I have released a 24bit HD remaster of my Third Digitiphony at Bandcamp today, including a bonus track of Culmination - the Radio edit of the final section https://mldunn.bandcamp.com/album/digitiphony-3
I have released a 24bit HD remaster of my Third Digitiphony at Bandcamp today, including a bonus track of Culmination - the Radio edit of the final section https://mldunn.bandcamp.com/album/digitiphony-3
Other than an unwelcome computer failure (now sorted and reinstalled) in the studio, things are settling down this year - I finished the organ piece I wrote, inspired by the individual and muse-ifying pipe organ at Glencruitten House, for when it is restored, and I am back on transcribing the Rag Doll songs (mentioned below) for String Quartet and voices. I am on song #8 now, out of ten, and looking forward to when they are all finished so I can get on with my musical life. It has been a bigger project than I expected, partly because of other things going on in my life, partly because of the challenges of transcribing from an old 1980s cassette tape. Truly analogue :-)
Here's the organ piece - https://youtu.be/8UzFPVzmo2k?si=71RvnrI2shccdMJU
I have a new video up. I wrote the track in 2014 a couple of months before my stroke. That must have knocked it out of my head and I forgot about it until rediscovering it this week. It is narrated by my good friend Paul Belben, backing vocals by Claire Dunn and the rest by me -
The last month or three have been difficult - the death of my father and his funeral have necessarily taken the focus away from my music. However I am returning to a mental place where I can work again, whilst never having stopped entirely, except for the last week or so. Someone said something to me this week that resonates deeply with me, and will do for many others - ‘For a creative person, not to be able to create is like suffocating’.
I am still working on the rearrangement of the 1987 musical that I wrote with David Chandler's libretto - ‘Rag Doll’ - for String Quartet and voice. I am close to finishing song 4 out of 10. I am also, very slowly (very very slowly..) still working on my Trumpet Concerto. I have the skeleton of all three movements in my head, and have started putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) for the beginning of each one (the first movement is about half way there, in fact).
I have started work on writing a Trumpet Concerto. I don't expect to complete this quickly due to all the other things currently happening in my life - my Musical Access work has got very busy as all my clients are finally completely out of lockdown (about a year after everyone else!) and I am also re-arranging a musical I composed the music for many years ago for string quartet. In the meantime here is the opening section of the Trumpet Concerto
The culmination of an international meeting of talents from Texas, Michigan, Warsaw and the UK, 'I can feel the light ' is released on February 1st 2023. Here is a lyric video of it to be going on with -
The full score and 4 individual parts for my First String Quartet are now published at Sheet Music Plus. Beautifully engraved by master engraver Graham Hall and available here - https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/string-quartet-no-1-digital-sheet-music/22359240
My first full length (as opposed to my shorter String Quartetettes) String Quartet No. 1 is released today on Bandcamp!
When a friend put up a clip on Facebook from the film 'Into the Wild' with Eddie Vedder singing a song called Hard Sun, I knew I recognised it, but not from that version. I couldn't get it out of my head though, and it was only after a few days and some googling I realised that the version I knew of this song was by Indio, aka Gordon Peterson, who wrote it. He only released one album, Big Harvest, in 1989, which I was given by a friend who thought I would like it - and I did - it is a brilliant album, and now something of a collector's item, if you have the vinyl (sadly I didn't - I only had a cassette, which I lost, which was why I hadn't heard this song for so long). By this time, the song had wormed its way into my ear, and the only way I could cure myself was by doing a cover of it. Claire Dunn and Mella agreed to help me out with it. It was also a good excuse to use my 'personally manufactured', baritone guitar remodelled from a bass acoustic guitar by my friend and talented guitar maestro Paul Belben.
It is available on all the streaming sites too, such as Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/track/6RQrMwEXiVEm8J08sfdvRM
Since finishing my Digitiphonic version of Strauss' Metamorphosen I have found myself in musical stasis. Not that I'm not doing anything, more that I am doing too much. I have several projects swirling around in my head or partly finished, but no focus or energy to finish any of them. This hasn't been helped by a death in the family and catching Covid, both close together. However, having recovered, almost, from the Covid, I am now close to finishing one particular smaller project. More on that in a week or three. In the meantime I have to own up to having written a book - details here - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60766922-my-reluctant-friend