Last time I posted an update, we had been rehearsing Kristina for a week. I both can very much believe and at the same time absolutely cannot believe that was five weeks ago.
Over the past weeks, I have juggled increasingly demanding – but exciting! – rehearsals as well as several different, smaller projects. On top of that, I still had some renovation work left on the outside wall that I needed to finish before autumn really sets in.
Last week, I gave this year’s first lecture on the history of computer and video game music for the Game Audio students at Framnäs Folk High School. I’ve been giving these lectures for many years now, revising and refining the material a little more every year.
Preparing for this year’s first lecture, though, I felt like my material is reaching not an end point but at least a stage where only minor edits and updates are needed. However, because I only give these lectures a few times every year, and I jump around between lots of different projects and even different teaching subjects, I still need to prepare myself.
The week before that, I finished the new piece for Trio Nastela. Sometime later this year, perhaps in November, I will make a presentation of that piece, how I structured it and how I reused musical material from my short story opera, The Loving Mother.
As usual, at least for me, the end was the most difficult part to write. That, and coming up with a name. The end actually took several days of trial and error, thinking and testing and planning and even going back to rework the beginning of the piece slightly in order to make it all fit neatly together. Balance is key; too short and the end will feel abrupt and unsatisfying, but too long might disrupt the flow of the piece or make it feel like the start of a new section instead of an end to the entire piece.
Regarding the name, I kind of gave up on trying to come up with a unique name, settling instead on the more generic Rhapsody for oboe, bassoon and piano. At least it’s a bluntly honest name…
I am really happy with how the piece turned out – from beginning to end – and now I hope that the trio will enjoy learning and playing it. (And, of course, that it will become a hit with the audience, like the opera did.)
Yet another week earlier – three weeks ago – I livestreamed conductor Maxim Emelyanychev’s first concert as the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra’s new Principal Guest Conductor. The concert is available for another week to stream on-demand at Berwaldhallen Play. Pianist Francesco Piemontesi treated us to an, in my opinion, wonderful take on Brahms’ first piano concerto and after the intermission Emelyanychev conducted Mahler’s fifth symphony in a spirited but still tasteful fashion.
Working with Berwaldhallen’s livestreams remains a fun and rewarding challenge eight years after we started. In the first years, I was their only score supervisor, but geographical and practical realities have since made it impossible for me to keep taking on every streamed concert. Living almost 500 kilometres away and combining a bunch of different freelance jobs – in multiple parts of Sweden as well as abroad – means ultimately some things must give.
Performing in Kristina has also meant some sacrifices, including having to decline a few job offers. But I choose to look on that as something positive, as a sign that – fingers crossed – I won’t have to go into next year without things to do.
The last things I need to get done before opening night are: preparing the finished score and parts to The Loving Mother for publishing with Svensk Musik, and finishing two new vocal arrangements for my dear friends in Kurve, the Norwegian vocal ensemble I have been working with for many years now, and with whom I will be performing in their Christmas concert this winter! Stay tuned for more information about that, as well.