Actually always, but I feel like YouTube has exploded with rare gems of late, so I wanted to share some of my discoveries:

Levo Kolodub, Symphony No. 9 ‘Sensilis moderno’ (2004)

There is very little info available in English on Mr. Kolodub, but there is a Ukrainian Wikipedia page, so knock yourself out! My Ukrainian is pretty rusty, but it looks like his mother was also a composer. He completed his studies at the Kharkiv National Conservatory in 1954 and I guess he’s just been writing music ever since? Several operas, 12 symphonies, and a whole mess of concerti and chamber pieces.

Judging from this piece, I’d say his music has reminiscences of Shostakovich, Schnittke, Shchedrin, and maybe even a little Lenny/John Williams thing going on. I rate it Dope AF!!

Anton Lubchenko, Symphony No. 5 ‘Nine Variations’

Here’s an unexpected turn of events: this composer shares his name with a Simpsons character. (Well, Season 11, so really a Zombie Simpsons character.) There’s much more info on him than on Kolodub, largely because he’s also a conductor and he’s been championed by Gergiev to a certain degree.

I’d also put this composer in the post-Schnittke/Shchedrin category. I’m telling you, the former Soviet Union is the only place that classical music is still being written, and has been for say the past 40 years. I hate how Trumpian that sounds, but it’s true. With very few exceptions, the West has given up on classical music entirely and now all we have is Zombie Classical Music.

Einojuhani Rautavaara, Piano Concerto No. 1

Crazily enough, this is the most mainstream piece (or at least composer) on this list, but my wish is that this concerto will become full-on standard rep in the near futuer. It is SUUUPER Ravelian, but like in a reverent and expansive way.

OK, that’s barely scratching the surface of my recent explorations (also fueled by the r/classicalmusic subreddit), but I’ll leave it there for now. Earlier this summer I got all worked up by a clip of Daniil Trifonov’s piano concerto but when I listened to the whole thing I found the orchestration too naïve to get into. (Burn!!)

It’s my birthday! Here’s your present:

My goal was to get this piece up to 1,000 views by my birthday this year, and it’s happened! And you know what pushed it over the top? Reddit. I probably don’t want to know what it says about me or my content, but whenever I post something there, it always gets a lot of traction.

While we’re on the subject, here’s a few of my other videos that have gotten over a thousand views:

1. This bit of sweetness

2. This bit of holiness

3. This piece of filth (honestly, why are so many people watching this??)

4. and OF COURSE the video that has gotten the most views in the shortest time possible:

Is it pathetic that I’m celebrating what, by YouTube standards, are pretty low numbers? Probably. But I’m really proud of the symphony getting so many views/listens. I mean, it’s 37-minutes long, purely instrumental, and written just last year. I’m not sure how many other new symphonies are out there on YouTube, but I’m really happy that so many people have given it a shot. Do I really think everyone out there has listened through the whole thing? Sure, but I’m delusional.

If you’re one of the 1000 people who have listened to it already, why not listen again? I bet you’ll find more in it this time. And if you haven’t listened to it, why not give it a try? I promise there’s something in it that you’ll enjoy. And even if there isn’t, I still rack up the views! Maybe I’ll even get to 10,000 this time next year…

If you’re me, here’s the best remedy for a travel-heavy, smog-ridden trip to the Orient: spend a week on the coast of Maine.

The Pierre Monteux School is very much my spiritual home and I couldn’t have asked for a better week as Composer-in-Residence. I narrated “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” to a packed house of little kids and later in the week I conducted the premiere of my newest work, “Acadia Fanfare” (give it a listen above!), and the orchestra sounded marvelous and the weather was beautiful and I got to see all my old friends and make new ones and just live life the way it ought to be lived.

Then there’s the fact that I got to stay at my friend Roberta’s house on Flander’s Bay, but I beg you not to go telling anyone that it’s the greatest place on earth. The outdoor hot tub, the Steinway B, the view from the breakfast nook – are those things great? Sure. But the best part is Roberta, who is old school all the way, raised on a hard-scrabble potato farm in central Maine during the Depression, and who grinds her own whole wheat flour and bakes her own bread and raises her own berries and makes her own jam and feeds them to me for breakfast every. single. day.

She needlepoints like a champ and raises award-winning gardens. At 4:00, she watches Dr. Phil. At 5:00, she plays bridge (online). At 6:00, it’s the news, and at 7:00, we convene for Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!

And this is where things get really special between Robert and me, because if you’re a trivia person, Jeopardy! is not an entertainment, it’s a performance, a weird kind of suggestive karaoke, and watching Jeopardy! actually requires an additional audience for the viewing experience to be complete.

And oh my god is Roberta the best audience in the world! She’s legitimately impressed by every answer I get correct and she tells me that I need to Go On This Program! and every time she says it she makes it sound like she legitimately just had this notion for the first time and she really means it.

Good food and gorgeous views are one thing, but a 30-minute flow of emotional validation is another thing altogether. Hope you guys like the new piece.