The Midwest Composers Symposium came and went, and what I got out of it was this fantastic performance of "How to be a Deep Thinker in Los Angeles" by Tyler Niemeyer.
I should mention I did not write this piece for Tyler. I conceived the idea of writing for text and percussion when I attended a Bonnie Whiting Smith percussion recital where she performed many pieces for spoken text and percussion. (She is amazing, by the way, so please check her out.)
Anyway, I met Tyler by accident, since he was the only person (an incoming freshman at the time) willing to learn this piece in less than a week for the Accent09 Festival, with the condition that I read the text. Did I mention I'm not a dramatic reader or actress? And I think he only had six days to learn this? The initial performance was okay, but it wasn't stellar.
After that performance, Tyler wanted to give this piece another go, which I said was okay. (Admittedly, I was a tiny bit hesitant because he was a freshman.) He gave an awesome performance of this piece last March, and the performance from this past weekend was even better.
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Here's another piece I didn't write for Tyler - Sounds from the Gray Goo I, initially conceived with the help of percussionist Kevin Lewis. I don't have a recording of the first collaboration, but Tyler and I performed this twice. Here we are at the Cincinnati Art Museum in September.
Are you starting to see a pattern here? So I guess the question I'm asking myself is, why haven't I written anything for this kid?