It's been a mad busy few months at BTM HQ with one project or another, but the main one which has occupied my time and my brain power has been a bit of a secret little project i've worked on for the Rye Arts Center in New York. (As a Brit, it pains me to spell "center" with "ER" and not "RE". but that's the way they've written it so i digress.) Here is the background to how this wonderful opportunity came about.
Back in season 1 of lockdown, I was asked to compose an Intro and outro theme for the Literary podcast The Dark Sire, created and managed by the wonderful Bre Stephens. Given that the Dark Sire deals with Gothic literature and themes, i figured that, with my own love of all things spooky, I could come up with something pretty good to fit their brief. A little while later, the intro and outro themes were completed and both Bre and myself were happy bunnies. I was then asked if i would write an underscore to one of the Dark Sire (TDS) stories by David Crerand. Once again, i jumped at the task and I composed what i felt was a beautifully haunting underscore to compliment an amazing story by David. If you haven't checked out his work, you absolutely should. He is a true wordsmith. Check out all the editions of the Dark Sire, they're all wonderful and contain not just amazing stories, but beautifully haunting pieces of artwork too. One of my favourite artists is Shaun Power from the UK. An amazing artist.
So, after completing the work for TDS, i moved on to other projects - compositions, recording and writing sessions, live gigs etc. Out of the blue, Bre from TDS gets in touch and asks whether i would be happy for the work i composed for TDs to be on display at the Rye Arts Center's "Artists of the Night" event, which takes place in January 2023 in Rye, New York. I said of course i would be happy for TDS to use my material, It was, after all, composed for TDS to be used. A few emails later, Bre informed me that she had recommended me to the directors of the Rye Arts Center to compose a little bit of music for them based upon Gothic themes and stories, so, we set up a video call to hash out some details.
During the call with the RAC, one of the directors of the show asked if I would be interested in composing some music for the dancer Megan Williams, who had previously been a part of the Mark Morris Dance Company (a big deal from what i gather. Again, i'm a Brit, so hadn't heard of them but thank Darwin for google searches!). Again, i said yes. This seemed like a unique and interesting challenge as I had never composed for a dance group before. Bring it on. Further conversations took place over the space of a few sessions and it went from composing a suite of 4 pieces for Megan and her dance group to composing what amounts to a double or triple album worth of music. In total, I composed 19 pieces for the RAC event, which varied from hard rock / metal and classical, to electronic, folk and soundscapes. A wide variety of styles to say the least. It clocked in at just around about 90 minutes.
From here, after months of hard work, days whiled away composing, editing, mixing and mastering, from dawn until dusk, you'd imagine a rest would be in order, but when next speaking to the RAC, they asked if i would be interested in composing some music for their live concert which is taking place in march at the end of the "Artists of the Night" event run. I said sure and asked how long they'd like. They said an hour. I said okay. So It was back to the blank sheet music to compose an hour's worth of music for the live event, to be played by the fantastic musicians at the Rye Arts Center. This, yet again, was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up. Such an exciting time. Unlike with the music for the January event, I wished to approach this composition series differently, so i cast my musical net further afield and tried to compose music using more colours than just those that the Western tonal palette had to offer, which was a very intriguing lense to look through.
Now, as i write this, charts are to be finished notating, but all of the music is composed. I can't fully explain my excitement at the prospect of my work being used in such a manner, let alone being performed by some incredibly talented musicians. I will report back.
Until next time.
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