Laurel Black Music

Though it may seem that this post is about testing you on your professional music acronyms, I promise that's not the case.  Laurel's been a busy bee since school let out in early May. New Music Gathering 2017 New Music Gathering (NMG) is a pretty cool 3-day conference for anyone who participates in new music.  From May 11-13 we all gathered at Bowling Green State University to talk about, listen to, and dream about new projects together.  You can view this year's lecture, presentation, panel, and recital schedule here .  It was really cool - and not just because Steven Schick was the keynote speaker and featured guest artist.  L+M Duo performed during a concert on Saturday afternoon called Grab Bag of Awesome, featuring us as well as other chamber groups performing all kinds of music.  We played our first-ever commission, Magicicicada , by Pennsylvania-based composer Rusty Banks .  Though Marianne met Rusty before (actually at NMG 2016...

The weather this week in our part of VA has done nothing but create headache, both literally and figuratively.  If you're one of the unlucky millions of people who suffer from chronic migraines, the constant shifts from hot/somewhat dry to blustery, stormy humidity and cooler temps would have you reaching for either Excedrin or exceptional amounts of ibuprofen, as I've been doing these last few days. The world doesn't stop for a migraine, though sometimes our schedules allow us to sneak in a nap that helps dull the pain.  For those of us that make a living playing music, an ill-timed migraine can mean a bad performance or thwarted practice schedule. What Makes a Headache a Migraine? Migraines tend to not be acute, and rather progress through four stages over one to several days: Prodrome, Aura, Headache, and Post-drome.   Mayo Clinic has an entry that explains symptoms, but here's a synopsis. Prodrome - food and stomach weirdness, in what you want...

Chamber music involving marimba is my favorite kind of music to perform. Last December I performed Samuel Adler's Four Dialogues   for euphonium and marimba  with Joel Collier , a doctoral student at James Madison University.  Our video is now live on YouTube , recorded with three mounted GoPro cameras: two on stands, and a third attached to the upper end of the marimba, which provided some really interesting shots! Mallet Choices All mallets are made by Innovative Percussion . Movement 1 Janis Potter series (IP403) and Casey Cangelosi series (CGL3) My Potter mallets are really worn out, which works well for the opening high B tremolo.  That pingy timbre mixed well with the deeper sound of Casey's mallets for later chords. I alternated the mallets in my hands [CC, JP, CC, JP] to facilitate the opening and closing tremolos. Movement 2 Casey Cangelosi series (CGL3) The weight of Casey's mallets complements the euphonium's rich sound, even th...