Joyful news! I received notice that I was named one of the this year's DCASE Grant Winners for the City of Chicago. I proposed the idea to them that I compose a piece of music with the working tile of MISSISSIPPI RIVER SUITE. In brief this would be a 7-movement composition that uses the rich history, geography, rhythm, and rhyme of the 'river that divides the nation as a foundation for a new work about a divided nation.'
The dreamscape instrumentation will vary across the movements but will include voices, found sound, banjo, guitar, strings, percussion, woodwinds, sitar, harmonica, accordion and many of my musical comrades in Chicago. There will be spoken word as well as song form and melody. All this is in the the research phase at the moment with more to share as I have it.
In the meantime, just last Friday, I received this beautiful note from Mayor Rahm Emmanuel. He made my day and makes me oh so glad to live here in Chicago, in the city of where I was born, and where my world spins round and round.
Much more to come.