budafulmusic

I recently had the privilege to compose incidental music for an upcoming Graduate speech recital. Sounds really academic, huh? Well don’t take it too seriously. This program is not for the long of face. In short, the extremely talented Allisha Sperr will be performing a series of short, absolutely hysterical comedy routines. I cannot begin to describe how funny this recital is going to be. You just have to see it for yourself to believe it.

This program takes place in Stratton Hall on the campus of BJU this Saturday, December the 5th at 7 o’ clock pm. Here are some audio samples:

Pre-show2: waltz

Pre-show1

Break their hearts, All is ha!

This past weekend, I received my first acceptance letter for a choral work. Hinshaw, a music publisher, was delighted with my choral anthem It is not Death to Die and will feature it in an upcoming production season. I posted the recording from the recital before this but it can now be accessed here as well:

It Is Not Death

I’ll be posting about this again as details solidify.

As an engraving editor at SoundForth, one of my responsibilities is to get piano books ready for publishing. Just in time for the Christmas season, this new advanced Christmas piano collection, arranged by Amy Herbster from Herbster Evangelistic Ministries, was one of my first projects. It is exiting to see it come to print. It is a companion to the previously existing recording.

This second hymn tune in my short series of hymn tune postings is set to a common meter text by Isaac Watts. Based on Psalm 16, When God is Nigh is about God’s ever sure presence in our lives and the protection and comfort He provides us on our earthly journey and then talks of the glories and pleasures of heaven. This hymn tune is similar in style to the famous and gorgeous Passion Chorale. View and print the PDF here. Listen to a nice piano rendition of the harmonization here.

One of several projects I was given while in grad school was to write hymn tunes. Make them singable yet harmonically interesting and appropriate to the text; accessible to the average ear yet beautiful and compelling. Here is the first of three hymn tunes that I wrote. Of course, the first place I started was with the text. I discovered this Charles Wesley text on www.hymntime.com and renamed it: Eternal Praise. This text is about just that: the adoration and praise of Christ through all ages and for eternity in heaven. View and print the hymn here. Listen to me playing the hymn here. It is a cut above the cheap MIDI sounds on hymntime to be sure!

Over this past summer, I took on another project with Majesty Music. This time I helped edit and arrange about 30 songs written by Ron Hamilton. These songs, as the title suggests, are not just any of his songs but what could be considered to be classic Ron Hamilton. It is the first of at least 2 volumes, the second due some time early next year (something which here means: whenever we get to it) .

The songs are all arranged very simply by design and include a vocal line, piano accompaniment and guitar chords. A late beginning pianist could practice these songs up with relatively little difficulty and an intermediate pianist could play these pieces well. I sent a copy each to my parents and Aunt and they all loved the book and could both play through the whole thing. One thing I am grateful for is the page in the back that explains the inspiration for writing some of the songs that Ron Hamilton is best known for.

Songs range from his earliest compositions (Come to the Cross and Christ is Coming) to his most recent songs including Beautiful Hands. There need to be more collections like this from other publishers…hmmm, The best of SoundForth.

Sacredaudio.com now has all of the songs from ‘Shadow of the Cross’ available for purchase/download here.

Recently, I’ve been seeing a few top 10 favorites lists so I’m going to give it a go. OST stands for Original Soundtrack, that is, a soundtrack to a film. Parameters for this list are as foll0ws: 1 best score from 10 of the best film composers, no repeats of composers.

1. Signs by James Newton Howard, more about how one family copes with pain and trouble than about aliens, this OST is not for the faint of heart. It quite possible could be one of the most unnerving soundtracks I’ve heard but the final two tracks are worth the dissonance (aka set theory). Continue reading

Shadow of the Cross

This past May I had the privilege to work with Ron and Shelly Hamilton to put together some new music for a new choral project they were doing. It was a short ride in a fast couple of weeks but I thoroughly enjoyed it. After getting the arrangements done they were sent off to the orchestrators and were speedily recorded and mixed at Air Borne Studios in the middle of June, just in time for the annual Majesty Musicollege seminar that was held this past week up in PA and IN. Looking back, I wonder how we got it all done in so little time.

Shadow of the Cross is a new sacred choral book featuring a new Easter musical entitled Lift Him Up. There is much variety in this collection, from the stirring piece called “Through the Eyes of Christ” to the majestic Irish sounds of “Higher Ground” and “Shadow of the Cross” to the more meditative feel of “Beautiful Hands.”  Get a copy of the book and CD here.

Here are two samples from the recording:

Beautiful Hands

Search Me, O God

It’s been a while. Here is an mp3 for your listening enjoyment. This was the closing piece for my recital and was, I think, the most endearing piece in the program. Several people came up to me after wards in tears because of the powerful text and the effective musical setting.

While it may be easy to say that this was the most accessible piece, what made it that way? Was it because it had more “diatonic triads” than that of the rest of the program? or perhaps it was what came before it that made it so effective. Recently, I attended a recital which featured several modern pieces in the program. At first, the sounds were atmospheric and gradually they became more tense and more dissonant, to the point of being  annoying to even the trained ear! Then, after over 10 minutes, out of the blue came this gorgeous melody that closed the piece. It brought tears to my eyes. It was the journey that made it so memorable and effective.

In some small way, that is what I intended to happen for my recital. Here is the song:

It Is Not Death