New stuff!

Hello all! It’s been a while since I updated with any legitimate information on here, so I thought I’d stop in at let you know what’s been going on lately as far as my composing is concerned.

I’m currently writing and arranging some Celtic-infused music for Wolfbane’s production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. For those of you in the Lynchburg area, the show runs the August 24-28 and September 1-4 at Randolph College’s Thoresen Theatre. Come check it out!

I submitted my entry to the Abbey Road Studios 80th Anniversary Anthem contest, and just before the deadline at that! I went BIG for this one, because hey, why not – full orchestra, chorus, rock band, the whole shebang. Now I just have to play the waiting game while Eric Whitacre and Harry Christophers give it the ol’ once-over, which is no way intimidating. 

 On the lighter side, many of you have probably seen the “Book Of Mormon” fugue that I wrote just for funsies recently, based off the first song in the Broadway show. In case you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the
link:

Apparently, this has been forwarded along to some cast members in the actual Broadway production of The Book Of Mormon, who are now playing it in the dressing rooms before the show. Kind of amazing what can happen in the YouTube era! 

So more and more offers or commissions for original compositions and arrangements are starting to come in for me. It’s definitely given me a sense of and “Yes, I really CAN do this for a living!” and “No, I don’t suck, because people wouldn’t give me money if I did!”, but now comes the slightly difficult matter of picking which projects I’ll actually have the time and energy to do! I suppose it’s a good problem to have, as problems go. Right now I’m carefully planning out this next year both professionally and financially, with the goal that approximately one year from now (grad school or no), I’ll be in NYC. It looks like there actually may be quite a few exciting projects between now and then (which I can elaborate upon in future posts), and who knows what might happen when I get into the city and start making more connections. Somebody out there has to write new music, so why not me? I say, onward and upward!

~James B