I had the most amazing experience–the privilege to go to Boston and work with the New England String Quartet, producer Andy Happel, sound engineer at Futura Productions John Weston, and PARMA Recordings to professionally record my composition “Anima Mechanicae: Soul of the Machine” as part of a modern chamber music compilation album, to be released about 6 months from now.
The New England String Quartet is not only a group of very sweet and sincere people, but very intent, meticulous, and talented musicians as well! I loved watching them interact with each other and getting to work with them, perfecting the tiniest details of balance and articulation in my work… They were so very well prepared–they NAILED some of the most intricately complicated sections!–and knew exactly what I wanted. Andy, too, was an invaluable aid in listening for balance, intonation, articulation, meaning of the phrases–anything that would help the piece (and every single section of it) to “settle” well. I was also very tickled to find out that our excellent sound engineer, John Weston, had worked with Philip Glass on his soundtrack for “Naqoyqatsi“… and being as my piece has several Glassian moments, John picked right up on those. (Incidentally, you can see John’s amazing credits here.)
Besides all that, it was just fun to spend the day with equally charming and engaging music nerds. We all seemed to “click,” and I loved working with every single one of them.
Regarding the piece itself, the Quartet has said many times how much they love it and the meaning behind it. I’ve given them my explicit permission to play it in concert any time they want to! 😉 Our Parma rep, Mike, has even said that it’s such a “cool piece,” and he can imagine that it will be the highlight of the album. 🙂 And of course, from the moment the Quartet started into the fiery beginning, we were all just reeling with how awesome and powerful it sounded!
I really look forward to doing this again sometime! In the meantime… I’ll be posting updates on the album as it moves toward completion… 🙂
Enjoy these pictures I managed to snag while on my trip! 🙂
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