Mine too, Adam! ;) thanks for checking out this performance.

Wind Ensemble

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]

EDGES is inspired by several events in my life over the period of 1995-97.  Two are near-death experiences, while the third is the sudden passing of one of my closest colleagues and best friends, Professor Robert Cooper.  

The first movement, "BACK FROM THE EDGE", is a chronicle of the battle that I waged with "flesh-eating strep", which nearly cost me my life in spring, 1995.  A fragment of a line from French playwright Jean Genet’s “Prisoner of Love” served as additional inspiration: 

 “perhaps all music, even the newest, is not so much something discovered as something that re-emerges from where it lay in memory, inaudible as a melody cut in a disc of flesh.  A composer lets me hear a song that has always been shut up silent within me.”

In a sense, my life has re-emerged from where it lay, for a while, silent, in memory.

Movement II, "POSTCARDS", is inspired by my mentor and friend, composer Donald Erb, who had his own near-death experience about a year later in the same Ithaca, New York hospital (a bizarre coincidence).  I know that he shared many of the mental aberrations I experienced during the recovery process, and POSTCARDS reflects the strange visions, the elusive but more and more frequent moments of clarity, and the eventual return to reality that such experiences create.  For me, in retrospect, these thoughts were like vivid postcards of other realities, sent to me by another part of my mind and filtered through the pain, the fear, and the medications that I had been given.  There was also a highly obsessive quality to my thoughts during the reco-very, which is reflected in the primary melodic material which simply refuses to disappear, though it changes colors, dynamics, and tempos at every turn.

Postcards -- real postcards, that is -- also played a role in my experiences.  While recovering, I received a post card (often of questionable taste) every two or three days from Don.  When it was his turn to be in recovery, it was my turn to send him postcards (equally questionable)...they seem now to me to be a lifeline to reality from people who are eager to welcome us back.

A quote was inspirational for this second movement as well, this time from Hermann Hesse’s Damien:

“In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified.”

The final movement is a reflection on the amazing, wonderful, and sometimes difficult life of my colleague, Robert Cooper.  Robert had, without a doubt, the speediest metabolism of anyone I have ever known.  Lunch with Robert could be defined as both of us eating for the first five minutes and Robert watching me finish eating for the last 45.  Robert had two computers in his office and a phone; often all three were busy at once, while he carried on at least one additional conversation with whomever was present.  Yet Robert had great depth too.  He was a living example to students and colleagues, especially in facing life’s travails with courage and conviction.  He was also funny as hell.  I suppose that Robert’s pace was impossible to sustain, and in fact he died suddenly at age 45 on September 18, 1997. 

No quotations needed with this movement.  This one’s for you, man.


EDGES Movement III OhMan for wind ensemble

EDGES Movement II Postcards for wind ensemble

EDGES Movement I Back from the Edge for 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

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

My flute concerto, The Shadow of Sirius, in a fantastic live performance by the University of Texas Wind Ensemble, Jerry Junkin conducting and Marianne Gedigian, flute soloist.

Find out more: www.joelpuckett.com/shadow.html

[To buy a fantastic studio recording of this work, follow the itunes link.]

Program note: 
I have always found comfort in poetry. While in school, I was the guy with a collection of Bukowski under one arm and a collection 
of Yeats under the other. I have always enjoyed the rhythm of other people’s thoughts and feelings.

In the winter of 2009, my wife and I experienced a heartbreak that left me unsure of how to even breathe, let alone grieve. 
On March 1st, 2009, I found a copy of W.S. Merwin’s, The Shadow of Sirius, and I began to feel myself heal. I have almost no idea 
what most of this poetry means. But I know that it fills me with a profound sadness that is, at the same time, brimming with hope.
I recently heard Mr. Merwin discussing the origin of the title of his collection. He related that scientists have discovered that the star 
known as Sirius is actually a star system. What looks to our eye like a single object is actually many. Merwin found himself 
wondering what is on the other side of Sirus, lying in its shadow.
A friend once said to me, “many concerti explore a virtuosity of technique but not many explore a virtuosity of expression.” It was 
with that thought in mind that I began work on my, The Shadow of Sirius, for solo flute and wind orchestra.

Each movement offers my reflection on a single Merwin poem from the collection. Although the work is played without pause, the 
soloist plays unaccompanied solos to separates the individual movements. 

A consortium of American wind ensembles led by Michael Haithcock and the University of Michigan commissioned The Shadow of Sirius. The work is dedicated to the fantastic Amy Porter.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Copper Press, which has granted permission to reprint W.S. Merwin’s poetry. All poems 
Copyright 2008 by W.S. Merwin. More information about this poetry can be found at www.coppercanyonpress.com.

Buy UMICH recording

The Shadow of Sirius [UT Junkin and Gedigian, LIVE]

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.

The Shadow of Sirius [UT Junkin and Gedigian, LIVE]

Joel Puckett

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