Hello All,

Those of you from outside the East Coast of the US are probably very aware widespread destruction that Hurricane Irene has caused us. The devastation of communities from North Carolina to Canada has been incredible, and major areas of the Northeast–like Long Island, Westchester County (NY), Connecticut, Boston-area, Vermont–who are not used to such storms were hit very hard. I want to say right now that I’m extremely thankful for the precautions taken by Mayor Bloomberg of NYC and the great work by the FDNY, NYPD, and the various other offices and the great number of volunteers. NYC was spared the brunt of storm, but even so without such a plan or infrastructure in place, many more lives would’ve been lost and damage would have been more widespread. Again, thank you. And although many of my fellow New Yorkers may have been upset with the inconvenience of shutting down the MTA and the airports, if they would just look a few miles in every direction towards New Jersey and Long Island and even to the surrounding counties, I believe that they may start to consider themselves pretty damn lucky.

We’ve had some extreme weather this year in NYC: heat, tornadoes, earthquake, hurricane…this has caused some of my more religious-minded fellow Americans to speculate that these weather patterns are not due to global climate change, but to Divine design to punish NYC for its ‘evil’ ways…hmmm…if I were more of that thinking, I would probably chalk it up to the omnipresent spirit of George Gershwin commenting on the rewrite of Porgy and Bess…but I digress…

Well, onto the good news!

This week begins my time as the Con Edison/Exploring the Metropolis Resident Composer for the borough of Queens. The best part about this residency is that I get to use the wonderful facilities at Flushing Town Hall, which is in the center of a vibrant community.

Now, the idea of my project is to research and create source material to compose a new large-scale piece entitled Roots Music. This piece will combine traditional Chinese instruments, traditional Irish instruments, European classical instruments, and a solo jazz saxophone (performed by yours truly:)) Flushing is a perfect location to begin researching the traditional music and instruments of China since it has the largest Chinese population in NYC. The schools, shops, restaurants (yes, restaurants!) and community centers will provide incredible access into the culture.

The commission for this piece came from Benoit Granier, who is a composer and director of the TIMI Modern Music Ensemble, in residence at the Beijing Central Conservatory. Roots Music will have its premiere on St. Patrick’s Day, March 2012 at the Beijing Irish Modern Music Festival.

My thought is to base the piece on traditional melodies (or create my own that ‘sound’ like traditional melodies) and styles from all of these cultural genres. I also plan to take this ‘source material’ and use it as a basis to compose a series of new pieces for varied instrumentation over the next year. I expect to use some of these smaller pieces as part of my final residency concert at Flushing Town Hall, which will take place in February 2012.

Many of you remember that I started working with Dr. Granier in 2009, a collaboration that led to performances at the 2009 Musicacoustica Festival in Beijing. In April 2011, we collaborated again for a series of concerts in Boston (Northeastern University and Berklee College of Music), NYC (at (le) Poisson Rouge), and in New Jersey (Rutgers University). During this tour, TIMI performed the new version of my work Gymnopaedia. Here is the video of the premiere at Northeastern University, as part of the TransCultural Exchange International Conference on the Arts:

I’m excited to begin researching and preparing Roots Music, and the other smaller works which will be generated from it.

Well, that’s all for now. I do promise you that I’ll write the 4th (and probably final) blog on volume sometime in the next week or so.

Thank you all again for your support!

Demetrius

Greetings All,

I wanted to share with you this lovely write up of my project Roots Music which I’ll be researching and composing as part of my Con Edison/Exploring the Metropolis Residency at Flushing Town Hall this fall.

http://exploringthemetropolis.org/2011/08/2011-composer-spotlight-demetrius-spaneas/

Here is an excerpt:
Demetrius’ passion for creating cultural connections and international artistic dialogue has brought him to his most recent project – “Roots Music” – a new ensemble work commissioned by the Beijing Central Conservatory, incorporating an amazing blend of traditional Irish, Chinese, European classical and jazz traditions. Fittingly, as a 2011 Composer-in-Residence, Demetrius will spend his fall composing “Roots Music” at Flushing Town Hall, where he plans to take advantage of its important role as a culturally rich gathering place. With the assistance of Flushing Town Hall’s staff, Demetrius plans to acquaint himself with the local Chinese schools, shops and restaurants to conduct research, get to know some local musicians, and access indigenous instruments and recordings not found elsewhere.

For the full article, please visit:
http://exploringthemetropolis.org/2011/08/2011-composer-spotlight-demetrius-spaneas/

Thank you all for your continued support!

Demetrius

Greetings and welcome to Part III!

I had been thinking about writing this series on volume for some time, but the spark to kick-start it happened at a concert a few weeks back.

I went to a concert given by Sonnambula (their debut, actually) at the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer in the East Village in NYC. Sonnambula is a new viol consort that performs Renaissance and Baroque repertoire for large ensembles of viols–a viol is forerunner of the modern violin family:

viols

These are lovely, sombre instruments. They are also amazingly quiet. The concert also used a small, portable organ and a virginal, which is a softer, older harpsichord.

The church setting was lovely, a perfect atmosphere for this type ensemble, save for the fact that noise from the outside made the ensemble disappear at times. Even with a group of eight musicians playing together, they were no match for the basic sounds of modern city life emanating from beyond fully-enclosed stone walls.

Now, I do play recorder, which is really the earliest Western woodwind instrument that still enjoys some widespread use. The recorder is also a very quiet instrument; anyone who tries to play it loudly by blowing harder is in for a disturbing experience. In this ensemble, however, the recorder would balance perfectly (of course it would…they are all from the same era)…my thought was that if I were playing my modern silver flute that I would bury the entire ensemble even while playing quietly…

The recorder eventually gave way to more modern–and louder–instruments such as the (transverse) flute, clarinet, and oboe. The same was true of the poor viol being usurped by the violin family starting in the 16th century. When the violin came into being, the concern was that because of its powerful and brilliant sound that it would dominate music-making, and make the music ugly and abrasive…think about this for a moment: it now takes a *section* of strings to balance only a couple of modern wind instruments, and a huge string orchestra would never bury a modern trumpet or saxophone soloist…times change…

Now…it also must be understood that even after the lineup of modern orchestral instruments (and outsiders like the saxophone…) had been settled upon, technology continued to ‘improve’ on these instruments. The most obvious advance in woodwinds had been making the instruments play even faster–woodwinds, it must be remembered, are the ‘speedy’ instruments; they are meant to be used for quick, virtuosic passages. Modern players are in debt to Theobald Boehm for making our lives easier!

But…along with making awkward passages on the instruments easier to facilitate, technological advances not only increased the volume of the instruments, but also made it *easier* to play louder. Advances also made the instruments play more in tune (intonation), which alters the sound characteristic and acoustical properties of the instruments. Instruments became easier to play, yet the sound quality and skill of musicians has deteriorated due to the fact that the level of skill needed to play competently has been lowered by these advances.

I’ll tackle these modern advances and changes in sound and construction in Part IV. I’ll also come after instrument makers and the new market with a virtual linguistic double-barreled shot gun…

Until soon,

Demetrius