Three Premieres in One Week! Part 2

Okay, so I am uploading videos right now to the performances I had done a few weeks ago.

I conducted my woodwind sextet, "Children's Games and a Loss of Naivete"

On the same concert my Solo for Flute was premiered

Two days later my brass ensemble piece "Theme and Oscillations for Brass, Organ, and Percussion" was premiered by Ben Nilles and the OCU Brass Ensemble.

The first video I have is from my MacBook, so I can watch myself conducting. I know I'm not the greatest conductor in the world yet, but I've only just finished my first semester of conducting studies. Advice is welcome though. The audio is that from the recording of the concert, synced up with the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wAsYKmXMpY

The second video is the brass ensemble piece, my first commission. I learned a lot from it (which is what you're supposed to do as a student) so I feel good about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSoLKT18rE8

More to follow.

About conducting, I'd say make the downbeat damn clear, and keep the other movement more restricted. And a bit more facial expressions; entries seem easy to handle and you have a good sense of coordination and rhythm. Other than that, you look great :D Maybe you could try conducting without a baton next time.

I enjoyed the wind sextet, although it didn't have the rigour of say, the Ibert or the Hindemith wind quintets. I am not to compare you to these composers, but all I mean is, it could feel more confident - but that might be because of the performance, dunno :X

btw, we have to write a wind quintet for this term, and a composer from my year has written something along the lines of "5 images of childhood" (as in, "lullaby", "first cry" etc).. I haven't looked at the score or listened to the music yet anyway, but I'll let you know when I do :P

Brass ensemble piece was nice, I enjoyed it more than the sextet. What's amazing about brass is that when they do crescendi it's like a balloon which is quickly inflated. One of your percussionists looks EXACTLY like one of ours :O Oh and also, was that zoom-in on you or the girl? :P

Hey Jamie,

First of all huge congratulations on your successes and your premiers! Your commissions and your conducting (and the girl where the camera zoomed in in the brass video! hehe).

I have had 2-3 years of conducting lessons, but sucked big time and never enjoyed it AT ALL! So I'm really unsure if I can offer some serious advice (it also depends on the 'techniques' one uses). I did feel that the downbeat was not strong enough, and your right hand gestures were not as defined as I would like them to be. Of course this could be just me... It felt a little that the ensemble was following them rather than you somehow. Of course this will come with experience but more feeling on the left hand would help things immensly I think. The piece, itself, was wondetful, but, on a personal level again, I felt a little bit (a tiny bit) that it was missing direction... :-/ Again this is probably me rather than you.

The brass/organ/perc piece is wonderful as well. There is no lack in the direction this time. There is a very specific form and very precise language going on. And, plus, it was a very good performance! :)

In all big big congrats on everything! :)

Nikolas

Hey guys thanks for the comments.

I forgot to mention that on the woodwind piece I synced up audio from the hall to the video, as opposed to using the audio from the video. So it may not be exactly synced up, making my conducting look a little weird in that aspect.