Of Men and Mountains! (3 day countdown)

First, I want to wish my dad the happiest of birthdays.  He’s somehow been able to put up with me for 34 years of my life!  Congratulations to the Florida State Seminoles for killing my Blue Devils’ 25-game win streak.  FSU played a tough game. So the reason for the title of this blog is that I’m soon off to Colorado Springs to work with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic for a week.  Get your tickets now.  I’m excited about the repertoire, the soloist, and the opportunity that the week presents.  I’ll be conducting Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 4, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.  It’s an interesting program.  (To read my thoughts on the first movement of Beethoven 7, check out my previous blog.)

A lot goes into putting a program together, but even more goes into putting an audition program together.  Most of you who know my work know that I am a champion of living composers and new music.  I wanted a program that gave the orchestra and public an idea of the variety of music that I could do.  I actually left contemporary music off the program because I figured it was already seen as an area of expertise.  (I’ve been running an opera company that performs only contemporary music for the past 4 years, after all!)

I’ll talk more about the program over the next few days.  The past few weeks have been busy because we’re trying to get the second half of Opera Vista’s season put together, and I’ve been preparing the pieces to conduct in Colorado.  (Plus the whole New Year’s resolutions bit…)  I leave for Colorado on January 16, so I’ll try to blog the entire trip.  Oh, and I owe you all a bunch of pictures from my Asia trip.  I’ll get those up with the Colorado Springs pics!