It’s that time of year again, when we have a lot of summer music happenings. Last week the Historic Brass Society hosted a virtual conference loosely themed on the interactions between American and England and Continental Europe. You will be able to check those archived sessions on the HBS YouTube channel in a short while.

This week, the International Trumpet Guild is hosting its 45th conference (also virtual). If you didn’t already register, you can still do that. Go to the registration page and sign up. You will eventually get a link to go to a streaming website called “Accelevents” where you can check out different performances, exhibits, and interact with other attendees. Here’s a screen shot of what it looks like:

Once you’ve registered, please check out my own session tomorrow, Wednesday, at 9:30am EDT (NYC), 3:30pm CEST (Paris), 7:30am MDT (Colorado–that’s where I live). I will be presenting a performance of a composition of mine called the “Lion’s Den.” It is part of the New Works Performance. Here are my talking points about the piece:

“Lion’s Den” is the third movement of a larger work called “The Daniel Window.” About ten years ago, I started to compose pieces based on stained-glass windows at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Arlington, Virginia.

The story of “The Lion’s Den” comes from the sixth chapter of the Book of Daniel. Now under the rule of Darius the Mede, Daniel is trapped by a new decree that states that anyone praying to a god or man other than Darius himself would be thrown into the den of lions. Since the faithful prophet cannot abide by the rule, he is thrown into the den for the whole night. Nevertheless, he comes out at daybreak, unscathed. I wanted to conjure some musical flavors of the middle east, such as the dervish dance of the Sufis and gestures suggested by the Phrygian mode. At the same time, the low register, especially that of the piano, is explored extensively to evoke the visceral predatory nature of the lions. Daniel’s detractors are, themselves, later thrown into the den of lions to die a horrible death, which is musically articulated by rumbling arpeggiation shared between the piano and trumpet in the dramatic finale.

Hope to see you tomorrow–you can ask me any questions about the piece in a live format!