I'm delighted and honored to announce that my new piece "Gaudete" has been selected as the winner of this year's Red Note New Music Composition Competition in the choral category! The ISU Concert Choir will premiere the piece on 26 March 2017 in Normal, IL for those who happen to be in the area. Look for more upcoming news regarding the festival!
Scores available for purchase!
I'm excited to announce a new set of pieces that are now available for purchase at SMP Press! This batch is focused on string pieces:
- Letters from the War, for beginning intermediate string orchestra (written for the Northern Guilford Middle School orchestra);
score – parts – score & parts
- Sin Tregua, for string quartet (written at Harvard in response to the drug war in Mexico);
score – parts – score & parts
- Nora and Reshma's Magical Tandem Bike Ride, another short piece for string quartet (written for my friends, the eponymous Nora and Reshma).
score – parts coming very soon!
Look for the next batch of scores focusing on piano music soon!
Short film updates
I'm excited to announce that "Persefone's Breakfast" directed by my friend Sam Mendez (and one of several films of his I've scored) will be screening as part of for the Official Latino Short Film Festival on Saturday 17 September in NYC. Check out the trailer here!
I've updated the entry for "Persefone's Breakfast" as well as for "A Bodega" (another Mendez production) and "Beyond Cheesecake"(see below) on the Film and Media page.
In addition, I've uploaded a sample from that short as well as the soundtrack from the short film "Beyond Cheesecake", which I worked on this May as part of the Boston 48 Hour Film Festival. Hear both tracks below!
.net domain expiring
Just a heads up that the jaballesteros.net domain will be expiring in the next week, so be sure to reset your bookmarks to the .com domain adopted during last year's website redesign!
As an extra note, I've added entries in the Film and Media page for the upcoming short films Some of His Things and Unbalanced, produced and presented through the Boston Arts Academy.
BAA Film Festival
Production has wrapped up and we're into post for the short films "Some of His Things", written and directed by fellow Boston Arts Academy teachers Chris Flaherty and Dan Sullivan; and BAA student Jeyrie Rodriguez's film "Unbalanced". Special thanks to film teacher John ADEkoje for making all of this possible.
Reserve your free tickets for the premiere screening and a full slate of shorts! (Monday 18 May, 7-9pm, at the Paramount Center in downtown Boston)
(And as an addendum, a few recent changes to the site:
- a splash of color!
- a Twitter feed in the sidebar!
- a collection of links to great ensembles, composers, and other wonderful things, right below the Twitter feed!
- and a few other small tweaks to improve your experience; contact me if you have any suggestions for posts, questions about the music, or comments on the site.)
Happy Travels!
Over the past few months, I've had the opportunity to work with the brilliant team at 21x20 Media, Inc. in writing the music for their new app game, Happy Travels. Check it out and make sure to download it and like us on Facebook! (Available on the App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Apps.)
Meet Jack. He's an app fanatic with a vivid imagination, a flair for creating, and an obsession with books and theater. And at five years old, he designed his first app: Happy Travels!
Harvard Summer Composition Institute
The 2014 Harvard Summer Composition Institute has selected me as one of its resident composers. The Institute, led by Steven Takasugi, will host 12 young composers in Concord and Cambridge, MA during August, culminating in two concerts of premiere works by the composers.
Apologia
I'm very excited to announce that I've been asked to write the music for Jenny Lim's new film Greta, to be released in 2014. This will eventually become the feature-length film Greta, "an experimental feature about mental illness, that combines the fictional world of “Greta” with documentary portraits of a family" (from Lim's description).
[The opening sequence clip is currently unavailable.]
Recent site updates:
- added a live recording of my prepared piano piece six snow sketches
- added remastered MIDI recordings of the string orchestra piece Letters from the War
Call for scores closed
Thanks to everyone who submitted instrumentations and/or pieces for the Southwest Guilford HS Band Call for Scores. If you're still interested in participating, email me at andres@jaballesteros.net and we might still be able to find a slot for you. Thank you again to everybody. Kenny and I are very excited!
`Andrés
Green Prize
The Music Department at Harvard University has awarded my the 2012 John Green Fellowship for "excellence in musical composition"! Needless to say, I'm incredibly honored and I would especially like to thank my teachers Chaya Czernowin and Edgar Barroso for their support. `Andrés