P-06 Musical Composition Fostering Project

Buller Hallway

This past summer I travelled to a rural part of British Columbia, Canada for the express purpose of creating music within its highly- conducive environment, an aspect of my AU FRG-sponsored activity. I composed mostly outside, sitting in a pasture with an ebb- and-flow of some 35 alpacas, three horses and occasional dogs, often stopping to soak in the inspiring environment, to photograph in nature, and to exercise (including bicycle riding in the pasture). On average, I composed for approximately 40 hours per week, for about one month. This process was extraordinarily productive (even while mostly done less efficiently with pencil and paper instead of with computer and keyboard), yielding drafts of approximately a dozen new musical works. The major aspect was creating compressed-score drafts (“short scores”) for most of a four-movement concert band suite concerning Adventist history in Battle Creek, Michigan—publishing, college, tabernacle and cemetery. I am planning to complete this by 2015, the centennial of Ellen G. White’s death. Other drafts involved vocal, congregational or choral music including texts by George Herbert, Christina Rossetti and Christopher Smart.