The last two days have been the commencement ceremonies at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

On Thursday, the College of Music held their commencement for us. Daniel Kellogg “hooded” me as part of of the ceremony and said some very kind things about me. Some of the other doctoral graduates in the ceremony were María Fernanda Nieto-Pulido, who I wrote Fitful Slumbers for, and Tim Buckman, a fellow composer and guitarist.

On Friday, the University Commencement ceremony was held. I was hooded again by Associate Dean Steven Bruns and shook the hands of the president, the chancelor, and some of the regents of the University. Only two doctoral music students walked in the main ceremony. I almost didn’t, but I am glad that I did. My father came to the ceremony, and it was nice to have some family to share it with. The ceremony also gave me a real sense of completion to the process. I am officially a Doctor of Musical Arts.

After the University Commencement, I picked up my actual degree (they always give you a blank holder during the ceremony) at the Graduate School reception and went to my uncle’s restaurant to celebrate.

Wow! It has been a while. This semester has been a whirlwind. Finishing my dissertation, carrying 17 credit hours in a concurrent masters program, teaching at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and doing enough contract composition work to pay my bills was so overwhelming that I just had to put my head down and keep working.

An overview of the last few months:

1. Finished and defended my dissertation for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition. I will walk for the degree next week.

2. Completed 17 hours towards my second masters degree, a Master of Science in Recording Arts, at the University of Colorado, Denver

• This included a project in Audio for Post Production – a complete soundtrack for a three minute segment of film including all dialog and effects (backgrounds, foley, and cut FX).
• Recorded Sins of Babylon, a local metal band
• Recorded Nataniel Rateliff and the Wheel as part of their pre-production work for their upcoming Rounder release.
• Recorded New Ancient Astronauts
• Recorded the Metro State Orchestra  on several occasions and did a project comparing stereo microphone techniques for large ensemble
• Did my first remix project using Logic
• Master class on studio design with John Storyk
• Master class on virtual production with Sandy Hoover
• Master class on acoustics and concert hall design with Robert Mahoney

3. Continued contract composition work for Mentormeter Media, LLC.

• Boca-Motion for Alto Saxophone Wind Ensemble with J.S. Abramowitz
• WIP wind ensemble piece
• Arrangements of several tunes for a synagogue

4. Taught several composition majors at CU-Boulder

5. I will likely be working on an audio post project for UCD next semester as part of a scholarship opportunity.

6. Started the academic job search process again

7. Re-arranged the home studio. Since I am really only editing and mixing at home, I moved my control room back in the larger room. It is more comfortable and makes more sense for me now. I also bought a new Mac and upgraded to Pro Tool 8.

Gotta run. To be continued…

1. End of Week 3 at UCD. Very busy, but I’m having lots of fun and learning much.
2. Had my first remix experience last weekend in the Virtual Production topics course. I also got to spend a bunch of time in Logic.
3. Met with hhkkhaaouump to finalize the mix and edit of their CD.
4. Started preproduction on the studio acoustic version of It Was. It will be the first time Kallisti has worked together in 7 years. It is just a one-off, but it will still be good to make music with the gang. Probably no Larry, but it will still be cool.
5. Further work on the dissertation doc. Must be done soon…

1. Started the MSRA (MS Recording Arts) program at the University of Colorado-Denver last week. I’m very excited.
2. Finished formating the bound copy of some dissertation docs.
3. Very close to a complete first draft of the research doc for the dissertation.
4. Sorting through all of the video I’ve collected this summer and started to edit and process.

1. Finished the remix of FLE Vol. I No. 4. It is up on the FLE site here. It will be the May release. I must admit I’m beginning to feel weird about spending all of my time on music from my past, but it is nice to have less things from the past hanging over my head. All of that stuff was mixed in the old Lamont studio – bad room, bad monitors, bad off-board gear. The plan was to redo it all under better conditions later. The ongoing desire to just move on to the next project left a stack abandoned works. It has also been nice to revisit a lot of work from the last 15 years as I’ve been preparing the dissertation portfolio.

2. Continued work on prospectus for research project.

3. Minor website edits.

5. Taxes

6. Audio post work for the Playground/Conrad Kehn

News in the last two weeks:

1. Job interview – quite a bit of prep work and travel.

2. Completed the submission version of Comp music project and submitted it to Carter.

3. Started the prospectus for the research doc.

4. Released ICQ: Codes & Cyphers on Tuesday.

5. Did some audio work for The Playground. They had a recording that they needed cleaned up.

7. Got into the MSRA program at UCD for next year.

8. Actually started thinking about what I’ll do next musically. I have almost dug myself out of the backlog of music from the past. I feel free to tread some new ground once all of the music of the past is finished, available, and in the past.

First, this should be feeding to my MySpace and Facebook pages. That is cool and exciting. I assume that increases the likelihood of people outside of Germany reading this (why people from Germany read my blog is a mystery to me, but I consistently get a dozen hits a day.)

Second, I finished the submission material for composition project 2 of my dissertation. This includes most of the collaberations from my doctoral years. In the process of working on this (as previously mentioned) I did some audio work on the two live recordings of Wave Clouds like Hands, and I remixed the Star Ruby 2.0 performance with Tara Davison.I figured out a clever way to deal with the 8.1-to-stereo problem that maintains most of the motion of the 8.1. It isn’t something that would work on a lot of downmixes, but it worked with the specific 2-d motions of this.

Third, continued research on the major document. It is starting to get some focus.

Fourth, I started prep work on my teaching material for an interview at the end of the month.

Finally, I finished the first leg of promotion for The Passage. I’ll start more uphill battles next week.

Other than that, this week was much the same: eat, teach, work, sleep. Repeat.

To little fanfare, The Passage was released on MP3 this week.

Buy it here.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/thepassagealbum

My page.

Finished and satisfied with it.

1. In the process of preparing composition project 2 for submission, I had to do some work on the Invisible College Quartet recordings. I went ahead and prepped it for release on Mystery Cabal. It will probably be available next week.

2. Worked on the press release for The Passage. It will be available as an MP3 purchase this week at the store.

3. Met with Rhia about a new production/recording project.

4. Scheduled the first meeting with Art Bouton about the next piece I’m writing for him.

5. Looked at relocating. I’ve been in Denver for a long time, and it may be time to move on.

6. Priced CDs for The Passage. Looking at a pre-sale plan for revenue.

7. Continued research on audio history.

Busy couple of weeks:

1. Composition project 1 is approved, submitted, done.

2. Finished a bunch of work on The Passage.  I did a rendering – 2.1- that had some weird problems (a set of string tracks picked up some delay, and a few of the cross fades in tracks were off). Re-did it -2.11- and changed to mastering setup for the 2nd, 5th, and heavy part of the 4th tracks – 2.12-. I’m still not totally convinced of the mastering patches, but the underlying composition, etc. is finished.

3. Agreed to do some editing on a recording by Margaret “Meg” Schedel. That means a weekend trip to NY.

4. Finished app for an audio programs I am applying to for next year.

5. Remaster Kallisti’s Holiday 2.0 and rendered at 48k for upcoming usage in Monkey Angel Studio’s next project.

6.  Started remix work on FLE Vol. I No.4 for Mystery Cabal re-release.

7. Did some initial brainstorming on another piece for Art Bouton.

8. Migrated guitar-computer-amp rig to Max 5 from Max 4.6. Pretty seamless in most of my patches.

9. Mastered a recording of Kallisti playing a short set on acoustic instruments. Probably will include it with some upcoming Complete Kallisti Recordings release.