Thursday, December 3, 2020

Kevin Scott: "Three Fanfares from 'King Lear,'" "Three Songs on Poems of Langston Hughes," Major interview for "Af-Am Point of View," "Night Journey"

Kevin Scott

Kevin Scott writes:

Hello, all! 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are looking forward to the grand holiday season to end this year (and, for some of us purists, the decade), so I bring you some wonderful treats to enjoy!

Some of you may have already seen these notices on Facebook and may have already received my missives separately, but for the many who don't grace social media, here's the news:

Nearly one month ago, the brass ensemble of the University of Aveiro, Portugal under the direction of Luis Carvalho, performed my Three Fanfares from "King Lear" in a program devoted to music for brass and percussion. This is the first time any of my compositions received a performance on the European continent, and it certainly will not be the last:

Second, one of my earliest works was recorded for The Christman Opera Company's ongoing series "Voices Raising Voices" which features vocal compositions of minority, LGBTQIA+ and women composers. My latest contribution is Three Songs on Poems of Langston Hughes, which was composed in 1979 for my friend Wilhelmina Fuller, but finalized this year, and sung in this video by Sooyeong Kang:

Next is a major interview for Af-Am Point of View, a newspaper devoted to events about Black Americans published in Springfield, Massachusetts. The interview was conducted by Magdalena Gomez who is the Poet Laureate of Springfield, and Magdalena and I go way back when we both grew up as teenagers in the Bronx:

And finally...

My latest composition entitled Night Journey for French horn, violin and piano. Originally composed in 2015 on a call for scores from The Red Hedgehog Trio, this work was expanded from two minutes (the call asked for works to be no longer than two minutes) into a large-scale multi-section composition lasting twenty minutes on a request from my friend Leonard Lehrman who, with the violinist Dan Hyman, wanted a work for their upcoming series of virtual concerts to be posted on YouTube for the 2020-21 season. Along with hornist Jeanine Nagao, Night Journey is scheduled to be aired sometime in February. When this news is finalized, I will send out all information regarding the viewing of this performance.

But for now, if anyone is interested in hearing it, there is a MIDI mockup on my SoundCloud page:

The score will be available soon.

And that's all the news for now. Looking forward to see what happens next year and decade!

Sincerely,
Kevin Scott


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