Day 8: Coda

Friday’s lead-up to the concert was a jumble of emotions and last-minute loose ends; it involved us moving back into the CMC, setting up recording equipment, catering the reception, and generally enduring pre-performance jitters. Anyone who’s been paying attention knows how we got through the day:

Okay, so we're creatures of habit.

Here are the fruits of our labors, just a few minutes before the concert:

The CMC stage, fully decorated for the performance

The downbeat at 7 was for a near-sellout audience of San Franciscans and travelers from abroad. The concert itself was a smashing success from beginning to end; here are some photo highlights from the evening:

Annie Suda, cello, and Jeannie Psomas, clarinet, performing "A Moment Revealed" by Corey Keating

The ensemble performs Tonia's "Wanderer Moon," led by Jason

The ensemble performing Ryan's "Magis," conducted by Greg

Jason conducting Dan's "Butterflies and Dragons"

The Melos SF composers after the concert. From left to right: Daniel Temkin, Tonia Ko, Greg Simon, Jason Thorpe Buchanan, David Carpenter, and Ryan Olivier

Throw in a quick reception and an even quicker strike; and as quickly as it had began, our whirlwind of a week came to a close. Over the next year, the San Francisco Melosians all have exciting plans for themselves:

- Dan will be starting the Artist Diploma program at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

- Jason will enter the Ph.D program at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY (as of right now, he’s studying for his entrance exams – wish him luck!)

- Ryan will continue his doctoral study at Temple University in Philadelphia, where he’s also an instructor.

- David will begin work as an adjunct instructor at Temple University.

- Greg will continue working as an adjunct instructor at the University of Colorado and the Metropolitan State College of Denver, and in the fall will apply for doctoral programs.

- Tonia will finish her Master’s Degree at Indiana University this year, and be applying for doctoral programs in the fall.

In the meantime, all of these wonderful composers will have performances across the globe, and continue writing music for projects through Melos and independently. Meanwhile, we’ll be brainstorming for our 3rd Annual Melos concert next year in Philadelphia; as the details come into focus, we’ll keep you updated right here, so check back often!

For everyone who donated on Kickstarter, we’re extremely grateful for your support of our work and our organization; you’ll be among the first to have access to exclusive content from our concert and the week leading up to it. If you didn’t, you’ll still be able to purchase audio and video content as soon as it’s ready; check this space again for more information.

Composers and performers all around worked awfully hard this week in anticipation of Friday’s concert, but even with all of our collective hours, we couldn’t have done it alone. There are far too many people who helped this project come together to thank individually here; but if you contributed in any way, whether monetarily, by attending the concert or simply by catching up with us in this space, we’re extremely grateful and thankful for your support. The concert’s over, but the Melosians will working hard all year to bring you more music. We’ll be using this space to share news, links, and our general thoughts on music, so be sure to visit with us often. If you’d ever like to join our conversation, it’s as easy as clicking the comment button below each post. And as always, if you would ever like to drop us a line, just follow this link to our contact page, where you can send all of us (or any one of us!) an email with your thoughts. Thanks again for following us this week!

Day 7: The Concert!!

Yesterday, we were back at San Francisco, getting even more recording hours in. We’ve come away from the two-day recording binge with clinical exhaustion, but we’ve also got hours of fantastic music on tape, and are pumped for tonight’s concert! Here are some photo highlights from the two days of recording:

Stepan Rudenko, Matthias McIntire, Sung Bin Choi, and Tonia Ko rehearse Nick DiBerardino's "Home Suite"

Dan Temkin pulls double duty as composer and percussionist on his piece, "Butterflies and Dragons"

Our audio engineer, Tony Bella, hard at work

Amy Foote and Justin Lee enjoy a serious musical discussion

Moving the percussion zoo and recording gear into the CMC

Jason takes a break from conducting the Berlin Songs to look pensive

Percussion at SFMC

Greg conducting Ryan's "Magis" at CMC, while Ryan coaches from the houseSome of the performing cast enjoys a break from rehearsal

Amy Foote, soprano, and Jeff Goble, baritone

San Francisco's City Hall, an hour after we finished at SFMC.

Tonight at 7pm, in the Community Music Center at 544 Capp St., we’re going to share the fruits of this week’s labors with all of you. If you’ve been following us from afar, we wish you were here and hope you’ll get a chance to see our music closer to you some time! If you’re in town, please join us for an evening of brand new music presented by dedicated composers and extremely gifted performers. We’ll see you there!

Dan Temkin talks “Butterflies and Dragons”

See us tomorrow – there’s a lot more content coming soon!

Day 5: Daniel Temkin, Butterflies and Dragons (and Sea Lions)

Our last official act after Tuesday’s rehearsal was to say a temporary goodbye to the San Francisco Conservatory, where we’ve set up shop these past few days. That meant, among other things, moving 700 pounds of percussion out of San Francisco to San Mateo. In itself, this is a frustrating and tedious task, but it was made better once we realized that Tonia could fit inside the gong…

Just imagine the sound that comes out of this giant monstrosity.

Yesterday was Melos Music’s day off. No rehearsals, no conducting, just good old frolicking to shake off our pre-concert anxiety. While our freezing trip to the beach may have been somewhat ill-advised, Dan and Ryan were still able to seize the opportunity to make the world a better place.

About ten minutes from now, Dan will realize we're at the beach and not at Jason's house.

After the beach, a few Melosians took to the streets San Francisco. A few of us (Jason and Greg) grew up around here, but David, Tonia and Ryan have never made it to San Francisco before; so for them it was a day to take in the San Francisco tourism. They enjoyed the comestibles at Fisherman’s Wharf and Ghirardelli Square…

David's preferred method of day-off relaxation is to bring his work to the bar.

…took some pensive-looking photos for the cover of Melos’ next smooth jazz album…

The title of the album is "Something Exciting Out-of-Frame."

…and recruited some talent for our next Melos concert.

Okay, so they're not lookers, but nobody sings Ferneyhough like they do.

Today, we’re back to the grind. We’ll be learning the space in our concert venue, the Community Music Center, and getting in our first day of recording. Stay tuned; later today we’ll have an interview with Dan about his piece “Butterflies and Dragons,” along with some photos from the day’s work. Friday’s right around the corner!