It has been quite a while since I’ve written everyone. I can’t say I have mostly good news, but I hope you’ll read thru this entire email summarizing major news affecting CutTime Productions’ ensembles, compositions, symphonic transcriptions, casual classical series, and me personally.

I last wrote optimistically at New Year’s about the slow return of live music gigs for CutTime Simfonica®. The quintet has played two of these already, at Novi’s (MI) Public Library and Brooklyn’s (NY) Moto Spirits for GroupMuse. I was completely mum about these remote events because of looming threats I’ve experienced since 2020. More on this later.

Meanwhile, I’ve seen some growing demand as a symphonic composer, with my orchestrations of Pork ‘n Bean and Gitcha Groove On! being performed recently by the National Repertory Orchestra and the Stamford (CT) Symphony Orchestra. And last month the Canton (OH) Symphony Orchestra performed my debut orchestral composition of 2003, the Essay No. 1 (After Sibelius). Here’s a professional review. New symphonic works, Essay No. 2 (Never Forget) and the Chaconne: For Interesting Times, are ready to be premiered.

In May I was excited to privately test out seven of my eight new pandemic works, which range from sobering and catastrophic to uplifting and romantic. My most generous patrons this past decade, Barbara Van Dusen and James B. and Ann Nicholson, supported this private, “rehearsed reading” with the string sextet. This was a necessary step for a large public premiere, possibly in the fall, possibly in Detroit, and possibly with a string orchestra. Here’s an example from that night, the Funeral March for Ennio Morricone. Now that I know what to fix, and how to rehearse and introduce them without depressing everyone, the full-length program is called “Music For Interesting Times”. It will include video projections, mainly stills and new film by Kresge Fellow Brandon Walley, plus a few earlier ecclesiastic works, such as the beautiful Idyll for English horn and strings.

The growing focus on my composing career is essential as growing physical challenges are leading me to lay down (sell really) my 200-year-old English bass. How can that be good news? Well it means it’s time to recruit fresher talents to play my ambitious CutTime® bass parts. I think I abused my left arm and hand, and it’ll soon become too painful for me during and after full concerts. I was able to play recently in Carnegie Hall as principal of the Gateways Festival Orchestra for the last time. I’m still subbing into Detroit Symphony as they still need. (They do pay some bills!) But there is a time for everything, including retirement from performing. You will begin to see me conducting, coaching or simply hosting CutTime concerts going forward.

On that point, CutTime Productions is looking for a new home, new friends, and natural successors. To wit, I have started by moving first to Pittsburgh, PA! This wasn’t possible until my house sold just before the pandemic began, which itself delayed any move. Pittsburgh is another vibrant city only 5 hours from Detroit and within easy reach of East Coast cities and back to the Midwest. I’m closer now to many more music school, orchestral and freelance musicians, from which to recruit and to whom to demonstrate the possibilities. Meanwhile, I will wear my publishing and composer hats more firmly as I work to generate bookings and interest for innovative CutTime concerts, publications and ideas. And this is where YOU might help.

If you have ever recognized CutTime as a progenitor for a “new classical” that works for a wider public and restores melody to new music, then we/I need you to brag about it to administrators you know outside Detroit. Yes, I’ve made plenty of regrettable mistakes along the way. But what I’ve been building is nonetheless a unique public good, with the max potential of opening as much as a THIRD of Americans to Schubert and Tchaikovsky, simply because they see what is fun about wordless music, hear my hybrid music, or hear a musician introduce key concepts like phrasing, silent beats, and high technical standards. This is not a “dumbing down” but a “smartening up” of classical music. Help us “edu-tain” as CutTime has done since 1995 by recommending us to concert presenters everywhere, so we can work with their local musicians.

I have recently suspended the Classical Revolution Detroit chapter, which hasn’t had any funding for events since last year. It was a critical platform for experimentation to indigenize and adapt for a wider public.

And perhaps more importantly, I must admit to having less energy to make merry with classical music, even though I did just that in Brooklyn last month. I’m almost 60, and deeply saddened by the increased suffering and threats in the world, such as the pandemic, extreme weather, wildfires, mass shootings, fascism, and now the Russian war.

Plus personally, I’ve had to dodge repeated kidnapping attempts (No, I’m not kidding) on my regular bike rides and after dining out. No, I don’t know who or why. But it is reasonable to assume that some in the music industry, and some I've worked with before, don’t like iconoclasts threatening their status quo. More dramatic elegies may have come to me as a result, and I’ve arranged all seven and the previous two into a collection I call New American Elegies.

Considering these challenges, I may focus on orchestrating the remainder of my chamber works, finishing the Let The Children Play series with Parts 3 & 4, and lighting the torch individually for new classical ideas.

These are lots of changes that may take a decade to play out, if I’m lucky. This newsletter may be remain at twice a year. Regrets, I have aplenty; including some rumors and accidental naughty videos circulated by my frenemies. Not my least regret, however, is that CutTime has so few recordings, except the dozens of LIVE, flawed recordings at SoundCloud. And yet really good recordings cost many tens of thousands of dollars to make. Not for lack of trying, I grew quickly dubious about Grammy nominations and awards, which seem like popularity contests; wrong reasons for an introvert and non-conformist like me. I even grew dubious about exaggerating or lying about my work. And yet that seems to be the media of “salesmanship.”

On top of that, one has to also make quality videos and websites to compete, doubling your costs. It’s chasing your tail to keep up; even pay-to-play. Arranging and composing great music to shape personally, playing in a high-level, legacy orchestra like Detroit Symphony, and hiring hundreds of musicians have been rewarding enough. If I spent the last decade exercising artistic independence, imagination, and “entrepreneurship,” then the next will be wrapping it all up into a satisfying close.

Thank you all for sharing this exciting TRIP with me! With much luck, the future will go further using most of it, without all my baggage.