Joel Puckett's new work for winds, A Proper Goodbye in the premiere performance by Gerard Morris and the Puget Sound Wind Ensemble.

LIVE PERFORMANCE

Score can be found here: https://issuu.com/joelpuckettmusic/docs/puckett_a_proper_goodbye_v.1.2_4.15.2022

A Proper Goodbye Premiere (Live)

LIVE, March 4, 2023, Timothy J. Robblee, conductor
Armstrong Concert Hall, Winchester VA
Scenario by Gary Winter
https://jonathannewman.com/music/piilani-and-koolau

Pi‘ilani and Ko‘olau, an imagined ballet [Shenandoah Conservatory Wind Ensemble]

for wind ensemble

performed by the Texas Tech University Symphonic Wind Ensemble, Sarah McKoin, conductor.

Deciduous (live)

A synthetic sound world of neon nostalgia that evolves into an optimistic synth anthem of bliss.

This is a reading session that Glen Adsit and the Hartt School generously did for me. Real performance(s) will be uploaded at some point in the future.

Synthetic Sunlight (Hartt School READING SESSION)

12 days of Christmas, arranged by Bob, played by Nadia!

Nadia Sirota - The 12 Days Of Christmas - by Robert Sirota

RECORDED LIVE at Helzberg Hall, The Kauffman Center in Kansas City.
Northwestern University Symphonic Wind Ensemble—Mallory Thompson, conducting.

Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?
That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the 
current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the 
past nor the shadow of the future?
– Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha


This quotation serves as the inspiration and soul of Joel Puckett’s that secret from the river, which approaches the idea of the river from the abstraction of sound. The composer says of his creative process:
I have a very odd relationship with the past. I am constantly forced to confront past choices I've made in the form of the music I've written which I then experience in the present. When I hear music I've written, 
I am almost always overwhelmed by the feeling that I'm not actually the person who wrote it. And in a very real sense, I'm not; at least, not anymore. But when I hear it, I feel compelled to be grateful that the 
person who did write that music left the very best of himself in those notes and I go about my life trying to live up to them.

In a sense, the metaphor of Hesse’s river is applied to the life of any person. Can any of us exist outside of the perspective of the absolute present, and are we still the same person as we were in the past or will be in the future? 
With art, the common predilection is to observe the creator’s oeuvre through a synchronic lens, assuming all works are created by the same person fixed in time rather than to take into account the evolution not just of the artists’ craft, but also of the artists themselves. In that secret from the river, Puckett deals with this concept in a personally meaningful way through a lengthy study in motivic reference and thick, seemingly mystical harmonies.
The work as a whole is cast in two large sections: first, an exploration of pure harmonies that are made distorted and hazy through glissandi into sound masses, and second, a series of variants on a familiar harmonic motive. For much of the later portions of the piece, sections of the Hesse quotation are printed to accompany the score in a quasi-
programmatic fashion. These fragments, positioned out of order, further lend to the concept of universal existence outside of time presented by the quotation itself.

That secret from the river was commissioned by Northwestern University in celebration of the completion of the Patrick 
G. and Shirley W. Ryan Center for the Musical Arts and is dedicated to Mallory Thompson and the members, past and 
present, of the Symphonic Wind Ensemble.

that secret from the river (LIVE in KC)

Tau Beta Sigma/Kappa Kappa Psi NIB World Premiere, July 2017.

4) The Low Arc Of The Sun

Play To Win From THE FIX Outlaw And Dennis

[@ 3 min] Team OBS goes ‘Inside the Huddle’ with Joel Puckett, composer of Minnesota Opera’s production of “The Fix” (with a libretto by Eric Simonson) about the fraudulent 1919 Chicago White Sox team. A guest who can shoot the breeze about sports…?!

[@ 37 min] Apparently there are still places that want to hire James Levine. In ‘Chalk Talk’, find out where in the world presenting an alleged sexual predator and cult-leader will still sell tickets...

[@ 46 min] In the ‘Two Minute Drill’, women take the reins of New Orleans Opera and Charlottesville Opera, while the Metropolitan Opera stops giving away free online content…

www.facebook.com/obschi1
www.operaboxscore.com
@operaboxscore

George Cederquist's Album

Getting Our Fix with Joel Puckett!

The famous intro to Rhapsody in Blue done on PICCOLO TRUMPET!

This recording is a world premiere for piano and jazz band arranged by Allan Gilliland and Matt Catingub.  Featuring Jon Kimura Parker (piano) and Jens Lindemann (piccolo trumpet) along with the Canadian All-Star JazzPops Orchestra.  Watch for the full release on November 19, 2020

Rhapsody In Blue Big Band INTRO

Joel Puckett is a composer leaving both audiences and the press buzzing. His music has been described as, “soaringly lyrical” (Minneapolis Star Tribune), “Puccini-esque” (Wall Street Journal), and “containing a density within a clarity, polyphony within the simple and – most importantly – beautiful and seemingly spiritual.” (Audiophile Audition). Parterre Box recently proclaimed, “Puckett should be a household name” and the Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Patrick Stearns mused, “if the name Joel Puckett isn’t etched into your brain, it should be.” In 2011 NPR Music listed him as one of the top 100 composers under 40 in the world.

Hailed as “visionary” (Washington Post) and “an astonishingly original voice” (Philadelphia Inquirer), his music is performed by the leading artists of our day and is consistently recognized by organizations such as the American Composers Forum, BMI, Chorus America, National Public Radio, and the American Bandmasters Association.

Puckett’s music attracts diverse performers and listeners through its emotional energy and commitment. Melding tradition with innovation, his distinctive style grows from his power to create transcendent experiences using charismatic musical language.

The Fix, a grand opera commissioned by Minnesota Opera, premiered in the March 2019 to packed houses, enthusiastic audiences, and largely effusve praise. With a libretto by Academy Award and Tony Award winner, Eric Simonson, the work depicts the rise and fall of the 1919 Chicago White Sox. It is a tragedy ripe with power, romance and redemption, set against the backdrop of America’s favorite pastime. Puckett’s earlier commissions have been premiered and performed worldwide, to exuberant critical acclaim.

His flute concerto, The Shadow of Sirius, premiered in 2010 and has received more than 200 performances and been recorded multiple times, including 2015’s Naxos Surround Sound disc, “Shadow of Sirius,” which received a 2016 Grammy Nomination. Currently the Chair of Music Theory, Ear Training, and Piano Skills at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Puckett presents workshops nationwide and frequently serves as an adjudicator at competitions for rising composers. His music is represented worldwide by Bill Holab Music.

that secret from the river (LIVE in KC)

Joel Puckett

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