Early Music | Kile Smith • composer

Red-tail and Hummingbird first rehearsal

by Kile Smith | Feb 19, 2013 | Chamber Music, Early Music, new music

We had a fine first rehearsal of Red-tail and Hummingbird yesterday, with both groups. Casting caution to the winds, Piffaro is playing without a conductor. But they always play without a conductor. Casting even more caution to even windier winds, Jim Freeman is...

The Red Book of Montserrat, first airing of movements 2 and 3

by Kile Smith | Feb 18, 2013 | Early Music, new music, Orchestral Music, String Orchestra

My thanks to the wonderful Philadelphia Sinfonia, Gary White, music director, and their performance yesterday of the second and third movements of The Red Book of Montserrat. It’s a five-movement string orchestra suite Sinfonia’s commissioned; the official...

Sneak Preview of The Red Book of Montserrat

by Kile Smith | Feb 16, 2013 | Early Music, new music, Orchestral Music, String Orchestra

I’m looking forward to the first airing tomorrow of some of The Red Book of Montserrat, a new work for string orchestra commissioned by the Philadelphia Sinfonia, Gary White, music director. It’s a “sneak preview,” as the official premiere is...

The composing of Red-tail and Hummingbird, Part 3

by Kile Smith | Feb 12, 2013 | Chamber Music, Early Music, New Compositions, new music

[First published 12 Feb 2013 in the Broad Street Review and reprinted with permission. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.] So Frank Zappa had to go, but a little music I’d written down in my first blush of Black Page ardor stuck with me: five notes, a fast, simple,...

The composing of Red-tail and Hummingbird, Part 2

by Kile Smith | Feb 6, 2013 | Chamber Music, Early Music, New Compositions, new music

[First published 5 Feb 2013 in the Broad Street Review and reprinted with permission. Read Part 1 here.] I had created the title; the only thing left was the music. In describing the composing of Red-tail and Hummingbird, I’m tempted to warn, at every step, that I...

The composing of Red-tail and Hummingbird, Part 1

by Kile Smith | Jan 23, 2013 | Chamber Music, Early Music, New Compositions, new music

[First published 21 Jan 2013 in the Broad Street Review and reprinted with permission.] Careening diagonally across the top of my line of sight, a large bird swooped down and slammed into the holly branches not seven feet away from me, scattering sparrows and...

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