Recording

Got the recording of Quartet No. 1 up on my site here. Really pleased with it, best recording of anything of mine so far :). Hopefully get the other recordings and possibly put them onto my site or somewhere for anyone to listen.
Still getting feedback about the concert as well, someone has even asked if I plan to do an electro-acoustic one (hadn't thought of it by maybe).
Thats about all, work on the septet is still coming along nicely and recording samples for my electro-acoustic piece as well yesterday.

This week

This week has been an amazing, though stressful week. Monday and Tuesday was preparing for the Queen's Composers' Concert on Wednesday final rehearsels, getting programs printed and all that kind of stuff. The concert on Wed was a great success, 64 people turned up to it! Also got multiple emails and people saying well done about it. The whole concert was recorded so will have a new excelent quality version of my Quartet No. 1 on my site by Monday also possibly might have links to the other peoples pieces as well for anyone thats interested.
The atmosphere after the concert was great as well with people hanging about for at least 30mins after (much to the porters annoyance).The Head of School has also said it should become a fixture which was the intention anyway. The next one will probably be late November, early December so piles of time to organise it and more importantly write some music!

The other great thing about this week, last night we (SPARK opera company) got £5000 funding to put on the 4 short operas! This was £1000 more than we asked for, its not the full amount that we need but its definitely a massive start. Winning the money is all doesn to Kate Guelke and Marianne McKnight but I think having abotu 20 of the company there helped as well. We have got a venue organised for November time, again piles of time to get it sorted and thankfully for this one all I have to do is write the music. It will be an interesting experience but it is happening!

Oh yes theres also piles of uni work to get done over Easter. Going to be really busy for the next few weeks and months :):).

First Rehearsal

Had my first rehearsal yesterday of Quartet No. 1 went really well, really happy with the players I have :). Though one of them couldn't make it, he was flying over the Irish sea at the time so a decent enough excuse. Really happy with the way the rehearsal went, the players seem to have a good grip of it so feeling a lot better with the concert looming in 12 days....12 days?!!! Have more rehearsals planned but still 12 days?!!?!
Got a bit of advertising done for it though, www.cmc.ie have it on their site and getting some posters made up to put around Queen's and maybe Belfast in general. Might try and get some flyers put into the newly referbished Ulster Hall, which looks really really good! If you get a chance go and have a look about, it is still the Ulster Hall but a lot more vibrent seating plan makes a lot more sense as well. Anyway getting side tracked... need to do some more advertising for the concert some how, would like a decent amount of people to come along to it. New music needs to be heard no point playing to an empty hall. Any suggestions on advertising anyone?

Commissions!

My aim for this weekend was to get at least one piece finished and I managed to do it with time to spare for another. I got Catherine’s trumpet solo done and sent to her. Just a short piano and trumpet piece, quite jazzy but quite short.
The other piece I’ve got to make a decent start on is for the Queen’s Music society. They are planning to put on an informal concert some time soon and have asked me to write something for Double Bass, Cello, Bass Guitar, Piano, Mezzo and timp. It’s a weird ensemble but could be interesting. Again its just going to be a short piece, probably about 2mins long or so, but being asked to write a piece is still being asked to write a piece.
Got the first rehearsal of my quartet this week, concerts only in about three weeks! Though CMC have agreed to advertise it on their site, they should mean a decent amount of advertisement and maybe a few more people coming to it.

Also in other news, I've got my inter-rail tickets booked! Away for a month over the summer and will probably do random updates on this.

Working

Surprisingly almost finished the draft of my septet and what’s left to do I know exactly where its going to go so shouldn't be too long before doing the final version.

As for the other pieces, well they are getting done slowly but surely, I think.
Deadlines are starting to come closer so really need to seriously get them
finished.

The concert is going ahead, not sure on time yet but it will be the evening of 1st April in the Harty Room in Queen's. So far the line up is a Piano trio by Piers Hellawell, a Piano Duet by Eddie Zatriqi, a septet by Omar Zatriqi, a quartet by Daniel Barkley, and two trios by Joel Cathright and myself. Might change a little before then but I dont think by much.

Beyond the Tone and concert

At long last getting "Beyond the Tone" played on Tuesday by the artists in residence. The workshop was supposed to be in the afternoon but performers being who they are decided to get an early flight home meaning its now first thing in the morning! Still its a performance and so I should have a recording up by Tuesday evening *fingers crossed*.

Also have started making arrangements for putting on a concert on the 1st of April with bits of work from other composers in Queens and one of my lecturers (Piers Hellawell) which should be interesting if it all works out. So far there is going to be a Septet, piano duet, piano trio, a quartet and two trios maybe a little more depending on composers.

Also got more info on the short opera I'm meant to be writing. Had a meting with everyone on Monday and its looking very promising, the librettists ideas are really interesting. Looks like the opera needs to be almost finished by august to be performed in a festival but under the understanding that it is a work in progress and finished for September for an actual performance. There are 4 of us each writing a 10 min opera, Omar and Eddie Zatriqi, Connor Mitchell and myself.

I think thats about all the interesting stuff for now.