Stagnant but different

Work and school continue on and the double-life persists, but unlike before, I can be a student for an entire day, and a web developer for an entire day, alternating days. And I also have Fridays off. I the word "off" loosely, as it usually implies I spend the time on whatever needs to be done, be it homework, freelance work, music composition, or collaborating with other artists.

Speaking of which. There have been a sudden influx of wedding gigs for Solaris Piano Trio all summer this year. Either it is a good year to get married, or we suddenly promoted ourselves really well. A couple of months ago, I designed some business cards for each member of the trio and we've been handing them out sporadically at gigs. People have responded positively to the business cards, so I guess I did a pretty good job then.

We played through the Overture and Gavotte I of my latest composition, Orchestral Suite No. 1, yesterday night and it was pretty smooth-sailing, with very few rhythm issues. Some of the rhythms were a bit troublesome, but in all, I'd say I am pretty pleased with the way it turned out. So far I've been approached by 4 people showing interest for the solo parts. Can't wait to hear the whole thing! As usual, our fall semester concert will take place in December. We are still deciding on the exact date, which will either be on the first or the second of the month. So stay tuned!

Vincent Lo - Orchestral Suite No. 1

Some time over the summer, I started sketching out what would eventually become the Overture of an orchestral suite. The fugue was originally going to be a keyboard work, but by the time I had something substantial, the fall semester was creeping closer, so I figured I would incorporate it into a work for the SFU Chamber Orchestra. And then the other movements sort of fell in place. And also I listened to lots of Bach to try to avoid accidentally copying him.

Comments welcome. Enjoy.

i. Overture
ii. Air
iii. Gavotte I - Gavotte II - Gavotte I da Capo
iv. Gigue

PREFACE

Orchestral Suite No. 1 has been composed for the Simon Fraser University Chamber Orchestra. I started the project in the middle of 2011 and worked on it on and off throughout the summer. Inspired by the orchestral suites of Johann Sebastian Bach, this work features a solo trio on flute, clarinet, and cello, with ripieno strings, continuo, and harpsichord.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Connor Bartol (clarinet), Adrienne Marino (flute), Steven Su (violin), and Jaewon Yon (cello) for participating in the reading session and advising for this work. I would also like to thank the entire Simon Fraser University Chamber Orchestra for inspiring me to take on this project.

Vincent Wayne--Ted Lo Saturday, October 15, 2011

A midsummer’s update

So thought I’d just do an update since I haven’t posted any videos in ages. My schedule for the past few months has been pretty routine. In short, it’s sort of part-time work with part-time school. I use the term “part-time” loosely, because sometimes my weekly work hours sometimes totals to be something close to the number of hours a full-time employee would be doing. It’s weird being both a student and an employee at the same time because I constantly find myself in a dilemma when deciding which one takes priority. And this is especially tricky since the one course that I am taking is pretty much all group work. Heh.

The SFU Chamber Orchestra is still going strong this summer, which is something new, since we usually take a hiatus and make our return in the Fall. This summer, we’re playing a variety of pieces including:

• Concerto Grosso No. 10 in b minor, by Vivaldi
• Memory of the Wind ~Legend of the Eternal Wind~, by Nobuo Uematsu, re-arranged by Tsuyoshi Sekito, and re-rearranged by Me!
• One Summer's Day, by Joe Hisashi

Most of our repertoire requires substantial substitution by other instruments, since our ensemble is a bit smaller than it is usually. My arrangement of Memory of the Wind ~Legend of the Eternal Wind~ was composed strictly for our current ensemble, so there were some interesting challenges to overcome and redistribution of soloists to make things work. Our set-up is roughly like this:

• 2 flutes
• 2 clarinets
• 1 horn
• 1 piano
• 6 violins
• 1 cello

For example, a solo line that was originally for trumpet was given to the clarinets in the arrangement, or something like that. We will be premiering this work and the concerto at the end of July in an out-doors talent show run by the university. Stay tuned!

Swamped

Work. School. Music. Agh!!

Yuna's Decision (Yuna's Determination) (FFX) - Original Piano Arrangement

Yuna's Decision (also known as Yuna's Determination) is an incidental music piece composed by Nobuo Uematsu and Junya Nakano for the video game Final Fantasy X. It accompanies the Calm Plains location.

Yuna's Determination is full of voice-overlapping goodness! When I first started this arrangement I was faced with the challenge of how to best notate the left hand, as it crosses into the treble register many times. To change clefs would occupy horizontal space, and to use cross-staff beaming would confuse the hand distribution of notes. For this arrangement, I have decided to accommodate explicit hand distribution to the two staffs since each hand is already so busy with multiple voices. That is, throughout the piece, if a note is written in the upper staff, it is for the right hand, otherwise it is for the left hand. There is no notation to indicate this, but rather, it is usually up to the pianist to figure out.

When we get to m.16 (0:33), things get interesting with the addition of a countermelody indicated by the small notes. In the original, this line is sounded by a slow-strings synth, so during performance, try to implement an exaggerated legato if possible. That is, to keep the previous note held down for some extra duration while you play the next note.

Score is up on my website. Comments and feedback welcome. Enjoy!