Saturday Summary, October 22, 2011

After a good day of handbell ringing last Saturday, I'm now officially a week behind on my Saturday Summaries.  I'll do my best to catch everything up here ... but no promises.

Oh, and should I repeat myself, I hope I'll be forgiven ... it's been a crazy couple of weeks.  (Aren't they all?)

Music -- I finished up my assignments for Tammy Waldrop at Alfred: a level 1 arrangement of Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee, and a level 3 arrangement of Go Tell It on the Mountain.  I've got another couple of handbell pieces I need to work on in the coming weeks before turning my attention to some other musical things around the first of the year.

Here's our status update on the year:

• Handbell pieces -- 20 2
• Piano pieces -- 20 9
• Choral pieces -10  9
• String pieces --  4  0
• Band pieces -- 2
• Other instrumental pieces -- 4
• GRAND TOTAL FOR 2011 -- 60 26

Am I going to get those last 26 pieces written in the next 9 weeks?  Almost certainly not.  Will I be able to polish off another category or two before the year's done?  Almost certainly.

Will my Handbell Pieces number drop into negative digits because I wrote more than 20 this year?  I'm sure hopin' so.

Writing -- National Novel Writing Month starts up a week from this Tuesday, so I plan to spend most of today getting myself organized for that fun event.  I also (and this isn't technically writing, but it's closer right now to writing than anything else) need to get myself organized to submit a proposal for a couple of classes I'd like to teach at the Handbell Musicians of America National Seminar next July.  I hope to have that proposal finished by today (it's about half-way there right now) so I can finally cross that off my list.

I also hope, some time this week, to start back in on Fealty and Fire, doing my own edits while I wait for my last couple of readers to finish up.  I may also start formatting the book from regular normal-sized 8.5" by 11" pages to the smaller size that will actually print in the paperback version.  That formatting takes up an incredible amount of time, so I would be wise to do that now while I have time, and then make the edits (which, relatively speaking, are much easier) as the book gets closer to being ready for print.  We'll see.

Publishing -- Quite a lot of movement here, actually.  I can't recall if I mentioned this before or not, but I received my comp copies for my four upcoming releases from Beckenhorst Press: Hail, Thou Once-Despised Jesus; All Creatures of Our God and King; Antiphonal Fanfare; and (the one I'm most excited about) Resounding Fury.  I got to sample an early recording of the last one, and I've got to say, it kinda floored me.  It's a level 4 which, sadly, puts it outside what many groups are willing to attempt, but I'm still excited by the piece nonetheless.

I also received my comp copies of my newest release from Lorenz, Fantasia on "Trentham", also know as "Breathe On Me, Breath of God."  The recording for this one is up on the Lorenz site, for any who want to take a listen.

I signed a contract this week with GIA for my arrangement of the beautiful Italian carol, Dormi, Dormi, O Bel Bambin.  It's actually one that I wrote several years ago, then pulled back out and tweaked it until it was -- for lack of a better word -- playable.  Really glad this one is going to see the light of day.

I do have a new one coming out from Hope Publishing, Come, Christians, Join to Sing.  It's up on the Hope website right now, and I'm pleased to see that it's been given a J.W. Pepper Editors' Choice nod for 2012.

I do have two also coming out from AGEHR Music: Fanfare and Reflection (which won an Area 2 contest last year) and Lead On, O King Eternal.  They're available for purchase right now, though there are no recordings available yet.

I think that's all from here.  It was a wild and crazy couple of weeks, so if I missed something, I wouldn't be at all surprised.  Regardless, the batch of spring 2012 releases are coming out over the next couple of weeks from those publishers that do them (a couple publishers do just one release yearly in late Spring/early Summer, but about half of them do two releases a year), so be sure to keep your eye peeled.  I'm thrilled that my name will be showing up several times.


We've got one more "regular" Saturday Summary next weekend, then the weekend after that, it will be time for my annual Capital Area Handbell Festival version of the Saturday Summary, live from the North Carolina State Fairgrounds (provided their wi-fi is as reliable and free as it was last year).  Looking forward to that trip and getting the chance to work under Fred Gramman.  Have a great week, and keep on creating!