#tm513

[tobiasreber]

TM513 Photo Blog 3 - The Recording Session

I'm continuing this series (see here for Part 1 and Part 2) of photo posts with another treat, something which is also not covered in the documentary movie about the project: a couple of pictures and notes from the Todmorden 513 "studio" recording session, along with an account by one of our supporters who visited us as part of his PledgeCampaign reward. The recording took place on April 20, 2013 at Bunker Auditorium Golden, Colorado. First, click play and treat yourself to some music while you read!

Todmorden 513 (Concerto for Orchestra by Markus Reuter) by Colorado Chamber Orchestra / Thomas A. Blomster

Thomas checking out the acoustics of the room.

The view from the back of the venue.

Scott "Gusty" Christensen, the recording engineer, at work. Scott also provided one of the two mixes features on the CD/DVD package.

The view from my place after we finished setting up the microphones: as during the rehearsals, my job was to follow the score, writing down beginnings and endings of takes and taking notes for discussion with Markus and Thomas. Read a bit more about that over at Todmorden513.com in my TM513 diary entry for that day.

Our team of friends, facilitators and PledgeMusic campaign supporters who got to visit us as part of their pledge rewards and had flown in from such diverse places as Minneapolis MN, Austin TX and Boston MA - not to mention Markus and me travelling there from Germany and Switzerland, respectively.

Cedric Theys, frenchman living in Austin and founder of Mad Ducks Records, and me.

Cedric, who has since gone on to support Markus and the project in numerous ways, was kind enough to share a few memories from the recording session with us. Here's what he wrote me:

"Golden City CO. An unassuming small American city with a big arch with its name at the entrance. I got there a bit late the day of the recording as I was staying at a friend's place about an hour away and every day thus far had been extremely exhilarating. Seeing consummate professionals doing what they love to the highest caliber possible with very little financial means to do it: Markus, Thomas, Tobias, Jack and of course the whole chamber orchestra.

The day of the recording was yet another lesson on what can be done by sheer will. And lots of work! The orchestra went straight through recording for a good 3 to 4 hours. Stamina, perfection and feel. Nobody complained and everybody played at their highest. Markus and Tobias were very focused; I could see it in their eyes. Thomas was on stage so I didn't see him close but I'm sure he was the same. And relaxed! Got to be when conducting such a big group on such a difficult and new piece.

And I got to see the score for the first time: huge but very clear and I actually understood what was going on for each instrument and in general, even though I've got no formal training and my music reading skills are very limited.

Helped with clean up afterwards, getting the chairs, mics and cables back in place. We then went to lunch and I left for the airport to get back home after three days in Denver. Took a few days to land back into "reality" after getting a glimpse of what we as humans are capable of accomplishing. If we only tried, the world would be such a different place."

And, finally, here's the arch that Cedric mentioned: Golden, CO - Where the Western Contemporary Classical Music lives.*

*You can't see it at that image size but below the arch it says "Where the West lives" - not an opportunity for goofing around that I can pass up!

Thanks as always for stopping by. I may or may not write a fourth post in the series if I can gather enough useful material. If you want to keep up with new blog entries I suggest you subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking here - that way you'll get each new post delivered straight to your feed reader.

[tobiasreber]

TM513 Photo Blog 2 - The score & a word from Thomas

We're back with a second photo post (here's Part 1 and Part 3) and a special message from TM513 conductor and CCO musical director Thomas Blomster:

Todmorden 513 (Concerto for Orchestra by Markus Reuter) by Colorado Chamber Orchestra / Thomas A. Blomster

"The official release of Markus Reuter's Todmorden 513 more than a year after it's premiere and recording brings back many memories", says Thomas. "As Tobias points out, the weather in Colorado that week was unusual, and horrendous. Many of our musicians had already had a rough commute the previous week for a different program when the weather was so bad we had to cancel a rehearsal and reschedule. It should have been Spring, but it wasn't!"

What is standing out in particular, especially in hindsight? "I still marvel at the community that was built around TM513. While social media and crowd fundraising are new techniques in today's world, the support that Markus and the Colorado Chamber Orchestra received for TM513 is the same old fashioned "patronage" that all artists have had throughout history. The advantage of social media is the global campaign we ran to support this project. And what a great group of people, a group of people with like minds and interests! Our work has just begun, as we search to find performances for TM513 around the world, and to expose this incredible music to new ears."

"Rumor has it I shall be traveling to Berlin this year to spend time with Markus on new music as we all work to establish Markus as a composer of importance. I hope you enjoy the recording and Jack Casadone's fantastic documentary of Todmorden 513, and if you don't own the CD/DVD or haven't heard/seen it, HURRY UP! :)"

The following are a few more pictures of our daily study of the score. The first shows an example of an annotation Thomas might make during a rehearsal - reassigning voices to different registers (octaves) or even instruments to facilitate a better flow of the music.

Two bars of the Vibes part. When listening to the piece you'll notice that the rhythm of this figure, repeated twice here, stays the same throghout while the actual pitches change in accordance with the chord progression.

And finally, a complete page of the score.

[tobiasreber]

TM513 Photo Blog 1 - Rehearsals

As announced a couple of days ago, here's the first of a couple of photo posts from the week leading up to the performance and recording of Todmorden 513 in April 2013 (Edit: Part 2 and Part 3 are now online as well). The piece has been released as a beautiful CD/DVD package on Monday (available here), including a 5.1 surround mix and Jack's film, "Breaking 513". The two stereo mixes are separately available for download here - why don't you have a listen while you continue reading? Just push play.

Todmorden 513 (Concerto for Orchestra by Markus Reuter) by Colorado Chamber Orchestra / Thomas A. Blomster

Day 1

The #tm513 week provided us with some interesting weather diversity. Here's how things looked on the morning of the first rehearsal...

The first and second of three nights of rehearsals took place at Chaparral High School in Parker, CO. Some of the players had already come in contact with the piece during a reading rehearsal in January 2013, others saw the scores the first time. Thomas dove right in, stopping here and there to explain things or to have Markus address the orchestra.

Here's the view from where I stood. I had a copy of the score with which to read along and take notes, to be discussed the next day (Here's video of us doing just that the next day in "Breaking 513", Jack Casadone's documentary).

…and this was the weather on the way home.

Day 2

Jaanus, having just arrived, approves.

Jack's trying to find a good angle - no easy feat in a room with around 50 people!

The great Nikki Tsuchiya playing the organ part. Lots of very long notes changing at unpredictable times make the organ part a particularly hard piece of work.

Markus spent a lot of time going around the orchestra, answering questions and giving suggestions.

Waiting (and posing) in the parking lot after the second rehearsal.

Wait what - this is a high school parking lot? #huge #wow #mindblown, as they say on The Internet.

Day 3

Ghost riders.

Final rehearsal at King Center Concert Hall in Denver, where the performance was to take place the next day.

If you'd like to read more about the rehearsals, check out the production diary at www.todmorden513.com - just scroll back through the posts to April 2013.

[tobiasreber]

Breaking 513 - An Observation by Jack Casadone

In April 2013 I had the opportunity to travel to Denver, Colorado for a week to help with the rehearsals, performance and recording of Markus Reuter’s orchestral piece “Todmorden 513” - a big work we’d been working on over the last couple of years. I’ve previously written here about working on the project and about the week in Denver, and on the website www.todmorden513.com we chronicled the project so far pretty extensively. New York-based filmmaker Jack Casadone, having already shot footage of the first rehearsals in January last year, accompanied us during that week. The result of his work is the 70 minute documentary feature “Breaking 513”. Not only is the film available in HD on the CD/DVD release of the composition that will be out tomorrow, it is also available for free streaming. Watch it on Vimeo at www.breaking513.com or embedded here:

Breaking 513 - An Observation by Jack Casadone from Unsung Productions on Vimeo.

If you enjoyed watching the movie please consider donating to the project by purchasing the download version of the album directly from the artist. You'll get two mixes of the piece, one by its recording engineer Scott Christensen and one by ambient musician Robert Rich. 

I will be posting more previously unseen pictures from the week in Denver over the coming days.

[tobiasreber]

Todmorden 513 concert in Denver, April 18th

Picture by Markus Reuter

I've arrived in Denver, Colorado yesterday for a week of work on Markus Reuter's "Todmorden 513" orchestral project. We're staying at conductor and orchestrator Thomas Blomster's place and are currently working out all communication and "to do" items for the coming week, which will include the following events: Rehearsals with the Colorado Chamber Orchestra on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings which are open to the public (see below). The performance itself is on Thursday, with a CD/DVD recording session on Saturday morning. Friday evening we'll have an exclusive dinner with guests who purchased this option from our successful PledgeMusic campaign to fund the project (also see below), and Sunday we'll see the Youth Orchestra of the Rockies perform Thomas' arrangement of Markus' piece "Mariola".

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Concert and rehearsal info with directions courtesy of Thomas Blomster:

Monday, April 15 rehearsal 7:30 - 10 PM

Tuesday, April 16 rehearsal 7:30 - 10 PM

Chaparral High School 15655 Brookstone Dr.  Parker CO 80134

I-25 South to Lincoln Avenue (past Park Meadows and C-470), go east/left on Lincoln Avenue to South Chambers Road, turn left on South Chambers Road (going north), take your first right on Brookstone, school is on the left.

Wednesday, April 17, 7-10PM Dress rehearsal

Thursday, April 18, 7:30 Concert

King Center Concert Hall (Auraria campus)

855 Lawrence Way

Auraria Campus, Denver, CO 80204

Downtown: From I-25 take Speer Blvd south/east to Auraria Parkway right/west to 7th Street left to Walnut left, parking lots on your left and in front of you, parking garage to your right, King Center is east of Parking garage.

  The concert will also include a piece by composer Gregory T.S. Walker.

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PledgeMusic campaign - still running

The "Todmorden 513 World Premiere Recording" PledgeMusic campaign will be running until June 22. The amount we raised only covers the recording costs - the whole project costs a lot more money, so we appreciate any support you can give.

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If you're interested in staying up to date about the project as the week progresses, follow Markus (Facebook, Twitter), Thomas (Facebook) and me (Facebook, Twitter). There's also a Facebook event page for the concert. If you write about the project on social media please use the hashtag #tm513.