jet settin' fool 2011

In about 8 hours I'll be en route for a fantastic 2 months of music making, traveling, job searching, and relaxing with family.

The tour will begin with a 30 hour transit to Fairbanks, Alaska. Last March, Ensemble 64.8 (the ensemble in residence at the University of Fairbanks Alaska, directed by Morris Palter) attended and participated in our percussion festival here in Piteå. Now, it's time for Ensemble Evolution to make the journey to the other side of the Arctic world. Charles, Jake, Anna, and I will be picked up by our taxi at 5:25am tomorrow and be on our way! We'll give a masterclass, Anders will give a masterclass, and we will perform together as "The Arctic Connection" on Saturday. It will be great to see Fiona, Eric, and Morris again...and see the Alaskan landscape for the first time!

Next, I'll leave Fairbanks on Sunday morning to make another long transit back this way...to Germany. I'm playing with a select chamber group from the Baltic Youth Philharmonic for a sponsor event on Tuesday! It may sound a little crazy to fly across the world for one small gig, but I love playing with the BYPers, and this event will be very unique. I'll write more about that after the fact :) BYP's website

On Wednesday, November 9, I'll hop back on to a flight (or 3 to be exact) and head over to Indianapolis, Indiana for the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC.) I'll meet back up with Anna, Jake, and Charles and will be networking like crazy during the convention. There are so many friends and colleagues that I can't wait to see! And...so many stories from Sweden and abroad that I have to share :) PASIC website

After the four non-stop days at PASIC, the crew and I will head to Cincy to have a much needed "rest day" at mom and dad's. I can't wait to see them!! Mom has already planned what we're having for dinner and where everyone will sleep. They are really excited to meet the guys and Anna...my family over here.

We'll need our rest, because the next 9 days will be filled with driving and gigs! My duo with Jake has some great momentum happening, and I was able to put together a great University using our repertoire from "Compose. Perform. Inspire. New Voices in Percussion Music"

On Monday, we all drive up to Columbus and visit my alma mater. We'll have to say goodbye to Charles,  as he's working with some other schools in the area, and needs to come back to Piteå for an opera project with our friend Gisli.

Jake, Anna, and I will perform at Ohio State that night (Anna is singing Swedish Folk Songs with us along with our normal repertoire.) It'll be so great to play at my alma mater and hang with Susan and Joe!

After the evening performance, we'll get back on the road for the 2 hour drive to Cleveland. We'll be staying with our great friend Kristen who hooked us up with a gig at The Happy Dog; a bar that only serves gormet hot dogs and beer! yes! We'll be apart of a program call the "Classical Revolution." Can't wait to perform in that atmosphere!

Wednesday will be a travel day; 7 hours to Kutztown, Pennsylvania. Dr. Frank Kumor and his percussion studio were our largest donor in our Kickstarter campaign, and their reward is a live performance of the repertoire. Should be fun!!

We'll perform at Kutztown at 11am on Thursday, and drive to upper-state New York just after. Our good friend, Amy (yes, the same Amy that introduced Jake and I in Paris!) is the teaching fellow at Bard College and is hosting us for a performance/clinic for the composition and percussion students on Friday. It will be great to hang with her and check out what she's doing!  

After all of these gigs, and time in the car...we'll have to let our hair down a little. We're spending the weekend in NYC to visit friends and see the sights! This tour will be Anna's first time in the States, and she's getting to see it all!

We won't party too hard tough...on Monday we will play at New York University for their percussion studio. It will be fun to connect with new colleagues and end tour travels in the big city.

Tuesday, November 22 is the official last day of tour. We'll drive the 12 hours back to Cincy...Jake and Anna will drop me off at my parent's, take a nap, and drive up to Chicago to return the rental car, and board their flights (Jake to Texas, and Anna to Sweden) Hope we are still friends after all of this time together!!

I'll then take the rest of that week to catch up with family and say many, many thank-yous for the opportunities to see so much of the world and meet so many amazing people! It will be a very special Thanksgiving!!

Jake is trying to organize a Texas tour for the first week of December, and it looks promising! Hope it will be warm down there! Then...I'll spend the second week of December with my high school band. I'll be soloing with them (along side a brass quintet of alumni) at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago. It will be fantastic! We played at the convention my sophomore year in high-school, and it was one of the big moments that made me want to pursue music professionally. Can't wait to take the stage with Mr. Snyder again!

The rest of the month will be filled with high-quality family time and future-figuring-out! I plan to leave Piteå in June of next year, and need to decide where to make my next move :) Sky's the limit!

I hope to blog during the next few weeks, so stay tuned! Now...let's try to fit everything into this ONE suitcase! AHHH! :)

The concert!!!

Jake and I couldn't be happier with the premiere of our new duo repertoire. It was definitely a race to the finish, but we are really proud of the final product. Can't wait to see what is next for us as a duo!




Maria Finkelmeier and Jacob Remington (Evolution Percussion Duo) premiere seven new works in Piteå, Sweden.

Program:
Skylight by Dave Hall (@ 0:50)
Getting to Know Maria and Jake (@ 11:00)
Lemuria by Csaba Zoltan Marján (@ 13:30)
Plato's Cave by Casey Cangelosi (@23:35)
Tango Passacaglia by Jacob Remington (@34:32)
Bunker by Baljinder Sekhon (@44:45)
Echo, Part II by Maria Finkelmeier (@57:10)
Thankyou Speech (@1:08:45)
Break by David Skidmore (@1:10:50)
Outtakes/Interviews/Credits (@1:17:10)

October 13, 2011; Studio Acusticum; Piteå, Sweden

About this Concert:
Compose. Perform. Inspire. New Voices in Percussion Music

In the spring of 2011 Maria and Jake initiated this commissioning project using a crowd-funding platform called Kickstarter. They contacted four young composers who each have a unique compositional style and forward thinking approach to new percussion music. Supporters from around the world donated between $5 and $1000 to the project and received awards correlated with Maria and Jake's career. The duo reached their funding goal in May after advertising relentlessly through Facebook and numerous other media outlets. The money raised went directly to the four composers, and the creative process was put into motion. Casey, Dave, Baljinder, and David spent the summer writing their pieces while the duo eagerly anticipated the opportunity to discover what each composer would create. Then, Maria and Jake spent four weeks working to bring this music, along with Csaba's and their own, to life.

Special thanks to the fantastic production team (all names are listed at the end of the video!)

Promo video!

We've gotten the music and put together an amazing production team for the concert! Check out the great promo video that August and Kendy shot and made for us!



Watch the concert LIVE on Piteplay.se!!
October 13, 2011
7pm (Swedish time)
Tweet your thoughts! #evolutionduopremiere

Our kickin' "Kickstarter" project

The last few weeks since the festival have been filled with a lot of little projects. I wrote a quartet piece for a composition contest in which Jake, Charles, Daniel and I recorded. (We'll see what happens with the competition in June! I'll post it once I know the results...good or bad, I'm proud of the piece!) I've also been working a lot with the international department, we have accepted 20 new exchange students, and I will be their "mom" next year. I've been sending a lot of emails and corresponding with tons of coordinators to get this to work. Definitely earning that pay check! Teaching has been going super as well, and my students are doing such a great job. The student from Italy is probably the hardest working, non-major student that there has ever been. It's really exciting to see him progress, and it's a challenge for me to make sure that I present quality information and tasks! Performance wise, Ensmeble Evolution will be going on the road with Anders and our good friend and vocalist Anna Larson. This weekend we'll adventure into southern Sweden to work with some beginning percussion students and drumset players, give some concerts, and work with the Swedish Army Band percussionists (and hang out with Rolf!) We are excited to see more of Sweden, meet new musicians, and share what we've been doing up here in Piteå. It will also be exciting to test Jake and my manual car driving skills... :)

The most time consuming project that I've been working for is the Kickstarter project that Jake and I have initiated. It's called "Compose. Perform. Inspire. New Voices in Percussion Music" and we are raising money to commission four great composers to write for us. Jake and I click musically and personally, so in March we decided to really go for it as a duo. We decided that the best way to be a unique duo would be to write music for ourselves, as well as get some brand new repertoire under our belts. We have some super talented friends which we wanted to involve, and I've been following the Kickstarter funding website for some time. It was only natural to use this platform to make our idea come to life. Plus, Charles, Anders and all our friends and family are totally supportive and enthused about our success so far. We've created a rich creative environment up here, so it's been fun to see how the ensemble changes for each idea.

Check out the Kickstarter website and our video for more information! We have one week left to meet our goal....it's ALL or NOTHING! I think we can do it! We've already booked studio time to record the CD and can't wait to start planning the tours and most importantly....learning the music!

Festival Reflections Part 5

By Saturday, the 40 festival guests had become a little family. Everyone was walking around like they had known each other for years! Since there was no one else at the school, there was a special and secretive atmosphere to the festival. It was nice, and great to start the day with everyone making some music (even if we were all a bit sleepy! 

The schedule: 

9.00 – 10.30 Improvisation Session 3

11.00 – 12.30: Percussion and Media with Charles Martin and Chi-Hsia Lai (Lisa)

12.30 – 13.30: Lunch

14.00 – 14.45: Trevor Saint – Solo Glockenspiel session

14.45 – 15.30: Solo piece Session with Shaun Gallant and Evan Dabbs

16.00 – 17.00: Morris Palter - How to Memorize multi set-ups

19.00: CONCERT: Smörgasbord of International Percussionist featuring all festival participants

After the improvisation rehearsals, the whole group went to the student union where we provided coffee and some snacks to make sure everyone was alert for the interactive media session. We were the only people in the student house, so we put our feet up and enjoyed our "fika" (Swedish word for coffee break!) 

Charles' and Lisa's media session was really cool! I knew that Charles had a big interest in computer music, but it was so great to see him present his past projects and ideas! He worked with Lisa back in Australia, and now she lives in Helsinki, Finland, so it was a perfect opportunity for them to get together again! 

check out Strike on Stage!!

Lunch was not really a break for the whole group...those who could go out, did...but many of us stayed to rehearse for the closing concert. Daniel and I needed to run through a duo, and other groups spread out to touch up their pieces. We had some sandwiches and snacks left over from the night before, so it was actually a cozy environment of rehearsing and munching! 

The afternoon was much more self-propelled than the rest of the festival. I put these individual sessions at the end because they involved the least amount of people and assistance. Since everyone would be involved in the evening concert, we thought it would be best to have an afternoon that was low stress....it was great! 

First, Trevor presented more solo glock pieces! this one for glock and amplified snow! very cool! 

Then, Shaun Gallant played Garage Drummer by Jim Campbell and talked about his Mourning Dove Sonet (Christopher Deane) performance on the soloist concert. Evan Dabbs also presented a piece for quartet that he wrote just for this festival. It was a great platform for him present a composition and get feedback. 

Morris Palter gave a great clinic on memorizing multi set-ups! Here he is working with Evan Dabbs from Fort Worth, Texas. 

Morris working with Sami, from Tampere, Finland

The sessions had concluded, and now it was time for the real fun! The whole festival would be summed up by the closing concert. First, I made sure that the performers were fed and happy. With the money the Kommun donated, I had pizza delivered (well, actually Arvid picked it up and delivered it!) Free pizza makes everyone happy! :)

After the quick dinner we rearranged the Black Box Theatre. We wanted to create a cool "Pub Night" feel. We hired the restaurant to bring their portable bar in the theatre to sell drinks, and set up couches instead of the regular stadium seating. My favorite lighting girl, Linda, put up some colored LEDs and the stage looked great! We had 4 improv groups, and 5 other pieces to perform. Instead of setting an order, I asked the audience what they wanted to hear after each piece! The night was a BLAST!!!!!! I can't express how much fun everyone had! We had a ton of non-percussionists there too‚ which added another exciting element! 

Casey started the show with a bang! 

I had a great time chatting with the audience! 

The Improv Groups were awesome!!! 

Jake, Shaun and Fiona tearing it up on a cajon trio! 

Had a great time playing with Daniel on his piece The Legacy

Found Instruments improv 

Ended with a mass improv! It was amazing to see everyone involved! 

"great job, everyone! Now...let's clean up!!!"

We couldn't have asked for a more successful festival! Jake, Charles and I were so happy that night! After cleaning everything, the Finnish groups hopped back in their vans and drove home (so crazy!), and the rest of us headed to the bar!! Wouldn't be a percussion event without a few drinks! 

I was overwhelmed by the positive feedback from everyone in attendance. The students admitted they never knew that percussion music could be so exciting and diverse, and the teachers said they hadn't been to a more unique or well-organized event. I was overjoyed, and still am! We're collecting quotes from the attendees and will post them on our website once we have all of the evaluation forms. 

The next morning, many of us headed to Stockholm at 6:30 in the morning to give another concert. There wasn't much time to bask in the festival success, but if you're going to do something...do it big! More about the Stockholm trip later. I've just written 5 blog entries after weeks and weeks of blog hiatus...time to take a break!