In January 2007, Ensemble I-40 premiered a charming new woodwind quintet by Lawrence Dillon called Child's Play on concerts at the North Carolina School of the Arts and Duke University. Ensemble I-40 is a virtuoso group of wind players comprised of Rebecca Troxler, Joseph Robinson, Igor Begelman, David Jolley and Michael Burns.

Child's Play was also featured at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine in July.

At six minutes long, Child's Play enacts the amusing and sometimes frighteningly wild antics of a toddler at large.

Sounds like the title of a science fiction film from the 1950s, doesn't it? But it's really an exciting new cycle of works commissioned by an innovative young musician.

In February, violinist Piotr Szewczyk gave the premiere of Mister Blister, Dillon's contribution to the Violin Futura project. Szewczyk commissioned a dozen composers to write two-minute pieces for solo violin, which he performed in the New World Symphony Forum Concerts, Exchange Concerts, the Spoleto Festival, and at the University of Wisconsin. The next performance of Mister Blister will take place on the Santa Fe New Music Festival in February 2008. A video clip of Violin Futura, with an excerpt from Mister Blister, can be found here.

In 1997, the Swannanoa Chamber Festival commissioned Dillon's Furies and Muses, a quintet for bassoon and strings, and premiered it with the Cassatt String Quartet and Jeffrey Keesecker. Although it wasn't apparent at the time, Furies and Muses turned out to be a pivotal work in Dillon's output, incorporating contemporary rhythms into a newly energized approach to Classical forms.

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the premiere of Furies and Muses, bassoonist Jeffrey Keesecker organized a performance at the 2007 International Double Reed Society Convention in Ithaca. The piece was played on the culminating concert of the festival, with Keesecker, violinists Susan Waterbury and Jennifer Reuning Meyers, violist Melissa Stucky and cellist Heidi Hoffman.

Read about Furies and Muses and listen to excerpts here.

And doesn't this sound like something based on the writings of Sartre?

Actually, Entrance, Exit and Dark Circles are the titles of three new works premiered on November 3rd in an all-Dillon concert at the North Carolina School of the Arts. The evening, a consummation of Dillon's longstanding interest in both composition and story-telling, was framed by two new pieces for actor and chamber ensemble, Entrance and Exit, with stories by the composer about the listening experience.

(Pictured is Robert Beseda, performing in Exit.) Another piece receiving its first performance, Dark Circles, combined the musical ideas of all the other pieces on the concert into a single wild remix. You can read about this remarkable evening of theater and music here.

Other Dillon pieces performed on the concert were What Happened and Still Point.

The states of North Carolina and Ohio have been vying for the right to call themselves the birthplace of flight for a hundred years, ever since the Wright Brothers transported their flying machine from Toledo to Kitty Hawk. Dillon's Wright Flight, which has been performed in North Carolina over a dozen times, had its Ohio debut with the Mansfield Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Robert Franz, on February 10th, 2007. The Mansfield Post Journal reported: "The second half of the concert was devoted to a most unusual composition, Lawrence Dillon's evocative "Wright Flight." Commissioned in honor of the centennial of the first flight on Dec. 17, 1903, the composition is a multi-media work, featuring the orchestra, three actors and projected slides of the actual first flight of the Wright brothers in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Actors Drew Traxler as Wilbur Wright, Nathan Carr as Orville Wright, and Beau Roberts as John T. Daniels (a Kitty Hawk resident and friend of the Wrights, who actually snapped the famous photo of the first flight) guided the audience on the musical journey, with narration excerpted largely from the letters and journals of the two brothers.

Especially memorable moments included a rhythmic dialogue between the two brothers describing technical construction measurements and assembly details ... a vivid verbal and musical depiction of the challenges of battling the hoards of mosquitoes (MISERY!), and Mr. Daniels' keen local observations on the character and tenacity of these two gentlemen from Ohio as they strove to achieve the goal of human flight.

The musical score ebbs and flows along with the tale ... graphically depicting winds and gales, storms and seas, and even the sputtering of the crude engine that powered the first aircraft on its maiden flight. The symphony and actors gave an engaging performance of this unusual theater piece, which was warmly received by the audience."

For more information about Wright Flight, including photos and a film excerpt, visit here.

American Composers Editions has published five new works by Lawrence Dillon in 2007:

Child's Play (6:00) – flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon.

Dark Circles (10:00) – two flutes, saxophone quartet, piano, double bass.

Still Point (6:30) – mezzo, viola, piano

Entrance (12:00) – flute, alto flute, violin, viola, piano, actor

Exit (12:00) – trumpet, alto saxophone, cello, double bass, piano, actor

To obtain copies of these works, visit Dillon's page on the American Composers Alliance website or send a note to info@composer.com.

For more about Lawrence Dillon, including a biography, list of works, news, discography, etc. visit his website at http://www.lawrencedillon.com/.

You can also contact Jeffrey James Arts Consulting for more information at 516-586-3433 or jamesarts@worldnet.att.net.

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