Greetings from Ann Arbor, where the Philip Glass Ensemble is working with Robert Wilson and Lucinda Childs to re-mount the legendary Einstein on the Beach. Preview performances are here in a few weeks, and everyone is excited to be a part of the experience.

A few exciting bits of news. I was recently accepted as a resident composer at the 2012 Mizzou New Music Festival, where Alarm Will Sound will premiere a new work of mine. Very excited for this.

I will also be releasing my 2nd album with the amazing Innova Recordings. This full length recording will feature a new extended composition, Eucalyptus, that premiered at the MoMA in October 2011, as well as new percussion pieces performed by Brian Archinal. More details to come as we finalize the release date, but I am very excited for people to hear it.

I have two performances in October at the Museum of Modern Art, set within Carlito Carvalhosa’s new exhibition Sum of Days. Each performance will consist of two parts – saxophone/interactive electronics improvisations with Red Wierenga and a new work for multiple saxophones (live and pre-recorded).

As you can see from the video links, Sum of Days is designed to facilitate a dream like experience. By encountering its massive scale, the visitor is encouraged to remove normal parameters of perception and enter a new state of observation. As Carlito explains, the work is free flowing, impossible to completely define, and continually moving through different phases of existence.

In a few days, I will be going on tour with Asphalt Orchestra in New Hampshire and Maine. The highlight of our performances will be the premiere of the new indoor show, choreographed by Mark DeChiazza and Andrew Robinson.

And in early November the Philip Glass Ensemble is joining the N.Y. Philharmonic for two rare performances of Koyaanisqatsi with orchestra and chorus.

A busy stretch of performances is fast approaching!

From July 25th-27th, Tree People is playing at the Branded Saloon, Cafe Orwell & the Way Station. All Brooklyn venues! Come check us out. Tree People is band of three (w/ Andrew Smiley & Ed RosenBerg) with a highly personal, unique approach to improvisation.

Then Asphalt Orchestra heads north to perform at the Ottawa Chamberfest over the weekend (July 30-31st)! It’s always to great to march around with these guys.

Finally, the Philip Glass Ensemble kicks off a very busy upcoming year and a half of performances with the Koyaanisqatsi trilogy in Edinburgh. Then we head to California to perform Powaqqatsi with the L.A. Philharmonic (at the Hollywood Bowl) followed by three gigs in the lovely Big Sur.

The NOW Ensemble is receiving a lot of media attention for the new album Awake, including a recent plug on NPR’s All Things Considered. There is also a very favorable Washington Post review from the Library of Congress performance; Anne Midgette praises works from the album, including Waiting in the Rain for Snow, as “pretty terrific…Each had a distinct voice but a shared ethos, in part because of the distinctive instrumentation of flute, clarinet, electric guitar, piano and double bass, which leads to a lot of piercing or clarion top lines and a lot of layering of sound as the disparate timbres intersect.”

The New Haven Advocate loves the “slow burning of intensity” of Waiting in the Rain for Snow while the Classical Review says “There’s something appropriately liquescent about David Crowell’s Waiting in the Rain for Snow. A meditation on the crystallization of rain or ice into snow, it’s a hymnal to a hidden process, the sense of transformation etched and sculpted by intricate, repeated figures in guitar and piano overlaid and compounded by shifting, drifting patterns in woodwinds.”

Awake was also named album of the month at Silent Ballet and album of the week on New York’s own WQXR. Alarm Press also gave it album of the week, saying that “throughout Awake, simple and complex repetitions are deftly woven together, forming patterns that engage listeners while urging their ears to dig deeper, layer by layer.”

Finally, Awake has reached #2 in overall Classical sales on Amazon (#1 in the Classical Chamber Music category) while getting as high as #6 in overall Classical sales on iTunes.

The Now Ensemble’s new album, Awake, is now available on iTunes. It contains a beautiful recording of my piece, Waiting in the Rain for Snow. Please check the NewAm website for more info on the release date and party, as well as the Now Ensemble site for some early reviews.

The last couple weeks I’ve also been working on a new piece for percussion whiz Brian Archinal, currently in Basil, Switzerland on a Fulbright. This is primarily a recording project, with Brian multi-tracking all 9 parts (maybe more, who knows?). The piece is inspired by segments in Throw Down Your Heart that feature a group of 6 musicians in Uganda playing the 15 foot Amadinda (gigantic marimba). It is probably the most hard-core grooving-est (is that a word?) thing that I have ever heard. I’m completely serious. Everyone is strongly encouraged to check this out for themselves by watching (at least) the first 20 minutes of Throw Down Your Heart. I can’t imagine my life without the existence of music like this.

Finally, another very exciting composition/performance project is in the process of being finalized over the next week or so. Updates to come!

I’m excited to head down to Pittsburgh in a few weeks to hear the premiere of Infatuation, commissioned and performed by the Duquesne Contemporary Ensemble. I’ll be giving a composition seminar for students in the music department while I’m there.

Also, a few months ago Brad Lubman and Ensemble Signal released a live recording of Glassworks on Orange Mountain Music. I’m playing tenor saxophone and PGE musical director Michael Riesman is at the helm.

I mentioned this briefly in the last post, but there’s going to be an awesome show at Coco66 on Feb. 27th. Salo, led by bassist and composer Ben Gallina, shares a label with the David Crowell Ensemble. They’re starting things off at 9. We’re next at 10, and then Mary of Egypt, who play interesting chamber-pop written by Julia Hatemeyer, closes at 11.

I’m also excited to announce that I have booked two days at the Clubhouse for the new record. This is a top of the line studio with tons of vintage analogue gear. In addition, we’ll be recording directly to tape, which is something that rarely happens in this age of digital technology. I’m excited to hear our music captured by the incomparable warmth of analogue!

The material we’ll be recording has been in development since the summer of 2009. Although probably 15 pieces have been composed for the group since then, we’ve narrowed it down to 6 that best capture the goals I originally set out for myself as a composer. More on that later. In the meantime, I will just say that several of these pieces are almost completely new; all the more reason for you to come out to Coco66 and hear them!

Finally, some amazing gigs have recently come down the pike for the Philip Glass Ensemble. In addition to the recent announcement of an Einstein on the Beach revival, the PGE will be performing with both the N.Y. Philharmonic (Koyaanisqatsi at Avery Fischer Hall) and L.A. Philharmonic (Powaqqatsi at the Hollywood Bowl) in the upcoming months.

I had a great time playing with FACE Improv last week. Upcoming shows include the Danny Sher Sextet at Bar 4, Travis Reuter Quintet at Ibeam, and a big show at Coco 66 with the Salo, Mary of Egypt and the David Crowell Ensemble (Feb. 27th).

I’m also hard at work on a new piece for chamber ensemble, commissioned by the Duquesne Contemporary Ensemble. Generally speaking, January has been an intense month of composing, with new music for the David Crowell Ensemble as well. I’m starting 2011 off right!

Pomegranate Arts has officially announced the full revival of the Philip Glass/Bob Wilson opera Einstein on the Beach in 2012-13. We are performing in London, Amsterdam, Montpellier (France), Toronto, Berkeley, Brooklyn (BAM) and Ann Arbor (previews). More dates are likely forthcoming in the next months.

I was fortunate to perform a concert version of Einstein at Carnegie Hall in 2007, but am very excited to be a part of the first full production since 1992.

A couple of great shows happening soon.

I’m going to D.C. with the Asphalt Orchestra. These guys are awesome and I’m excited to be playing with them.

The next night, the David Crowell Ensemble is doing a show at Zebulon with Matthew Welch’s bagpipe driven band Blarvuster. It’s their CD Release party on John Zorn’s Tzadik, which is one of my favorite labels of all time. Congratulations to them! And congratulations to you for having such a great show to go to on a Wednesday night! Hope to see you.