Accelerando!

This week's activity included sending a 2,000-word memorandum to the SDG board, updating directors on the organization’s program activity . . . yes, 2,000 words. We’ve got a lot on our plate these days. We stay pretty busy around here in general, but 2010/11 will be the busiest season SDG has had in its 17-year history. In the next eleven months, we anticipate more premieres of pieces we’ve commissioned or sponsored than we’ve had in the last six years combined.

Among this season’s highlights, new Psalm settings will issue from composer Sven-David Sandström and from SDG’s own Composer-in-Association, Peter Bannister. Composer James MacMillan will contribute to our choral output as well with a new work based on a passage from the Book of Revelations. But before any of that comes to pass (no pun intended), Peter Bannister’s vocal/orchestral song cycle Hermosura de Dios (“The Beauty of God”) will premiere in Hungary this summer at the Crescendo Summer Institute, followed by Arvo Pärt’s new work/arrangement In Spe (“In Hope”) at the Vale of Glamorgan Festival in Wales—part of the festival’s celebration of Pärt’s 75th birthday. In early November, the Indianapolis Children’s Choir will premiere Neal Harnly’s 35-minute, multi-movement work, The Lost Son, based on Christ’s parable of the Prodigal Son, and a few weeks later Daniel Kellogg will be the first composer to have two different SDG-commissioned works premiere on the same day in two different locations—one in Wheaton, Illinois, and another in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Before and between all these activities, a long list of other projects and events is sprinkled on our calendar, including several house concerts, the completion and launch of our new website, two regional concerts showcasing Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, our fall board meeting and participation in ACDA’s National Convention in Chicago next March. Hopefully we’ll somehow manage to stay on top of the regular joys of project management (2011/12 and beyond), communication and finances.

I know what you’re thinking: “He left out all the details!” Well, those will all be published in due course, and friends on our email list and those following us on Facebook will be among the first to know and hear the music. (Hint, hint, maybe you should sign up!)

As anyone would probably guess, it takes quite a team of people to dream up and pursue this much organizational activity—and I’m grateful for everyone involved. But I’m taking opportunity here to express my thanks to one person in particular who has long been a driving force for SDG. Richard Gieser’s leadership as Chairman continues to be marked by tireless, creative energy and spiritual devotion to our cause. Dick, we all owe you thanks, not only for the progress made on many of these projects, but for the very ideas that sparked their existence. Three cheers for all you’re doing on behalf of SDG!