Resplendent-Dawn

Good news. In the time since I posted the last journal, I was able to purchase the plane ticket for my study abroad trip. On that note, I've mentioned in passing a couple of times a blog I've been looking to start (I mean, writers have blogs, right?). In light of my plans in Japan, I've decided to use it as an opportunity to open the blog with a series of articles I'll write during my first trip to Japan. The article subjects might vary from discussion on a word, grammatical construct, of other aspects of Japanese; various places I will possibly visit during my stay; etc.

In other news, I am making good progress on the draft of my first novel. If I buckle down, I'll finish it by the end of March. 

I've also begun in earnest my graduate school search. Most of my current choices are in the Midwest, but as I continue to research, that may change. I'm looking at programs both for Music Composition (typically MM) and Creative Writing (typically MFA). 

Lacey Sturm's solo album was released last month. Pretty solid. Here's the opening track.


Did anyone see Mad Max: Fury Road? It got all of those awards for a reason.


And then some Grieg. The music speaks for itself.

It has been an interesting few months. I've had workshop classes in fiction and screenwriting, not to mention composition lessons and a music research group exploring Pure Data.

Some works I''ve written this semester are "Yuugen," a short story; "Means to an End," the first act of a screenplay; and "Refracting Avalon," a one-act opera for Lyric Baritone and Piano, for which I wrote the libretto (a collage of excerpts from Goethe's Faust that I translated into English) and music.

Of particular interest is a blog that I've been wanting to get off the ground, but until now I haven't found the right time to do so. Seeing as I have fewer obligations for the next month. The next week or so seems like a good time. Once the first post is up, I'll post a link here. Look forward to it!

P.S.
Be careful with your ceramic burr coffee grinders. The ceramic pieces are so very fragile.

This is turning out to be quite the summer. In case any of you are the tl;dr type, there will be a snippet for you at the end.

First, a point of business. In the last journal entry I mentioned changing some of my works to premium content. Some of the works I chose are already in the gallery. Others have yet to be posted. I will make the change within the month; this isn't a pressing issue at the moment. Here is the list:
    1. Parallel
    2. Words Left Unspoken, or The Sunset-Emblazoned Sky
    3. Resplendent Dawn - contest version (yet to be posted)
    4. Colors*

*Colors is a set of poems I am writing as the libretto for a dramatic soliloquy (solo tenor plus SATB choir and yet-to-be-determined additional instrumentation). "Black," the first in the set, will remain free to view. The other seven, when posted, will be premium content. 


Now, to something I will briefly explain on here and in further detail in my blog's inaugural post. This past week, I participated in a an event hosted by New Fangled Opera called Opera Presto, which translates to something like 'opera really fast.' What went down was a bunch of people went to New Orleans, split into two groups with each including a composer, librettist, director, and singers, and wrote and performed short operas within about two days. I was in a group as a librettist with Monica Pearce as composer and Alexander H. Trice as director, and together we came up with Persephone, a roughly fifteen-minute-long one-act about a speculated first manned mission to Pluto.

Here's the cast of Persephone, listed alphabetically by singer:
    NASA Dispatcher - Laura Booras
    Seina - Molly Dahlberg
    Dream Seina - Sarah Aragon
    Eric - Daniel Foltz-Morrison
and not to forget the pianist, Liliia Oliinyk, or the people who organized this amazing event, Chris and Shelley Burton!

Everyone who was involved in Opera Presto is so very talented; I am thankful to have been a part of it. I learned a lot, and New Orleans is such an interesting place. Given the chance to do something like this again, I definitely would.

www.newfangledopera.org/2015-o…

tl;dr Some stuff on here will be premium content soon. Also, I went to a thing where we wrote operas really really fast.


Now, for some music...

A cool-sounding set of piano etudes with convenient-score-is-convenient video. 
 

An aesthetically pleasing work for solo koto.


A famous piece of Japanese court music.


And to round it off, the opening track of August Burns Red's new album!

Here's some stuff (concerning the post mentioning changes to come):

1. I will, for an undetermined amount of time, cancel my premium membership.
2. I am in the process of setting up a WordPress blog that will deal with critiquing and discussing music, books, anime, etc. (I'll post a link to the first entry once I publish it.)
3. Some of my content will be pay to view. This will only apply to a small amount of my deviations. The reason I'm doing this is to offset not sending the works I post to literary journals; many journals do not accept previously published works. I will put up a list of the works I choose for this next journal entry.