. As it is, though, I should be just about at peak performance when I hit the stage Sunday.
As you can tell from the program, most of the rep is modern. What else you'd expect from an instrument that didn't have any serious repertoire written for it prior to the '50s, I don't know. As a fun bit of trivia and happenstance, all but the two transcriptions on the program (i.e., the Bach and Schumann) come from the same Swiss publisher; I could nearly call this the "Editions BIM" recital. However, all the pieces came onto my radar on their own from a myriad of sources over the past few years.
The Schumann was recorded by one of my teachers, former San Francisco Symphony Principal Tuba Floyd Cooley, in the early '90s; that CD was extremely influential to me in my early undergrad years. As it happens, Floyd was also the one who brought the Bach to my attention. It was a recording of my friend Mark Fabulich's graduate recital at NEC that turned me on to the Gulya; it's pretty athletic and more than a bit schizophrenic, but it makes for a hell of an opener. The Stevens is a solo & piano version of the third movement of one of his brass quintets, Seasons; it was by far my favourite movement of that piece when I heard the original, and I was excited to find the transcription on the solo competition list for this summer's International Tuba-Euph Conference in Austria. DeAunn and I learned of Tony Plog's duet with piano talking to the composer himself after a master class he gave here at the U this past fall; we've both enjoyed performing his other works, and this seemed like a perfect fit for us. I rediscovered the Kellaway while searching for "just one more" piece to meet the time requirements for the recital. Another piece for horn, tuba, and piano, it was commissioned and recorded by premiere tuba soloist Roger Bobo (along with the ridiculous Norwegian hornist Frøydis Ree Wekre and Kellaway on piano) on an album that I also picked up in my early undergrad years but haven't listened to in the best part of a decade. Much better than I remember.
While I know my brothers-in-monastic-observance and most others who read this blog won't be able to attend in person, I'm making an attempt to live stream the recital here. I know I'm looking forward to it.
- Br. Absalom
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