The Frontiersman Writes About The Wild Coast

image by Erin McKittrick

Andrew Wellner at The Frontiersman has written a decent article about the upcoming premiere (next Tuesday) by the Anchorage Youth Symphony, of my newest orchestral work, The Wild Coast:

“It’s an adventure piece of classical music,” Munger said.

The Anchorage Youth Symphony, which actually commissioned the work, will perform it Tuesday at the Atwood Hall in the Alaska Center for Performing Arts in Anchorage.

“The Anchorage Youth Symphony played another piece of mine called ‘Lamentations’,” he said. “For a town the size of Anchorage, they’re really good.”

Oddly enough, Munger won’t attend. In addition to his work as a music professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage, this year he’s also conducting an orchestra.

“Our last rehearsal [of the Anchorage Civic Orchestra, where I'm currently Interim Music Director] before our winter concert is Tuesday and I just can’t farm it out to anybody,” Munger said.

But unlike the early days of conducting, Munger said he has a pretty good idea of what the piece sounds like. Composing at a computer is worlds away from composing at a piano. He said he’s able to hear what he writes as he goes through the magic of digital sampling.

“I pretty much have a good idea of what it is going to sound like,” he said.

 The music is about the Yakutat to Controller Bay portion of Erin McKittrick and Bretwood Higman's epic 2007-2008 journey from Seattle to Unimak Island.  Andrew's article graciously links to their web site, Ground Truth Trekking.

Speaking of "the magic of digital sampling," here is the Youtube I created (with photos by Erin McKittrick) of the electronic musical version of the piece to be premiered Tuesday: