musical-fantasy

Yesterday I had the pleasure of working with Brian O’Connor on the piece I wrote for him for my upcoming album. It was such a pleasure spending time with him. I have never before had the chance to spend this much time with a horn player discussing the details and intricacies of the horn. I learned a lot, got to hear him play through parts of the piece, and followed-up with some minor tweaks to make it better. I can’t wait to do the same with Rob Thies for the piano part.

I have yet to name the piece. One of the rewards of the upcoming Kickstarter campaign will be the opportunity to name the piece. The campaign is almost set and will be launched very soon.

The album is starting to come together. I’ve lined up some stellar musicians to perform my works. I’m very excited to have such incredible performers involved:

The Lyris Quartet
The Lyris Quartet, described as “radiant…excellent… and powerfully engaged” by Mark Swed of the LA Times, was founded in 2008. The individual members of the quartet have won top prizes at such competitions as the Tchaikosvky International Competition and Aspen Music Festival as well as collaborated with renowned artists Natalia Gutman, David Geringas, Martha Argerich, Alban Gerhardt, Boris Pergamenschikov, Guillame Sutre, Myung-Whun Chung, and Richard Stoltzman.

Violin: Alyssa Park
Violin: Shalini Vijayan
Viola: Luke Maurer
Cello: Timothy Loo

Robert Thies
A pianist of “unerring, warm-toned refinement, revealing judicious glimmers of power,” [Los Angeles Times] Robert Thies (pronounced “Theece”) is an artist renowned for his consummate musicianship and poetic temperament. He first captured worldwide attention in 1995 when he won the Gold Medal at the Second International Prokofiev Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia. With this victory, Thies became the only American pianist to win first prize in a Russian piano competition since Van Cliburn’s famed triumph in Moscow in 1958.

Brian O’Connor
Brian O’Connor is a studio French Horn player with over 30 years of experience playing on countless movies, TV series and shows. He’s played (often as principal horn) for legendary composers such as Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, James Newton Howard, James Horner, Thomas Newman, Maurice Jarre, Alexandre Desplat, Michael Giacchino & Danny Elfman, to name a few. If you’ve gone to the movies in the past 3 decades, you’ve doubtless heard him on many occasions.

I’ve been writing music for as long as I can remember, though I didn’t get any formal musical training until I was 21. You might say I was a late bloomer. While studying music I became attracted to film scoring and pursued a career in Hollywood. I’m mainly known as a music editor with nearly 100 feature film credits to my name ranging from blockbusters like Avengers: Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy,  & Spider-Man 2 to independent films like the hugely successful Hustle & Flow, Geography Club, and The Last Word to TV shows like Desperate Housewives & Go On.

I’ve been fortunate to work with composers such as Tyler Bates, Marc Mancina, Heitor Peirera, John Swihart and Danny Elfman, with whom I’ve worked for over a decade, including co-producing his concert work Serenada Schizophrana. I’ve written additional music for many films, TV shows & for music libraries and have scored 3 feature films on my own, including Jasmine, which recently won the Grand Jury Prize at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

I’ve spend the majority of the last two decades contributing my talents to the works of other artists. It has been a privilege and a pleasure and I hope to continue doing so for a very long time. But it’s now time for me to produce an album of my own music. Musical Fantasy will be my first album of original concert works.

A few years ago a violinist friend asked me if I had written anything for string quartet that she and some friends could play. I had never written anything for string quartet and was immediately inspired to do write my first piece for string quartet. I wrote 3 movements in 4 days, the music just spilled out of me. Then a couple of years ago I saw the story of holocaust survivor Alice Hertz-Sommer (www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oxO3M6rAPw) and was inspired by her story to write a piano piece – Fantasia Apassionata.

I have wanted to record these pieces ever since, but have been continually distracted by other projects. At every opportunity I’d go back and tweak the works and each time the desire to record them has grown.

I decided to expand the project from just these two works to a full-length album of chamber concert works, and so the adventure begins.