Eureka Houston, we have lift off!
Back in 2002 I got a commission from the San Diego Symphony to compose a guitar concerto and perform it with the orchestra. I devoted a couple of months to write the piece and on May 25, 2002 we played the world premier concert at Symphony Hall in San Diego. It was me along with Fred Benedetti playing second guitar, Kevin Hennessy on bass, Duncan Moore on drums and something like 40 other orchestral musicians diving into the notes that I wrote.
It was a thrill and an honor and to be up on the edge of the stage listening and interacting with the orchestra was a moment for the books. What a sound, what a vibe!
But the performance wasn’t everything that I had hoped it would be. The main issue is that we didn’t have enough rehearsal time to pull together the music. I can understand the predicament, not enough money to pay all of the musicians and if my composition had been a little less involved that would have helped the situation. Also, and this was new to me, when you compose for an orchestra you need to carefully consider the “balances” of timber and volume between the instruments. For example, if you have the flutes carrying the melody, because they aren’t that loud, you need to tame down the rest of the orchestra so that they can be heard. For my composing demo, when I faced a situation like this I simply turned the flute volume up. This doesn’t work in a real orchestra, there are no volume knobs to turn up when you need something louder.
The concert got bootleg recorded but I’m talking about bargain basement quality and not really listenable.
So here we are 23 years later and I’m thinking it’d be a cool thing to have an audio realization of the piece that I’d spent so much time on. Let’s see, if I hire an orchestra to play and record the composition I might just as well go to Barstow and buy a decent house. Or I can do it myself with a little help from my studio machinery and some great real live musos covering key sections of the orchestra.
So for the last couple of months I’ve been living in the detailed world of orchestral sample libraries mixed in with real drums, bass, bassoon, trumpet, violins, viola, cello, and of course my real guitar playing. It’s been a thrill to learn and experiment with the technology and even better, emerging with an album that brings to fruition my 23 years ago musical vision. It’s here and I’m happy!
Here’s the line up:
Peter Sprague — guitar
Mack Leighton — bass
Duncan Moore —drums
Bridget Dolkas — violin
Pam Jacobson — viola
Rudy Stein — cello
Ryan Simmons — bassoon
Steve Dillard — trumpet
on “The Poet”
Kay Etheridge — piano
William Skeen — cello
David Ryther — violin
Peter Sprague — guitar
The recording is available at these fine establishments:
Spotify
Apple Music
PS Online Store
I know very few of you want CD’s anymore but now I’m going to “hand burn” them for those that still have CD players. The CD comes in a jewel case with a cover and my autograph on the actual CD itself. You can order them here.
There are two positive reviews of the recording that just came in:
George Varga in the SD Union Tribune
Jim Trageser in the SD Troubadour
We’re going live on Sunday at Tio Leo’s in San Diego. It’s Duncan, Danny, Justin and myself stirring it up with bop, Beatles, Jimmy Webb, and Chick Corea. This venue has a great vibe and pristine sound. See ‘ya there!
That’s the story thus far and it’s a happy day in Encinitas finally launching this project into the great algorithm of the sky.
onwards and upwards, Peter