jseeholzer – Page 3 – Julia Seeholzer

“Blood Garnet”, performed by Iowa State University Symphony Orchestra

By jseeholzer on Monday, November 5, 2018

Happy fall! The blog has been quiet but lots of things are currently in the works for the 2018-2019 season.

I’d love to share a recent performance of my first orchestral work, “Blood Garnet”. I wrote this in between my undergraduate and graduate degrees, and while I am still happy with many of the musical ideas, the orchestration itself is very “First Piece for Orchestra”. There’s nothing like hearing your own human-played orchestral music to show you exactly what did and didn’t work, technically speaking!

Regardless, Thomas Cunningham and the orchestra did a lovely job with the piece, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to hear my own orchestral music live.

New Media

“Constant”, performed by fivebyfive

By jseeholzer on Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Recently, fivebyfive performed my piece, “Constant”, which I arranged slightly to accommodate the size of their ensemble.

They just posted a wonderful video of the performance. I always love hearing new performances of this piece, because they’re never the same.

Concert

fivebyfive

By jseeholzer on Sunday, March 11, 2018

An older piece of mine, but one near and dear to my heart, has been selected by fivebyfive for their upcoming concert on April 15th. I wrote its first iteration under my professor Marti Epstein as an exercise in minimalism and indeterminacy. After a few years, I came back to the piece, expanded it, and changed it to flexible instrumentation.

For this concert, I will add another part (from piano + 3 musicians to piano + 4) to accommodate fivebyfive’s ensemble size. The evolution and flexibility of this piece since its creation inspire me to keep open/flexible instrumentation in my arsenal. I’ve never had the piece performed by the same set of instruments more than once, and each performance brings something new to my ears. I look forward to hearing fivebyfive’s interpretation next month.

Below is a performance by the Central Michigan New Music Ensemble. For a perusal score, head over to MusicSpoke.