Ken

You must be an organist of the 'higher degree'. Yes?

Glad you appreciate the craft of counterpoint!

Ken

Where do you live? Where do you work? Do you have a good instrument there? What is the scope of your music program?

I started with Finale when it first came out. Then in about 1998 I met Robin Hodson who moved here from England who became my good friend and colleague. He was number three in the Sibelius Corporation and as you would expect, quite "chummy" with the Finns as he would say. Well, that was the finale of Finale for me. Robin got me to be a Sibelius Rep (they called them Ambassadors at that time) doing workshops here and there. So, I am still using sib 3 as my Mac is just as old. (6 years perhaps) It has Kontact samples (German product). The organ is lacking as it only has full organ. So to demonstrate more intimate comps I sometimes use the Harpsichord. I never did learn to play this particular piece. So you are one of the first to hear it even though it's got some years behind it. Perhaps because it is one of my academic pieces and I find it lacking. (too fragmented, don't you think?) I grant you, it does have some interesting harmonics and melodic structures, but I will always see this piece as one of my pedagogical efforts toward learning good counterpoint.

Thanks, Noel.

I guess it might be good to get all those "old" pieces out and into the public just to have some modern counterpoint out there, even if they might be sub par in my own mind. (My wife always tells me the same thing about being too much of a perfectionist.) Think after 25 years I might get the 'hint'. lol.

Francis - I live in Fresno, CA and teach privately in my home (violin, viola, cello, voice both adult and adolescent and piano). I don't have a church music position currently. I was the full time music director for a year at a Catholic Church and its school in northern CA but the founding pastor / scholar there that hired me, was unjustly crucified in a scandal by some teachers he had to fire. So, they in turn launched a campaigned against him that gave the bishop no option but to ask him to retire early. Consequently, the new pastor that came in wanted only a contemporary geetar-drum folk hippy Mass music. After only two week on board (and mind you he didn't even know me), I was sacked. The dioceses of Fresno and Sacramento leave a lot to be desired when it comes to sacred music in their churches, unfortunately.

Before this nightmare, I was the Music Director of an Anglican Use parish and its school in Texas. I had 9 choirs (1 adult, 1 men's schola, 3 very large children's choir of 93+ choristers in each that sand at an English cathedral concert level, and 4 large choirs of children in the lower school (K-2). I had no assistant or associate and worked about 55 to 60 hours per week. The music program was the equal of any major Anglican cathedral in England.

I am praying and hoping that someday soon, I will be granted a position with an orthodox traditional Catholic or Anglo-Catholic church. Ideally, I would love to just have a men's schola and a boys choir.

I thought I heard Sebelius in your composition! I am most familiar with Finale but I have used, in a beginning way, Sebelius. I think the music playback sounds of Sebelius are more realistic. It is a shame that the organ sound in both Finale and Sebelius is only full organ!

I agree totally with Noel and Jackson Osborn about this piece! I would also say, that this piece would be a real tour-de-force to play well. It remains me of the Bach Trio Sonatas. I love it. I have written about 100 compositions but most I wouldn't want anyone to heard and the few little hymns I have written, I wrote extremely quickly off the top of my head and so, don't show much effort or work, I am ashamed to say.