I’ve got great news and audio tracks to share with you and the world! Please help me by sharing these links to my tracks.

CutTime’s newest program “Music For Interesting Times” was a big success, and ProMusica of Detroit will be webstreaming the concert starting TONIGHT at 7pm EST. The concert took place October 7 in the film theater of the Detroit Institute of Arts because they have been avoiding shows in Rivera Court, AND I commissioned a new film by Kresge Fellow Brandon Walley for the final Chaconne. Perfect for the big screen behind us playing onstage. I later interviewed and set up pieces with WRCJ host Cecelia Sharpe. Three Detroit Symphony musicians joined me too. Just like old times!

Here are demonstration audio tracks to give you a sense of variety, romanticism, counterpoint and intensity in this "disastrous" program. The subject matter is reflective, motivating, and sometimes brutal. Nostalgic and perspective music for times of great crisis; hardly the upbeat, lively music-making I’ve been drumming out in bars, clubs and backyards the last dozen years. But there’s plenty enough that is uplifting in this program. The alternation is like breathing or a meditation, and modeling how to rise to the occasion of more competitive living. We learn when and how to shift our gears and expectations, like the music.

DEMO – Model-T Magic

DEMO – Let The Children Play Part 1

DEMO – Let The Children Play Part 2

DEMO – Stuck from Phantom Detroit

DEMO – Chaconne: For Interesting Times

Life in Pittsburgh has been really great. Quite coincidentally I was asked this fall to compose a short new work for solo double bass and orchestra at Allegheny College. The Concertino will premiere in late April with graduating senior. It features powerful drama, some classic bell canto, clever orchestration, and a “go-go” dance with a famous quote to finish! I love when a musical trope fits this well.

My own glorious old English bass is with the bass seller now, and I just have a few playing gigs left. (I’ll borrow or rent for those.) It is a relief not to be pushing/obsessing for CutTime gigs anymore. My back and hands keep saying “Oh THANK YOU! THANK YOU!” I’m looking for access in Pittsburgh to a modern enlarging printer to focus on selling my 100+ music publications.

I suddenly attend more concerts than I play now, study audiences around me, and observe some local colors. PSO has lots of 20-somethings in their audiences. Not so much for classical chamber music. A friend is showing me some clubs and influencers. But I don’t hustle like I used to, and I was bad even when I started ten years ago.

My health has been fairly good, as I rode my bike infrequently along the river this summer and was active with lots of orchestra subbing. Now that’s both over, and I’m stuck with the gym. I am humbled again by my Bass Mom, Mrs. Barbara Van Dusen, for helping me with this complex transition. Pittsburgh is a wonderful city: part Midwest, part New England, part college town, part historic city, and part party town! I believe I can write a larger score here… IF I can sell enough printed publications to stay.

This brings me to my last good news, which is that the Canton (OH) Symphony, who played my Essay No. 1 (After Sibelius) last June, will premiere the orchestration of my Chaconne: For Interesting Times in April. Both opportunities are at the request of the Maestro Gerhardt Zimmermann, who gave me my first principal bass job there in 1982! I’ve been back in recent years as guest principal bass a few times.

This is the same Chaconne that ends tonight’s webstream. An orchestration, however, is another matter. I think it’s my BEST work, with HUGE BRASS and frequent low-Bs! This music can be about many things, like Wheel of Life, boom-bust cycles, human nature generally, or how to keep smiling with increasing climate disasters. During Covid I grew quite sad for the future we could not prevent today. And, not unsurprisingly, Brandon is more brutal in his film, which I warn you is probably PG-13.

I also have another major work that I wrote directly for orchestra in 2020; a sister composition to the Funeral March is the ESSAY No. 2 (Never Forget). I’m still looking for a premiere somewhere. My intentions are to orchestrate all of the new works I tested out with Simfonica and Players, and leave the world a richer place after me.

But that’s it! I won’t talk about the bad stuff everyone has to deal with. It happens! Just be extra vigilant out there and always find a friend at home in my music. Thank you for caring!

Click this link to register for tonight’s stream and banter with me if there’s a chat. Watch it again before it expires. Inviting friends at any time is the best way to support me!

Write back to me and let me know what you think of my mission and mixed successes experimenting with symphonic music. May these ideas, methods, music and spirit on the website cuttime.com find new life.