I have finished writing my trumpet Concerto. I have put a Score and Audio Video up at YouTube - 

I have got the scores, booklets and parts back from the printers for Rag Doll. The culmination of 38 years work, as I was first asked to write the music for this in 1986, but it took many twists and turns, re-writes and transcriptions over the years to get to this point. More info at https://mldunn.net/rag-doll

Now I can get back to my Trumpet Concerto. Though I am thinking I might call it ‘Statement for Trumpet and Orchestra’. Either way I am now working on the final movement.

Finally, I can reveal what I have been working on, musically, for the last 18 months. At times I thought I would never finish, but it seems I have done. In 1986/7 I wrote the music for a musical, with my good friend and colleague the artist David Chandler. I was asked to do this by my then manager Patrick Williams (in return for a swanky new keyboard he had bought me). He told me that David had come across translations of the original German letters written by 20th century artist, Oskar Kokoschka, to a seamstress in Germany at the end of World War One. Oskar, shell-shocked and love-sick, wanted a life-sized model made to replace the lover who had deserted him - Alma Mahler (widow of the composer Gustav Mahler). The letters describe this misguided episode in Oskar's life, stitch by stitch. All, amazingly, a true story. David thought it was a great idea for a musical, which is where I came in. Wind forward 37 years - I decided this musical, which has never been performed (though it nearly was, at the ICA in London, in the 1980s) and which has haunted us both all that time, needed reworking. As I have started writing for String Quartet in the last few years, I decided to transcribe it all for String Quartet and two singers. I didn't realize quite what I had committed myself to, as my twenty-something year old notes where not saved in the best format (computers for music barely existed then) and it took a long time to analyse, rework and redefine music that had been written for a conventional band into String Quartet. But I made it! We are hoping to get this performed in at least one place, as it is eminently performable - a cast of only two, and four string players, are required, and the music is all scored out and ready to play -so if anyone knows of any venue/theatre who may be interested in putting it on please let us know! You can hear the full length work at the Rag Doll page

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