USA TOUR

I feel I must check on the State of the Nation after the impending election, so once again I shall be going West, even though sadly no longer young. Hope to see you all at the Midwest or at a concert somewhere:

Nov 11 – 15 Cleveland State University

Nov 15 – 21 University of Kentucky at Lexington

Nov 21 – 30 University of Southern Florida at Tampa

Nov 30 – Dec 6 University of Louisville

Dec 12 – 17 Mid West Clinic

Repertoire will include (Links below to performances)

Jess Turner Through the Looking Glass Cleveland

Luis Serrano Alarcon Duende Cleveland

Christopher Theofanidis The Here and Now Kentucky

Timothy Jackson Passacaglia Kentucky

Guy Woolfenden Gallimaufry Southern Florida

Adam Gorb Yiddish Dances Louisville

Guy Woolfenden Illyrian Dances Mid-West

I have already written about The Here and Now by Christopher Theofanidis, but in November I have the privilege and honour of conducting this splendid piece at the University of Kentucky at Lexington with the UK Chorale, the Lexington Singers and the UK Wind Ensemble. It is a quite marvellous work, based on extraordinary poems by the 14th century Persian mystic, Rumi, part religious and part very sensual, extremely difficult to learn because much of the text seems not to make sense, he just uses words for their musical sound and rhythm. The superb performance on Youtube is by Kevin Geraldi and the UNCG Symphony Orchestra and Choirs, but we are performing it in the composer’s version for wind orchestra.

Some old friends in these programmes, two works by the late Guy Woolfenden, Alarcon’s haunting and exciting Duende, Tim’s masterly Passacaglia and Yiddish Dances revisited after a long obsession with Dances from Crete. Jess Turner’s piece is a short very effective fanfare.