Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute

I had a fantastic experience in September 2013, hearing a reading of my orchestral composition, Slippages, by the La Jolla Symphony and conductor Steve Schick. They were a pleasure to work with and I’m so grateful to Steve and all the musicians and organizers for this opportunity. It was made possible through the Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute, a program sponsored by the American Composers Orchestra (ACO) and EarShot, among others. Leading up to the reading, I spent several days in San Diego working with the orchestra and in feedback sessions with the other invited composers and the mentor-composers who gave us guidance in the process, all pictured here: JCOI composers Miya Masaoka, Michael Dessen, Dan Marschak, Tobin Chodos, Alan Chan; composer mentors Anthony Davis, Rand Steiger, Anne LeBaron; and conductor Steve Schick. I also wrote a couple of blog entries for the ACO’s Sound Advice Blog, including a description of my goal of composing a scorestream for orchestra which will involve improvisation and an algorithmically generated and screen-displayed score. (Not the most practical project given how hard it is to get rehearsal time to work on new ideas with a full orchestra, but I’m not giving up yet…) You can read more about that here and here.