Sarah Wallin Huff » Inspiration

New and Updated: Essays and Study Outlines

Sarah — Thu, 21 May 2009 07:40:28 +0000

Be sure to check out my newly updated Additional Reading page!! Now featuring the essay RAVEL’S DAPHNIS ET CHLOÉ: A Miracle in the Making, and 6 Study Outlines on composers, their lives, and specific featured works, including:

Lully
Boccherini
Hindemith
Messiaen
Penderecki
Ravel

I have one more essay (of which I am VERY proud) – an in-depth study on Leonard Bernstein’s Second Symphony Age of Anxiety - and several more outlines on various works by Bernstein and Aaron Copland. Look for those to come soon! In the meantime, I hope that these additions will be of some use to others in their ongoing search for knowledge…

Join the First Online Orchestra!

Sarah — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 06:17:30 +0000

“Join the world’s first collaborative online orchestra.

We invite musicians from around the world to audition for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. Your video entries will be combined into the first ever collaborative virtual performance, and the world will select the best of you to perform at New York City’s Carnegie Hall in April 2009.

…Professionals and amateur musicians of all ages, locations and instruments are welcome to audition for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra by submitting a video performance of a new piece written for the occasion by the renowned Chinese composer Tan Dun (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). We have tools to help you learn the music, rehearse with the conductor, and upload your part for the collaborative video.

And how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice and upload. Send us your talent video performance from a list of recommended pieces. Finalists will be chosen by a judging panel and YouTube users to travel to New York in April 2009, to participate in the YouTube Symphony Orchestra summit, and play at Carnegie Hall under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas.

The deadline for all video submissions is January 28, 2009.”

-YouTube Symphony Orchestra

Violinists! Check out, too, the LSO Violin Masterclass created as an aid in preparing for this experience!

All instruments are welcome to play in the YouTube Symphony – there is even a “conversion chart” available for more traditionally uncommon instruments such as Sitar and Duduk!

I’ve already downloaded my part. How about you? See you online and at Carnegie Hall!!

My Latest Work

Sarah — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:29:54 +0000

I know… it’s been a while… But I have an excuse - because I’m getting married next week!!!!!!! Woo-hoo!

But I did want to put this up officially while I was thinking about it…

My latest completed work, Fair Katrinelje and Pif-Paf-Poltrie, is meant to be a jaunty comedic work, based on a lesser-known tale from the famous Brothers’ Grimm. Growing up reading these fairy tales, this very brief and repetitive dialogue always caught my fancy. The “story” focuses on our hero, Pif-Paf-Poltrie, who is out to seek the hand of his beloved, the Fair Katrinelje, in marriage. Being the gentleman that he is, he approaches in turn each member of his beloved’s family to ask their permission. Father Hollenthe, Mother Malcho, Brother High-and-Mighty, and Sister Käsetraut all respond in turn similarly – essentially, “If it’s all right with everyone else, it’s all right with me.”

I’ve always loved the cyclical nature of the text, how each family member’s response to our hero’s request is always the same as the one before it and maintains a certain rhythmical persistence throughout – you can almost hear the speaker becoming more weary and desperate with each stanza! [Take a look at the full text here.] Needless to say, when approached with the assignment of writing a vocal work for soprano, piano, flute, and cello, this long-beloved text came to mind!

My musical inspiration was stimulated largely by the compositional genius of Stravinsky; firstly as a result of my preparation of the violin part of his L’Histoire du Soldat for an upcoming performance at the time, and secondly, through my charmed admiration of a little setting of his for soprano and piano of The Owl and The Pussycat. Thus there is a quirky charm about the music in my Fair Katrinelje piece that brings out the off-kilter humor of the Grimms’ tale, and it really sets the mood of the whole work nicely!

Needless to say, this piece is very different from my usual style, but for that, and for the childhood memories it evokes for me, this is a little gem that I enjoy very much.

You can listen to the piece in its entirety (for a limited time) and read all about its background, including getting acquainted with the characters of the tale, by clicking here.

ASIMO Conducts the DSO!

Sarah — Mon, 26 May 2008 04:43:16 +0000

That’s right! Everybody’s favorite little robot debuted conducting the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a live performance of “Impossible Dream” from the 1965 Broadway show Man of La Mancha on May 13!

(Hm…. ASIMO should have hired this guy to be his concertmaster!!…)

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Read the rest of ASIMO Conducts the DSO! (435 words)

‘Glass’ Movie

Sarah — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 07:51:42 +0000

Yay! One of my favorite composers – exposed on documentary film!

Check the Official Site here…

‘The Visit’

Sarah — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 23:34:43 +0000

I realized I never got around to announcing my recent film scoring experience!

Earlier this month, the culmination of an independent short film competition was screened at a festival in Glendale. The competition, sponsored by Project 168, gives aspiring producers and directors the opportunity to create a ten-minute film in only a week, using both an underlying theme for the year (2008- “Free the Captives”) and a randomly drawn Bible verse!

Find the KNBC story on the competition here…

Steve Zelt took part in this project with the aim of creating a deep and meaningful, and slightly intellectual, film-going experience, based on his given verse, Ezra 9:8:

And now for a little space grace hath been shewed from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage.

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Read the rest of ‘The Visit’ (227 words)

V.T.C.M.A. – 8

Sarah — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 09:33:08 +0000

The Baltic Baroque play Vivaldi – in style!!

Vivaldi’s “La Folia“:

Vivaldi’s Allegro (RV 565):

Check out more videos from this incredible group here!

Thought for the Day

Sarah — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:07:58 +0000

In the midst of my intense contemplations concerning my current in-progress work – my thesis composition for my Master’s degree, to be exact – I came across this fascinating interview with renowned composer, John Adams, concerning his Violin Concerto.

Excerpt:

Did the concerto genre and the expectations associated with it—especially that of virtuosic writing for the solo instrument—affect your customary compositional process in any ways that you can single out?

I think it did affect it a lot. I was very slow to come to the concerto form. In fact, even after finishing this work, I’m not entirely sure I’m comfortable with the form itself.

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Read the rest of Thought for the Day (324 words)

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Interview with John Copeland

Sarah — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 10:38:28 +0000

Sorry, I know this isn’t music-related, but it’s something that’s near and dear to me. With all the media hype covering the inquiries headed by Sen. Chuck Grassley, I was glad to see Kenneth Copeland Ministries‘ official answers, via 5 YouTube videos. Part 1 is posted below, visit YouTube for parts 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Also, you can find a pie chart detailing KCM’s spending here.

Good answers!

V.T.C.M.A. – 6

Sarah — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 06:29:03 +0000

“The trouble with you and me, Ned, is that we want everyone in the world to personally love us, and of course that’s impossible: you just don’t meet everyone in the world.”

-Leonard Bernstein, to composer Ned Rorem.

Presenting a brief clip from Bernstein’s acclaimed Norton Lectures at Harvard, 1973-74! A definite must-see for anyone interested in music, and the question of its existence as a universal language capable of conveying the metaphorics of human existence.

(You can get the book, too, Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard, here!)