I was interviewed by LeAnn Martin of Chrisitians in the Arts about the Wedding Mass yesterday. There will be a part II on Thursday about New Places, Bulgaria, my opera, and thoughts on faith and art. Please check out interview and be sure to leave comments!

Dear Friends,

Just wanted to pass along some great news! I received an invitation to conduct at Carnegie Hall on June 14. We are going to be premiering the full-orchestra version of my Wedding Mass! I'm very excited about this opportunity. Please send me a message if you are interested in being a part of this concert. More details to come!

Tim

Rehearsals have started for my opera His Terrible Swift Sword. Tomorrow we go into final blocking and staging. Monday is the dress rehearsal, and Thursday, April 26th is the premiere.
This has certainly been a journey. I never saw myself as an opera composer, but after the last year of living with this drama, I think that I have a flair for it.
Things I've learned:
1) I'm not all that interested in composing my own libretto again.
2) I think next time I'll spend more energy on the recitatives.
3) I think in full orchestral sounds. The music off Swift Sword overwhelms the piano trio.

That being said, I think it is successful. I would have preferred to have it finished much earlier, but life intruded.

Dear Friends,

Just wanted to let you know about some good news from my campaign to get my song "New Places" on the Hobbit movies soundtrack.

My song "New Places" has received a great deal of attention in the last year, since rumors of the possibility of the Hobbit being made into a feature length film (or maybe even two!) began to circulate on the web. I'm grateful to the following two online Tolkien fan-sites for their support of my campaign:

www.derhobbit-film.de
www.tolkien-movies.com

I've already had a great deal of traffic from visitors to these sites, which are two of the top sites on the web for news about the movie, the ongoing drama between Peter Jackson and New Line Cinemas, and the huge online community of Tolkien fans. Please take a moment to visit their sites and leave some feedback thanking them for their support.

But more importantly, be sure to come back to my page regularly. Every visit and every play of one of my tunes helps the ongoing buzz. If I get my song on the movie soundtrack, it will be because of the support of all of you, my friends, family, and fans!

All the best,
Tim

Help me get my song on The Hobbit Movie
Word on the street is that New Line and MGM are teaming up to produce a 2-movie version of Tolkien's The Hobbit. There is a good chance that Peter Jackson will direct the movie

Many of you have heard or downloaded my song New Places, which was inspired by poetry from The Hobbit

I conceived this song as a tribute to Tolkien in the style of Cold Play meets Nora Jones meets Sting with a lush string orchestra that I felt sounded like the LOTR soundtrack. I think this song would be perfect as an addition to The Hobbit soundtrack, but I need your help to make it happen.

You can be a part of bringing this song to the attention of the folks at New Line and MGM.
1) Bring New Places to the attention of someone you know "in the business."
2) Repost this bulletin to your friends
3) Add New Places to your site (and let me know about it!)
4) Listen often

Thanks so much for all your help and support. Let's work together to create a buzz about New Places!

Timothy Michael Powell

Since I write music in spurts (I've NEVER been a disciplined composer, perhaps because I spend each day of my "real" job - teaching college music - involved in vastly different duties on opposite sides of the work spectrum) I often hit times when nothing of note (sorry for the pun) comes out of the proverbial pen (in my case a pencil, and then Finale/midi). Fridays have traditionally been days for composing since I do not have to be in the office, but I find myself sitting without an ounce of motivation for composition because, frankly, I'm much more distracted, or rather ticked off, at politics (stupid wars and stupid-er President), the Auburn Tigers (they broke my heart last night with their 3rd quarter destruction of my beloved USC Gamecocks), Ford Motors (these stupid new car keys that can't be copied due to some magic chip), and my dog Wolfy (who likes to bark at the shower curtain at 1am, 3am, 4:15am, 6:30am, 7am respectively). Yes, and for those who are wondering, Wolfy is named after Mozart....and my cat Clara is named after Clara Schumann....at least the cat's name is musicologically interesting and gender-lly inclusive.
So all this griping is to explain that nothing of substance has been written on the opera in a couple of weeks. The Act II, Scene II duet, however, is finished and the opening recit and duet between Eve and Lillith is started (Act II, Scene III) so I at least have an idea of the motivic structure and themes of that section.
I have successfully roped Jennifer Herzberg, my art teacher and Visual and Performing Arts division colleague, into providing art direction to the set. I'm aiming for a Mondrion-esque approach to the design, i.e. minimal with a very modern, gray-washed monochromatic gridwork that I hope will adequately represent the bleakness of the 1920's dustbowl Oklahoma of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, as well as provide us with a sense of otherworldliness during Satan's introduction. I'm not sure she knows what she has gotten into :)))

My opera "Terrible Swift Sword" is beginning to take thematic shape. Today's work included the Act II-Scene II-recit. I, which is the Preacher's call to prayer and congregational response following his opening Aria.

In addition, I began work on Act II-Scene II-recit. II, which actually is an accompanied recit/duet between the Preacher and Satan, in which Satan tempts the Preacher to "look at that girl," while the Preacher prays in a mantra "O Lord, keep me pure, so that I can preach Jesus down." This prayer will eventually morph into "...so that I can preach Jesus to her," as Satan's rationalizations and influence begin to take hold. It will begin with an ominous ground bass in C minor (C-Eb-D-G-Ab-F-G-Bnat-C...) in the piano, which the right hand will ornament in increasingly intricate variations, and which will act as a ritornello throughout the section. This duet provides a book-end to Act II-Scene II...a sort of diabolical distortion of the Preacher's lovely opening sermon. And the move from C major (which ends the sermon) to c minor at the entrance of Satan during recit I provides harmonic commentary on the corruption of our main character.

As a P.S....for those of you who wonder about how I really feel about all of this, it is really just my attempt to juxtapose the story of Rev. Casey in the Grapes of Wrath with the first Chapter of the Book of Job, which is, frankly, a rather scary but fascinating chapter from the Bible. If we take it at face value, God allows Satan to ruin Job's life (in this case, by killing his entire family) in order to teach him a lesson or to prove a point, or to win a bet. I think this brings up all manner of questions relating to the nature of God as well as the nature of the Satanic story in Judeo-Christian thought. If you aren't squirming in your seat when this chapter is read in church, then you must be asleep....I'm not claiming that the opera is going to answer any questions. In fact, if any thing I'm trying my best NOT to answer any questions or resolve a spiritual crisis. I just think my friend Sam will look cool smoking a cigar on stage, sneering at the audience, and being an altogether disagreeable character...and in the end, that is what prompted or inspired the entire story.

Hi friends. Here is a poem I wrote back in the late 90's. I thought I'd post it and get some responses. If there are any composers out there who are interested in setting it to music, please let me know beforehand so that I can give you written permission.

The Pitter Sound

Pitter, patter sounds the rain
And there inside it does the same.
This heart beats a rhythm swift
At the simple sound of her name
Heard passing by a stranger's seat.
This heart, my Judas, began to beat
And thus revealed, by me denied,
The things deep-buried, except in sleep.
And there, as if before my eyes,
The truth, naked, bereft of guise
And I pursued cannot escape
This simple truth, despite my lies.
I love the soul met through fate
Which matches mine, our thoughts a mate,
And though I run to escape I've found
I can't outrun the pitter sound.


© Copyright 1998 Timothy Michael Powell; All Rights Reserved

If all was ideal, I would have finished a libretto before starting on writing music, but this opera has kind of grown out of evolving ideas of spirituality, literature, and myth and as such, I needed to start on the music first.

However, now that it is actually begining to take concrete shape, I began finalizing the dialogue this week. At first, it seemed an easy task to mix together an opening introduction scene with the devil/tempter character, and then move into a portrayal of a church service. As such, the Preacher's opening sermon was easy to structure (I used scripture from I Cor. 13). The next dialogue block was a little harder, but still easily envisioned (Preacher meets girl, seduces girl, gets caught, gets fired). But after another reading of Steinbeck's opening chapters of Grapes of Wrath (where I'm getting the inspiration for the Preacher), I realized that I was taking the wrong path with the drama. In fact, the Preacher doesn't get fired...he quits of his own volition during a moment of spiritual crisis. If I go along with this route, my opera turns into more of a tragic love story than a spiritual dark comedy. In the new structure, Eve falls in love with the Preacher, he rethinks his entire relationship with the divine as a result of his sexual dialiance, and he leaves her after she surrenders her innocence. In this way, Satan ruins both lives, successfully wins his bet with God, and seems to think he is triumphant. Of course, the irony is that by tempting the Preacher, he sets him on the path to meeting Joad in Grapes of Wrath on the road home from prison, and all the drama and story that happens afterwards...perhaps then all part of God's plan.

So all this to say that the libretto for Act II through the opening monologue in Act III is done, the first big chunk of the drama. All that's left is to complete the libretto for Act III and the coda and I can continue to compose in earnest (of course, in my head I'm already composing as I write the libretto...you almost have to).

Finally finished the opening Recit/Aria for Act II, Scene I - "Rev. Faust's Sermon" from my new opera "His Terrible Swift Sword." I can't wait to pass it along to John Weinel so that I can hear it live. I hope that very soon we can record it with piano and put up the scratch demo here on this site. I've left all my midi equipment at home, so I won't be able to put the thing into Finale to make final edits until later in the week.

This morning was our photo shoot for our department's new brochure. I had to stand in the 100-degree Texas sun in a full tux and tails. The cool thing was, we were in an abandoned alley in Baytown, TX doing the shoot, and all around us was wild scuppernong vines full of fruit. Very cool.