CFAMC LISTENING PAGE #37: Gregory Pascuzzi

A monthly musical offering by a composer member of the Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers. Both your listening and comments are encouraged.

NOVEMBER 25, 2007

Gregory Pascuzzi: "Aria and Allegro" performed by the U.S. Army Field Band Col, Finley R. Hamilton, conductor Sgt. Jefferey Price, soprano saxophone

THOUGHTS (SOME RANDOM)

     A two movement (or section) piece, slow & fast, linked by a sort of quasi cadenza. There are two main themes and a secondary one that get sort of merged toward the end. The process for me tends to be rather intuitive thus difficult to describe. There is a multi level element to it in that when writing a piece for someone or a group, there's a real awareness that even though I'm the composer, it's not really about me. Of course there's an element of self expression involved but it shouldn't cross the border into self indulgence. There are musicians that must play the piece and ordinary people giving us X number of minutes of their lives to listen to our tunes. It can be tricky in trying to write something on various levels ... Something "accessible" (the "A" word!) enough for a musically unsophisticated crowd can get (and even enjoy) on their first and probably only hearing that still has enough musical substance so that the musicians might hear something new (or at least won't gag) as they play it for the 15th time on a tour. (BTW, the performance you hear is with the U.S. Army Field Band in Washington, the Army's principal touring concert band that has nothing to do with a field. It's sometimes confused with the U.S. Army Band which is also in Washington. It's a bit like NYC having two baseball teams or, to sound more erudite, the London Symphony not being the same as the London Philharmonic).
     "A&A" is, as far as I know, the only tune of mine to be done at Carnegie Hall. How I found about that performance is a cute story. One evening I got a call from a percussionist friend in the U.S. Army Band asking if I'd be available the following Saturday to do a wedding gig as his usual piano player couldn't do it. (I checked my book and said, "Yeah, sure"). Then, while shooting the breeze, he casually mentioned that his band was playing Carnegie Hall in a few weeks. "Great", I said, "Have a nice gig". "Yeah, man" (said he), "we're doing your sax tune". I was actually toying with the idea of visiting friends in NYC about that time anyway and now it was a no-brainer). It was a very "cool" if somewhat surreal experience that I wish every composer (at least every pretty good composer on up) could have. I'm quite aware that I've had more breaks/performances than a lot of my colleagues have had (though not nearly as many as others have had). Sometimes I feel somewhat guilty about the former and perhaps a bit annoyed about the latter.
     I'm afraid every area of our profession/art/business/racket is as jacked up by the basic sin problem or the fall as anything else. There are something like 70,000 composers currently running around (Not counting all those who aren't around anymore) and we're all competing with Bach, Beethoven and Mozart (not to mention each other) to get out little tunes played. That's a pretty weird situation if you think about it. (It's also a bit tricky to come up with anything really new as all 70,000+ of us are divvying up the same 12 notes (and sometimes, little micro-bits of those 12 notes. I've known and seen cases where two people who never met or knew of each other wrote almost note for note the same little tune). Weird things can happen like getting something played by a major orchestra, getting a nice response by the conductor, players and audience but getting totally trashed in a review. (That's really galling when it's the same newspaper you delivered as a 12 y/o paperboy! But then, if Beethoven and Brahams got lousy reviews, why should us little guys get spared. Maybe the morale is to not take reviews too seriously.. The bad ones or, perhaps more importantly, the good ones. But at the end of the day, there is that famous bit from Ecclesiates about "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity". Hmmmm).

BIO

Born 1952 in Pittsburgh to musician parents. Father (Wayne) was percussionist w/the Pittsburgh Symphony for about 30 years (Reiner and Steinburg eras) and original drummer w/the Ice Capades. (Shortly after the invention of ice). Mother (Wanda) is still teaching piano lessons at age 92. Fairly brief, sporadic periods of composition study included about a year with Henry Mazer (associate conductor of PSO at the time), Frank McCarty (University of Pittsburgh, for a year before essentially getting drafted) and Karel Husa (at Eastern Music Festival in 1972 and every once in a while since then). Anything else was learned more or less OJT, from colleagues, from countless PSO rehearsals/concerts looking over scores, etc....Not so much at schools. (I still don't have a college degree. I remember writing and trying to orchestrate some goofy waltz while in 2nd grade but don't know if I did the transpositions for the instruments correctly. OK, I was a nerd). Had a piece played by the PSO while a HS sophomore, which was of course a great 'though pretty scary way to break into the writing business. Have written for/had things (originals or arrangements) played by several professional orchestras (Detroit, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, etc.), several of the major service bands in the US, UK, Russia and Japan, some college/university groups, etc. Also some chamber things (Anne Martindale Williams, Marietta Simpson, Jose-Luis Garcia, etc.). Seven pieces (mostly premieres) at several International Trumpet Guild conferences (including performances by BBC Big Band, Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra as well as some great trumpet players.). Also some Christian groups like the All Souls Orchestra, New English Orchestra, Crescendo, etc. Also co-direct the Annapolis Christian Big Band and freelance in the Baltimore/DC area on piano, trumpet, some percussion and bass, as well as church work (not to mention those wedding and Bar Mitzvah gigs. (Yep, a lot of time in d-minor wearing a yarmulke). A lot of my output are hymn tune based pieces, Easter Prelude being a pretty good example. It's quite possible that if I've actually managed to crank out anything of any real importance, it would be these. (Models for these would include the RVW Tallis Fantasia, Schumann "New England Triptych", even the Husa "Music for Prague", aside from the obvious Mendelssohn "Reformation" symphony).

- - -  SOLI DEO GLORIA!  - - -

For comments, e-mail Greg directly at: Skootchman@aol.com
Visit Greg's webpage at: http://www.usna.edu/USNABand/biographies/PascuzziBio.htm

If you are a member composer interested in submitting a composition for an upcoming monthly CFAMC listening page, please contact Bill Vollinger at: WilliamVollinger@aol.com

For recent CFAMC Listening Pages, go to the following links:

October 2007: Jacob Nevill
"Mary's Gift"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cfamc/message/1720

September 2007: Jesse Ayers
"Jericho"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cfamc/message/1708

August 2007: Carol R. Daggs
"Loveable"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cfamc/message/1704

July 2007: Mark Hijleh
"O Ignis Spiritus"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cfamc/message/1693