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I'm happy to break this longer-than-planned blog silence with some very exciting news. I've been awarded a CityArts award by the Mayor's Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs for a brand new project that will be premiering later this year. This is a huge break for me and especially this project, which would have little to no possibility of seeing the light of day without this level of support from the city. This award will literally make the difference between this music being heard by an audience in the real world and, well, not.

You can read about all of the recipients, along with more information about my project than I'd normally like to share at this early juncture here.

Not to be Mr. Secret Guy, but that's all the specifics I'm giving out for now. I've been walking around with this project in my head for several months, not knowing if it was going to be feasible, and waiting to get the green light before turning my ideas into scribbles, dots and lines on paper.

And I am oh-so-very excited about this project. To a potentially unhealthy degree. This music and the group that will play it is going to be so cool and I want everyone to hear it all now.

But it doesn't exist yet. Until it does, I'm going to protect it like it's a baby duckling.

Please go ahead and mark November 5 on your calendars though. Whatever it is will be doing whatever it does at 8pm at the Chapel Performance Space.

It won't all be secrets and intrigue between now and then. Over the next few months, I'll keep updating with the status of the project and any interest thoughts or issues that come up.

It is extremely fun to be back at square one, with a blank sheet of paper, sitting in front of the piano. I've spent the last few weeks distilling everything that I have learned over the last year from the Nickel & Brass project, and mapping out some guidelines, rules, and goals for this new music. As a result, I'm doing a complete reset on several aspects of my process, especially how I approach writing for the rhythm section.

Another goal for this project is to do frequent (weekly) mockups of ideas in Finale or Logic. I'm also going to hold myself to a very high standard in terms of the quality of the final charts themselves, which means getting things into Finale much earlier (chronologically, that is - I'm still a firm believer in doing full and complete sketches on paper before moving into the computer). So that will mean plenty of overlap between writing, sketching and notating. No more waiting until the last few weeks to do all of the Finale work. (Yeah right, dude. Let's check back in November and see how that went.) It's a goal, in any case.

That's all of the news for now. As always, if you or someone you know still need a copy of "Four-Color Heroes!" go ahead and grab one here.