After three performances, I’d like to recap the last couple month’s musical adventures. I am happy to announce that all three premieres of mine went very well. Also, two recordings are in the works! The first recording, my piece for wind ensemble and drum set soloist, Exorcism, is being released by the Cornell University Wind Ensemble with Derek Roddy as soloist. The recording will be available for free download on the Cornell University Wind Ensemble website when it is complete, with a request for a donation to their Costa Rica Project. The recording will also be available on CD by request, and in addition to other pieces, will also feature my friend and colleague Christopher Stark’s fantastic new piece Augenblick.

The Concerto for Electric Guitar, Electric Bass, Synthesizer, Drum Set, and Orchestra went extremely well and will also be released on a recording by the Contemporary Youth Orchestra. (More details on that when I learn more information.) It was great to be back in Cleveland which in many ways feels like my hometown city. (Go Cavs!) The concert received a very nice review at coolcleveland.com which can be read by clicking here.

The premiere of Strife at Carnegie Hall also received a review, this time from the New York Times, but alas, not quite as effusive as coolcleveland.com. Those interested can click here, but you may want to pay more attention to the review written by Kelly Ferjutz. However, I am quite fortunate –with all three pieces involving soloists of some sort, all performers were incredibly well-prepared and wonderful to work with, as were all three conductors.

Looking forward, I am currently writing a solo piece for my friend Chihiro Shibiyama, a percussion student at Juilliard. Then soon after that, or perhaps concurrently, I will be writing a piece for the Festival Chamber Orchestra at Cornell.

In other very exciting and related news, I spent the first week of 2009 in London to observe recording sessions at Abbey Road Studios of a new CD of music written by my dad, Jack Gallagher, as performed by the London Symphony Orchestra with JoAnn Falletta conducting. Keep an eye out for its release on a major label soon, though I won’t make any more information public than that, just to be safe.

In other very exciting but unrelated news, after almost 20 years of struggle and epic battles, I finally beat the entire Nintendo game Punch-Out!!. It took enormous dedication and a lot of procrastinating from other more important work, but I finally took Mr. Dream out by TKO in Round 3 with very little time remaining. I’ve since been able to beat him a few more times, including by decision, surprisingly, but it’s still not easy. Meanwhile, for such a difficult game, there is very little satisfaction after winning—no grand parade or otherwise, just a short congratulatory exclamation from Mr. Dream, and then the credits roll.

That’s all for now. Happy 2009 to the three of you who read this blog!