Nicholas Pavkovic

Sredni Vashtar and Friends

2011-11-02T04:25:00.000-07:00

I can’t thank my thirty-odd musicians enough for making this concert the wonderful event that it was. Special kudos for some of the last-minute magic: violinist Noemy Gagnon-Lafrenais was sight-reading her part, having stepped in for an ailing colleague; Brian Poedy provided us with truly spectacular lighting design that we had never found time to rehearse in the hall.

We’ve received a very complimentary write-up in the Civic Center Blog.

“Sredni Vashtar and Friends” concert at the SF Conservatory on October 30, 2011

2011-10-14T03:46:00.000-07:00

october-30-2011-sredni-vashtar-and

SF Conservatory Orchestra premieres Angelus Novus on October 29, 2011

2011-10-14T03:45:00.000-07:00

Angelus Novus Premiere

Sredni Vashtar and Friends: October 30, 2011

2011-09-21T04:48:00.000-07:00

Rehearsals started this week for the second production of Sredni Vashtar, coming to the San Francisco Conservatory’s Concert Hall on October 30 at 8 pm. In addition to the opera, we'll be hearing the premiere of the woodwind quintet version of Figments, and are very fortunate to have SF Symphony principals Jonathan Vinocour and Robin Sutherland joining us for the premiere of the Rhapsody for Viola and Piano. The concert starts with Contraption No. 1 for the Marantz Vorsetzer, and Keisuke Nakagoshi will once again be the pianist in the concluding work, Concertino for Piano and Percussion.

There's more information at srednivashtar.com (pictured above), including musician bios and the full text of Saki’s short story, “Sredni Vashtar.” A number of talented photographers have visited us during rehearsals; you can see the Vashtar Orchestra in several photo albums on Facebook: www.facebook.com/srednivashtaropera.

Do join us on October 30th for some fantastic performances!

SFCM Graduate Recital: August 27, 2011

2011-08-30T17:37:00.000-07:00

I’d had grand plans for a production of Sredni at my summer recital, and when this couldn't come to pass — most of the orchestra musicians were busy with festivals — I unfortunately didn’t invest much energy in promoting the scaled-down event that took place on August 27 in the Conservatory’s Recital Hall. Unfortunate because this wasn’t just (as I’d imagined) a sort of run-through for upcoming October recital, but an intimate sort of event that radiated with the good will of both the performers and the audience. After the somewhat spooky debut of the Vorsetzer piece, Contraption No. 1 (which launched without warning on a darkened stage), Justin Houchin gave a passionate rendition of the Guitar Suite, a work which he developed with me as part of the SFCM Guitar Project. Then there was a vocal-piano version of Sredni Vashtar, with Sara Couden singing the role for the first time. Kevin Korth was at the piano, and while I’d had but one coaching session with the pair, they clearly picked up on every humorous or rhetorical flourish in the score and brought the piece to life through a dramatic engagement with the material and an exquisite sense of timing.

The concert ended with the Concerto for Piano and Percussion; SFCM-alumnus Keisuke Nakagoshi was the soloist. Recalling some of Keisuke’s Facebook posts regarding his love for Bill Evans' playing, I knew he’d be well-suited for this work, which blends a modern jazz vocabulary with a kind of parody of early 20th century modernist styles. Keisuke pulled through with flying colors — he owned the music and added much to it in his performance, including a lengthy improvised cadenza. The SFCM percussion ensemble, which premiered this work in December 2010, brought it back with renewed force and accuracy.

Once again, I’d like to thank all the musicians who participated as well as the warmly-encouraging audience.

Graduate Recital at the SF Conservatory on August 27, 2011

2011-08-11T03:12:00.000-07:00

The Mighty Marantz Vorsetzer

2011-07-23T02:30:00.000-07:00

The vaguely predatory device on the left in the photo above is a Marantz Pianocorder Vorsetzer. The Vorsetzer (German, literally, “sits in front of”) has existed in one form or another since the end of the 19th century; it’s a device that can play a piano. The technologies employed are similar to those used in player pianos; the difference is that the playing mechanism is in an external unit with mechanical “fingers.” Thus the Vorsetzer will play any piano it can be rolled up to.

It just happens that I’m in possession of one of these; it was purchased by my parents in the 1980s, and has been dormant for at least two decades. I’ve had it shipped to me in San Francisco, and with the help of the SFCM Electronic Music Department — in particular Will Clark — it’s been reanimated.The purpose of this adventure, as the reader may have surmised, is to write music for the beast.

The music part is easy. Getting the Vorsetzer to play a piece is a little more challenging. It is a (early) digital device, so it doesn’t use a traditional piano roll but rather stores its musical data on cassette tapes. Fortunately, I don’t have to encode my music onto a cassette in an arcane 1970s digital data format; an enterprising engineer named Mark Fontana has written conversion software that allows one to feed the Vorsetzer MIDI data. So I'm now at work on a piece — written in a MIDI sequencer – that will be realized by the Vorsetzer at my Graduate Recital in August. While titles don’t usually come to me until after a work is written, the nature of this endeavor suggests that Contraption would sum things up nicely.

Angelus Novus wins San Francisco Conservatory Highsmith Award

2011-03-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

Angelus Novus SFCM

San Francisco Conservatory Highsmith Award

2011-03-20T16:14:00.000-07:00

I’ve won the San Francisco Conservatory’s Highsmith Award for orchestral music by unanimous decision of the three independent judges. My entry was entitled Angleus Novus and it was inspired by a text by Walter Benjamin in which Benjamin is responding to a painting by Paul Klee:

There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. It shows an angel who seems about to move away from something he stares at. His eyes are wide, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how the angel of history must look. His face is turned toward the past. Where a chain of events appears before us, he sees one single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it at his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise and has got caught in his wings; it is so strong that the angel can no longer close them. This storm drives him irresistibly into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows toward the sky. What we call progress is this storm. (Translation: Harry Zohn)

The work will receive a reading in May; Andrew Mogrelia will conduct. The public debut will take place on October 29, 2011.

Petite Variations Mecanique

2010-06-19T16:33:00.000-07:00

As a sort of experiment, I'm releasing some music on Facebook. It seemed to me that Facebook has very little content, and that someone should be posting actual creative work. So here are six variations, written using 20th century composition techniques, wrapped in a book-like interface.

Click below to check it out — you don't have to be a member of Facebook. Or visit http://www.variationsmecanique.com.

Sredni Vashtar premieres

2010-04-23T23:23:00.000-07:00

My one-act opera, Sredni Vashtar, premiered April 4, 2010 at the San Francisco Conservatory as part of the Hot Air Festival. It’s a 25-minute chamber opera with single singing role, taken in this performance by the dazzling mezzo-soprano Roxanna Walitzski. Wolfgang Thompson was the stage director. We received favorable mention in the festival’s review at SFExaminer.com which noted that:

the overall conception was definitely a high point of the afternoon...this is a composition that deserves further attention and performances

Sredni’s orchestra, which was conducted by Ross Ipsen, is a “one of everything” ensemble (string quintet, single winds, single brass), three percussionists and a keyboard player who triples on harpsichord, celesta and reed organ.

More information about the production can be found at:

www.srednivashtar.com/2010/
www.srednivashtar.com/facebook/

Sredni Vashtar to premiere at Hot Air Festival, April 4, 2010

2010-03-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

Score for The Season wins in Park City

2009-07-19T21:50:00.000-07:00

This year I got to the Park City well after the opening of the Sundance festival and consequently missed the run of the Park City Film Music Festival. But The Season played in the latter festival, and it was a pleasant surprise to learn last week that its score picked up a Gold Medal/Audience Choice award.

Score for The Season wins audience choice award at the Park City Film Music Festival

2009-07-19T18:41:00.000-07:00

Sundance Composers Lab in Gramophone magazine

2008-12-22T01:38:00.001-08:00

Vivien Schweitzer interviewed the Composer Fellows during the Lab; her story appears in the December 2008 issue of Gramophone.

Music on the Mountain

2008-10-07T13:20:00.000-07:00

I’ve written a little about my experience at the Sundance Labs for the Sundance Institute Newsletter. Read it here.

Sundance Composers Lab

2008-08-11T00:21:00.000-07:00

I’ve just returned from 18 days at the Sundance Institute's Composers Lab. It was an intense and transformative experience — all I can offer here is the briefest synopsis.

The Composer Fellows, six in all, were encamped at the Sundance Resort, about an hour outside of Salt Lake City. We were each given a trailer with a Mac, a keyboard & loads of samples — and were soon at work scoring cues. The first week was devoted to "warm-ups": we wrote music for three scenes from previously-released films and got feedback from the composers who'd originally scored them — including Carter Burwell (Fargo), Alex Wurman (March of the Penguins) and the Lab's director, Peter Golub (The Great Debaters). Composer George S. Clinton (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee) also coached us, and we worked with two exceptional visiting musicians, Maya Beiser (cello) and Steven Schick (percussion). During the second week, we were paired with directors from the Sundance Directors Lab. I worked with Frank Budgen, an experienced advertising director who had filmed scenes from his screen adaptation of Shockheaded Peter, the popular cabaret-style musical originally created by The Tiger Lillies. Penka Kouneva and Tyler Bates (300, Devil's Rejects) — both alumni of the Lab — were with us that week. During the third week, we collaborated with documentary filmmakers. Our mentors included composer Miriam Cutler (Lost in La Mancha, Thin), filmmakers Francis Reid (The Times of Harvey Milk) and James Longley (Iraq in Fragments) as well as the Documentary Lab's director, Cara Mertes. I had the privilege of working with director Christopher Wong and editor Zebediah Smith on scenes from their film Whatever It Takes [website] an inspiring documentary about the first year of the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics. Composer Chris Young (Spider-Man 3) visited while we were at work on the doc films; he met with each of us one-on-one, critiquing cues and offering invaluable career advice.

No space to go into the great discussions we had with a number of other visitors, including music editor Adam Smalley, agent Robert Messinger, music supervisor Tracy McKnight and Doug Frank, president of music operations at Warner Pictures.

My fellow composers provided a most remarkable backdrop for all of these activities. We came from different backgrounds and had a fantastic time sharing cues, ideas, even instruments. I'm looking forward to future collaborations with them: Matt Cartsonis, Todd Griffin, iZLER, J J Lee and Vivek Maddala.

Concertino for Piano and Percussion

2008-06-26T05:48:00.000-07:00

During the spring — and mostly on trips to San Francisco — I worked on a piece for piano and percussion. Somewhat Stravinskyian, with a jazz-influenced middle section. It was an entry for the annual Percussive Arts Society Percussion Composition Contest (www.pas.org), and I’ve just received word that it took first prize in the category “Soloist with Percussion Ensemble.” Of course, you never really finish a piece until someone threatens to play it. And since that appears to be an imminent possibility, the score is out on the table and it's starting to get covered with red ink...

Sundance Bound

2008-06-10T05:39:00.000-07:00

I'm delighted and honored to have been selected to participate in the Sundance Film Composers Lab in July and early August. I'll be working with one of the emerging filmmakers from the Institute's Feature Film or Documentary Film Programs, and getting coaching from some of the industry's finest composers. More information about the program is available at sundance.org: Select Film Music from the Explore Programs menu.

Score for The Season

2008-06-06T01:18:00.000-07:00

I’ve finished...or mostly finished...the score for Adam Brook’s horror feature, The Season, which will likely have its festival premiere in the Fall. There’s a mix of the opening credits in the website’s playlist. Further info about the film at www.theseasonthemovie.com.

Capetown Performance

2008-01-13T03:21:00.000-08:00

Clarinetist Bryan Crumpler will be performing Witch Variation No. 1 with pianist François du Toit at the University of Capetown on May 24 at 8 pm. Further information from the Baxter Theatre Centre. You'll find a recording of the music in the Chamber playlist, under the player at the right.

Update from Bryan Crumpler, 5/29/2008: “Just wanted to report that Witch Var. No. 1 was well received on the tour in South Africa. Excluding the concertos and masterclasses etc, there were a total of 7 recitals and anywhere from 200-500 people per house, so... you've been heard all over South Africa now (more specifically: Cape Town, Franschoek, Durban, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Potchefstroom and Hilton).”

“Twilight of the Books” by Caleb Crain

2008-01-01T12:41:00.000-08:00

This excellent article on the decline of literacy appeared in the December 24, 2007 issue of The New Yorker. There is an interesting look at the neurological differences between decoding words and reading fluently; I’m sure that similar mechanisms apply to music. (This is, alas, not explored in Oliver Sacks’ recent Musicophilia, though it may be taken up in one of the growing number of books about music written by neurologists.) Crain also cites a studies whose results may be interesting for those of you who use Powerpoint presentations:

In a study published this year, experimenters varied the way that people took in a PowerPoint presentation about the country of Mali. Those who were allowed to read silently were more likely to agree with the statement “The presentation was interesting,” and those who read along with an audiovisual commentary were more likely to agree with the statement “I did not learn anything from this presentation.” The silent readers remembered more, too, a finding in line with a series of British studies in which people who read transcripts of television newscasts, political programs, advertisements, and science shows recalled more information than those who had watched the shows themselves.

You’ll find the complete text here.

Two New Films: Gameface & June Cabin

2007-07-13T02:38:00.001-07:00

Two of my tracks have been placed in the independent films Gameface (IMDB, MySpace) and June Cabin (IMDB). Gameface enjoyed a successful premiere last week at the Dances with Film festival in Los Angeles. June Cabin is being released on video by Polychrome Pictures on October 16; its Los Angeles premiere will take place at the Vine Theater on July 23.

Thanks

2007-06-14T19:30:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all who made it out for my appearance with the PCC orchestra — it was great to have so many friends in the audience.

Concert at Pasadena City College: Saturday, June 9, 8 p.m.

2007-06-05T22:52:00.001-07:00

I'll be playing Prokofiev's 1st piano concerto with the PCC orchestra this Saturday at 8 p.m. in Sexson Auditorium. The first half of the program includes choral works of Bach and Sibelius' Finlandia; I'll play before the intermission break. The second half of the concert is devoted to the Duruflé Requiem.

Pasadena City College Campus Map

Sexson Auditorium is the the C building, facing the mirror pools on Colorado Boulevard. Concert admission is $5/$3; parking is $2.

On The Rocks to Screen at L.A. Asian Pacific Film Festival

2007-04-28T00:23:00.000-07:00

Sun Tae Hwang’s On The Rocks will open a program of dramatic shorts at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film festival. This short film stars Alexis Rhee (Crash) and James Kyson (Heroes). The screenings begin at 7:30 on Sunday, May 6, at the Laemmle Sunset 5 (Sunset and Crescent Heights). More information — and tickets — available here:

www.vconline.org/festival/program.cfm?program_id=40

You’ll find one of the extended cues from On The Rocks in the playlist to the left.

Concerto Competition

2007-03-07T11:11:00.000-08:00

Over the past couple of months, I’ve taken time off from film scoring and sequestered myself in a piano practice room at Pasadena City College with a Prokofiev score. I’m happy to report that the hard work has paid off: On Friday, I won the Pasadena City College concerto competition. I’ll be playing Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the college orchestra in June — details to come.

Frank Gehry & MTT

2007-02-18T01:55:00.000-08:00

Did we know that Frank Gehry was Michael Tilson Thomas' babysitter when he was a kid? This — and many interesting facts about the New World Symphony — in a New York Times story. Click here.

Cello Rhapsody Premieres at USC on February 14

2007-01-21T21:52:00.000-08:00

Please come to the premiere of my Rhapsody for Violoncello and Piano at USC on February 14th. This work was commissioned by Lynne Taciak and Karen Smith for LA Phil cellist extraordinaire, Daniel Rothmuller (shown above), who will be playing the work with the equally exceptional Bernadene Blaha at the piano. The recital includes the two Brahms Sonatas, and takes place at USC’s Alfred Newman Hall, starting at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free. (Parking in a USC lot, however, will set you back $7.) More information here.

Awards at the Park City Film Music Festival

2007-01-21T16:11:00.000-08:00

At the recent Park City Film Music Festival, three of my films picked up Silver Medals for their scores, and one received an honorable mention. I also received the Silver Medal for Outstanding Achievement. The films are:

“On The Rocks” - directed by Sun Tae Hwang Website IMDB (Silver)
“Handle With Care” - directed by Andre LeBlanc (Silver)
“I Love You Mommy” - directed by Tomás Fernández-Calvo View at OnTheLot.com (Silver)
"Night Caller" - directed by the Brothers Cran (Honorable Mention)