It’s not often that new music is written for shakuhachi, but a few weeks back I was fortunate to perform a set of four new miniatures written for me by friends and colleagues at Queens College. Here is an audio file of the performance, which begins with a liberal interpretation …
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying out the free version of Spotify, a downloadable application that allows you to search, stream, create playlists, and share music from a library of over 15 million tracks. You can also import your local audio files, although you can only share …
Now that another semester’s over I have time to dive into some of my guilty pleasures: video games, online forums, and… dance music? Yes, I admit it, I have a thing for Lady Gaga. Before my fellow composers drag me into a dark alley and beat some sense into me, …
Last semester I was supposed to have an orchestral reading, along with four other students, as part of a class taught by Bright Sheng. The readings turned into a bureaucratic nightmare and to make a long story short, I got the short end of the stick and had my reading …
While I’m waiting for the recording of my latest composition (Three Psychodramas for piano – yes, it’s as exciting as it sounds), I’ll share the third and final movement of Haiku, my piece for guitar and shakuhachi. Here’s a low-quality recording made after a couple of hours of practice. It …