Tag Archives: drum set

In Between Enescu and Dvořak

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Two World Premieres by Gregory Vajda were presented in between pieces by Enescu and Dvořak in about a two week time period.

Enescu: Romanian Rhapsody #1
Gregory Vajda: Clarinet Symphony
Dvořak: Symphony #8 in G

Enescu: Romanian Rhapsody #1
Gregory Vajda: Drums Drums Drums
Dvořak: Symphony #8 in G

As for the Enescu and the Dvořak I can’t remember “double dipping” a concert program like this for a long time, if ever. To tell you the truth it was not even planned this way at first. Mostly guest artists scheduling led to this situation, but in hindsight I don’t mind it at all. Having two new compositions of mine played for the first time in a short timeframe (and BTW almost exactly a year after the World Premiere of Georgia Bottoms, A Comic Opera of the Modern South) gave me a rare opportunity to get into my own music as a listener. Being the conductor of your own work does take away from being able to truly listen “from outside”. Performing music – your own or someone else’s – always comes with a lot of “on the ground” work and with having to fix small details as you go. To get the big picture, to listen and to judge a composition as a whole requires distance, both physical and mental. For some reason premiering two pieces (about 50 minutes of music all together) shed more light on musical problems (orchestration, tempi, form, etc.) and helped with finding solutions as well. This was definitely much better than having just one piece premiered and waiting for its next performance to occur.

There was also a third World Premiere just three days ago, a short duo for two violins entitled “Schnitte”. I wrote the duo at the request of the string players of the Hungarian Radio Symphony who wanted to play a new two-violin composition to precede Alfred Schnittke’s ‘Moz’Art á la Haydn’. They performed the piece “in stereo”, in front and in the back of the audience, and all in dark. Then during the last chord of “Schnitte” the first few contrabass notes of Schnittke’s music started. I think I managed to inject some “70s avant-garde sound” into my work that nicely prepared the audience for Schnittke. I hope to get a recording of the concert soon.

Here is a nice review of the Budapest (MUPA, Palace of the Arts) concert with many details about my Clarinet Symphony on the classical site backtrack.com
http://www.bachtrack.com

As for Drums Drums Drums, a concerto for timpani, drum-set, concert bass drum and orchestra I am looking forward to its next performance (including corrections based on the World Premiere performance with Scott Christian, Gergo Borlai, Sean Rittenauer and the Huntsville Symphony at the Van Braun Center) with the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra (Hessischer Rundfunk) in June 2017.

For now I am back to composing. This time it’s some fairy-tale music for an animated movie. Something completely different and a lot of fun.

The Luxury of Composing

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After a successful run of The Tenor by Ernst von Dohnanyi and before a crazy busy October (more later!) I managed to do something unheard of. I squeezed in a week (or so) time for composition only. Since completing ‘Georgia Bottoms, A Comic Opera of the Modern South’ I have finished a 3 minute long piece for piano solo entitled ‘sol-Etude’. The piece is dedicated to Peter Kiss who will be playing it twice in the US along with piano compositions by Kurtag, Ligeti and Eotvos.

http://www.pickstaiger.org/event/peter-kiss-piano-oct8

http://arts.uchicago.edu/event/piano-recital-peter-kiss

After completing ‘sol-Etude’ I started working for Edition Schott for a very special project. Peter Eotvos has asked me to do the English language adaptation of his newest opera called ‘The Golden Dragon’. The work was premiered in German in Frankfurt. The next production of it takes place in Cardiff and they want to do it in English. I have done something like this before with another Eotvos work. I’ve got to tell you, that it is a lot of fun and a great challenge to try to understand the composer’s thinking and to try to stay true to the work and the musical needs of the English language alike. Since Edition Schott wanted to publish one particular aria during this calendar year as a stand alone piece, I started my work by doing the English version of a soprano aria called “Ballade”.

After completing “Ballade” I immediately started working on my newest composition (world premiere in February, 2015 in Budapest) called ‘Drums Drums Drums’. This work is a special kind of triple concerto for three percussion players and orchestra. I am going to have three top notch soloists for the premiere: Zoltan Racz and Aurel Hollo from the famous percussion group, Amadinda on Timpani and Bass Drum, Gergo Borlai on drum-set.

http://www.amadinda.com

http://www.drumguru.com/artists/gergo-borlai/

Btw I did download the iPad app ‘Drum Guru’ and it is an amazing tool not only for drummers but for composers like myself who are writing for drumset and want to learn about the intricate details about playing drums in different styles. I promised to put the solo parts of Drums Drums Drums under the Christmas tree for my amazing soloists. No time to waste. Another intense few months of composition are ahead of me. I am loving it!