The competition at 99designs.com has concluded. After receiving numerous wonderful entries, I have chosen the logo below for Audubon Park Music. Look for a website redesign there soon incorporating the new logo.
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Author: wmglennosborne
Ave Maria – Giulio Caccini
arr. for SATB choir, strings and solo instrument
Birds, Birds and More Birds
Seeking Singing Birds
As you may remember, I registered with ASCAP just a few months ago. In order to do so, I needed to choose a name for my publishing company. After exploring a few possibilities (some of which had already been taken), I settled upon Audubon Park Music. The neighborhood where I live in Orlando is called Audubon Park and the working title for my psalter has been the Audubon Park Psalter, so it made sense to me to go ahead and make something like that the name of my publishing company as well.
Logo Competition
What’s one of the first things you need when starting up a business? Nowadays, that would be a website and business cards, of course! The website – audubonparkmusic.com – I set up the day I chose the name using a simple WordPress template, but I didn’t want to print simple plain business cards. Every good business has some sort of identifiable mark or logo that is instantly recognizable. Take McDonalds, Nike, or AT&T for example. I wanted a nice clean logo for my company, so I turned to 99designs.com.
At 99designs, there are over 200,000 designers competing on various projects. I presented a design brief outlining what sort of logo I would be looking for and some of my thoughts about what the logo could or should look like. One week later, I have had 32 people submit 152 designs for my consideration. I have been very impressed by the creativity of several of the designers, and now it is time for me to make my final choice. Because I have always had a difficult time making choices, I would love to invite you to participate in a poll and rate the designs that I have selected as finalists. You may see the choices and provide your feedback here:
http://99designs.com/logo-design/vote-nxe1j0. I expect to wrap this up quickly, so please vote in the next 24 hours to have your opinion count.
New Pieces and Singers
While evaluating birds, I also received a request for an arrangement of HOLY ANTHEM for organ and brass quartet. I hope to have the Finale performance file of it uploaded today here if you’d like to give it a listen. My next composition task is to set a poem by Emily Dickinson for Gateway High School. The premier is scheduled for just about a month from now, so if the girls are going to have time to learn it, I need to get them a score soon!
In addition to looking for singing birds, I’m also looking for singing people. This summer (preferable sooner rather than later), I’d like to make a recording of some of my compositions to be released as an album. If you are in the Orlando area and would be interested in being part of this recording group, please let me know so that I can begin to figure out rehearsal dates and locations.
Hoping the birds are singing for you!
Glenn
Newsletter Issue 19 – 2014 04 10
See the complete list of newsletter issues here.
Videos and Concerts
Duets and Pedal Fun
Preparing for the two organ duet concerts with Jaime Carini created a very intense week. I hope you enjoyed the video from our first day of practice in the last newsletter. ( Click here in case you missed it or to see it again.) We also posted Promenade by Dello Joio from our practice session in Daytona here. By far, the most popular piece on the program was the set of waltzes by Johann Strauss Jr. transcribed for four feet. These were very challenging to learn as we often found ourselves playing the exact same notes right after each other. We had to practice slowly and watch where and how we moved to each note in order to make sure we didn’t step on each other or keep the other person from getting to the proper location. We even took a little video to see if we could spot any better ways to stay out of each others way. Have a look and see for yourself: Pedal Practice for Strauss Waltzes.
Naji Hakim – The Apostles
It was a great joy to play the US premier of movements from The Apostles by Naji Hakim. We have audio and video from both concerts, and I hope we will receive permission from Hakim to post a couple of excerpts on YouTube. We enjoyed doing these concerts together, and we both hope to be able to play the pieces again in other locations as well as actually learn all the movements of The Apostles.
John Stainer – The Crucifixion
After putting Jaime on the plane early Monday morning, I went up to Leesburg that evening to play for a rehearsal of The Crucifixion by John Stainer at Morrison United Methodist Church. When I last played the piece, I burned my hand the week before the concert, so had to play the piece using basically only my right hand and pedal with a few single notes by my left hand and a little assistance from my page turner for a couple of passages where Stainer requires the organist to play on two separate manuals. The concert is tonight at 7:30 pm. I am looking forward to it as not only a wonderful musical event for the Lenten season, but also as a chance to finally play the piece uninjured and pain free!
Even though I know many of you are not able to attend these events in person, I hope that the clips on YouTube provide some entertainment. Once this set of concerts is over, I hope to be able to post more videos of performances and improvisations in the next few months. I also wish to continue exploring how music gets both to and from the written page.
Hoping spring arrives in April!
Glenn
Newsletter Issue 18 – 2014 03 31
See the complete list of newsletter issues here.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Let the Holy Anthem Rise
A simple hymn accompaniment arrangement for organ and brass quartet commissioned by Mary Gant in 2014 for St. Paul Catholic Church in Tampa, Florida. The introduction is a full verse of the hymn and the organ part is basically the standard hymn harmonization.
Singing Birds needed for Audubon Park Music
As I move forward towards establishing Audubon Park Music as the publisher of my compositions, today I launched a logo competition at 99designs.com. Karen had suggested that I get a professionally designed logo after a Full Sail student developed a delightful logo for her Studio Osborne business. As I don’t know any current Full Sail students, I opted to use the service 99designs.com which I learned about from listening to the Entrepreneur On Fire podcast.
99designs brings together thousands of graphic designers and offers them the opportunity to submit ideas for design competitions like the one I just launched for a logo for Audubon Park Music. At just under two hours old, I am already delighted by several of the designs that have been submitted. You can check out the submissions for yourself until Sunday evening (4/6/2014) by clicking here.
Dilexisti Justitiam Video
With additional orchestration, this is a live performance of Dilexisti Justitiam at the Missa Pontificalis in honorem Sanctae Venerandae (Virgin and Martyr).
2013/26/07
Performers: Coro e Orchestra della Cappella Musicale della Venerabile Reale Cappella di Santa Venera, Acireale
Conductor: Alessandro Maria Trovato
Pedal practice – Strauss Waltz for Pedal Duet
Jaime Carini & Wm Glenn Osborne prepare for organ duet concerts on Friday, March 21, 2014, at All Saints Episcopal Church in Winter Park, Florida, and Sunday, March 23, 2014 at First Church of Christ, Scientist in Daytona Beach, FL.
This excerpt is from a set of waltzes by Johann Strauss Jr. arranged for four feet. We took this video today while practicing in Daytona to see how we might better avoid each other….
Merkel Day 1
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! While everyone was out celebrating, Jaime and I were working on our program for our concerts this weekend. We still have some polishing to do, but here is a little teaser so you can see a little of what happens when two people sit down at the organ.
Naji Hakim – The Apostles
Because our concert in Winter Park is the same weekend as the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival, we chose to include as many art-inspired music selections as possible. While looking for repertoire, I discovered a set of pieces for organ duet by Naji Hakim inspired by wood carvings by Lucas Cranach the Elder. The Apostles presents a series of short movements based upon the artwork but also making use of Gregorian chant and other chorale themes. As the composition was only written in 2011 and not that many people perform organ duets, I recently contacted Dr. Hakim and was informed that we would be doing the US premier! We are super excited to be the first American performers and hope you will be able to come hear it at one of the concerts on Friday or Sunday!
Wishing you all the luck of the Irish!
Glenn
Newsletter Issue 17 – 2014 03 18
See the complete list of newsletter issues here.
Music doesn’t exist on paper
The Printed Page
For hundreds of years, people have been searching for ways to write music down on a piece of paper. While there have been great advances from the squiggles above the text in early chant manuscripts, enabling us to become more and more precise about how to replicate music, I believe that it is not possible to confine music to black and white notation.
While everyone generally acknowledges that information, thoughts and feelings can be conveyed in written words, how many people have had the joy of having an email or text message misunderstood? Even with the spoken word, tone, volume, inflection, and even body posture can add or completely change the meaning of a group of words. One of my favorite stories is about a language teacher who is explaining that in some languages double negatives make a positive while in other languages, a double negative remains negative, but there is no language where two positives make a negative. From the back of the room, a student pipes up, “Yeah, right.”
Tone and inflection can make a huge difference in the message conveyed with words. I even understand there are some languages where the same combination of sounds pronounced with different inflection become completely different words! While our music notation has become more precise over time, I do not believe we will ever manage to capture all the intricacies of tone and inflection on the printed page.
Interpretation
Since it is impossible to capture all the details of a piece of music and put them on a piece of paper, we have to make some form of interpretive judgment. This is where performance practice applies, but also where taste and personal judgment enter the scene. In the realm of classical music, we have scholars who research the instruments and writings of the era in order to offer opinions and guidance about how a performer of that time period would have interpreted the page of a musical score. We can choose to follow their guidance, or choose our own path. Leopold Stokowski adapted Bach for orchestra. Did he follow proper performance practice? No, but did he make music? Yes. One of the organists causing a bit of controversy with his use and view of the organ is Cameron Carpenter. He just unveiled a new touring instrument at Alice Tully Hall earlier this month. While I haven’t yet seen a video of him playing the new instrument, you can watch him play the Bach Toccata and Fugue:
Making Music
Regardless of how you might feel about Cameron Carpenter’s interpretation of J.S. Bach, he uses the printed page and the instrument available to him to convey his artistic decisions. Would these be the choices I would make? If I had his technique, maybe. Will he always play it this way? I doubt it. One of the points I believe I’ve heard him make in an interview is that often organists are more concerned about the instrument they are playing than about how they are playing the instrument, and this may be the reason why so many people have lost interest in the organ. If we pay more attention to getting off the printed page and actually conveying thoughts or emotions through music, perhaps there would be more enthusiastic supporters of organ music in the world.
I’ll be doing my part over the next few weeks to make music and keep up interest in the organ. Coming up next are a set of two organ duet concerts. The same program featuring art-inspired organ music will be performed in both Winter Park and Daytona. After that, there are several choral concerts with prominent organ parts. If you are not able to come and hear one of these concerts, I hope you will be able to enjoy some live music making in your own neighborhood!
Wishing you all the best,
Glenn
Newsletter Issue 16 – 2014 03 12
See the complete list of newsletter issues here.