Soulmate?

I know I keep talking about this show, but it has been consuming almost all of my time outside of school. The script and score are done and now I'm going through making edits. I wrote a new song for it yesterday. I hope to have a demo of it up soon. Speaking of demos, the soulmate demo recording session is finally mixed. I have had a couple samples of songs from it up on my website for a while, but they are completely finished now. I wanted to post a recording of Alex singing "David's Message" since that was a song I posted a while ago with me singing. This way you can hear the before and after of the project.

Enjoy!

In other news I'm writing a mini-musical for my detective fiction class. I'm really excited about the concept because I've wanted to write more orchestral music (ie. Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein) for a long time.

When I get recordings of things I'll post them.

That's all for now,

check out the website for the new soulmate recordings soon!

-Brad

Octarium Competition

Hey there!

The newest news from me is that the mixes from the "Soulmate?" demo are almost done and I won a composition competition. You can hear a sample of some of the demos on my website ( www.bradkempmusic.com ). There is one on the main page and both of the samples are under the music tab, musical theatre section.

The other big news is that I won a composition competition. I was recently chosen as the Winner of the 2010 Octarium Composition Competition. The competition this year called for arrangements of pre-existing pieces. I did an arrangement of Claude Debussy's "La fille aux cheveux de lin". This piece is one of my favorite of all of Debussy's preludes for piano. Here is a video of the original piece:

The arrangement I did was for Octarium, an eight member choir. My piece is for soprano soloist and choir. Sometime in the next year there will be a performance of the piece in Kansas City by Octarium.

This is not the first competition I have ever won. In the spring of this year I won the 2010 Turner Award in Composition. My piece "numbers between brackets" for flute and cello won the competition. There is a sample of the recording on my website which can be seen here along with other samples of classical pieces I have written. Here is the video I posted of the entire piece:

That is all for now. Check back soon for more of the "Soulmate?" demos and thanks for reading!

Brad

"Love (Luv): an afterthought"

"Love (Luv): an afterthought" is the musical that my friend Dan and I are working on. We started it in high school and in the past week we have started working on it again. So far we have a draft of the first act done and the second act script is being written. I have all the music for the first act done; songs, scene change music, and underscoring. I'm sure it will undergo a huge editing/rewriting process in the future, but for now it is done. Many of the songs are the same from when we first started writing it in high school. However, several have changed. Because we set the show aside for a year or two and recently looked at it again with fresh eyes, there are many things that we have decided to change. Many of those things are music. In addition to editing the old music, I also wrote a couple new songs. One of which is the first song in the show. This song isn't an "opening number" it is simply a song that comes before the opening number. It sets up the two main characters and gives a nice, low-key opening to the show. Today I recorded a demo of the song, and wanted to share it with those of you who actually read my blog. The song is called "All That Matters" and has the two main characters singing about how they are in love, and even though there are things that are wrong with their relationships, the fact that they are in love is 'all that matters'. At this point in the show, we don't realize that they are not singing about each other; they actually haven't even met. They are both in relationships that they think are great, but their friends can see that they aren't that happy.

So that's a little background on the song and here it is. Again, it is a midi generation of the instruments and I am singing both parts. The second verse is the female lead singing, but I sang it in my range so it was more comfortable. However, the ending I sang the female parts up the octave, so they sound correctly.

Enjoy:

I really happy with the way it turned out. That's all for now.

Soulmate? recording session coming up in about a month!

-Brad

"Soulmate?"

Soulmate? is finished! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, Soulmate? is the musical I have been writing. I started it february of 2009. I have been working on it, on and off, for the past year and a half. As I stated in the last entry, the first video log was a song from this show. The music that I've written for this show has honestly been some of the most fun I've ever had composing. The music is heavily influenced by shows like Next to Normal, Spring Awakening, and RENT. It originally started as a rock opera/concept album but quickly turned into a musical. However, most of the show is still a sing through. The recording session that I'm doing in August has 7 songs from the show. One of the songs we're doing is "David's Message". The song is when the soulmate of the show declares his love for the main female character. On stage, he is sitting at a table writing the letter and she is standing on the other side of the stage reading the letter. He sings as he writes but they don't interact. It should be a cool scene on stage.

Here is a demo I did of the song. It is a midi generation of the instruments and I am singing. Enjoy:

In the fall I will have a great recording of this song from the recording session, with my good friend Alex singing.

I will keep you updated.

That's all for now,

Brad

Composition, LinkedIn, Recording Sessions and More...

As the title states, I have been very busy recently and now is the time to share. First off I recently had my final performance for my composition II class. We all composed pieces for Piano and Cello/Violin. I chose to write for piano and cello. My piece was entitled L'ouragan which means The Hurricane in French. The piece is in three movements to represent the three main stages of a hurricane. The opening movement starts out slow and is in a minor key. This is greatly contrasted by the second movement which is mainly solo cello. It is very calm sounding to symbolize the eye of the storm. Finally there is the third movement which arrived very suddenly and is meant to catch the listeners off guard. The music is fast, minor, and makes the piece go out with a bang!

Please check it out!

The second part of this entry's title is LinkedIn. I recently joined LinkedIn and am looking to make connections. Below is my public Profile on LinkedIn. Please add me as a connection if you already have a profile or create on. They are great to have. Brad Kemp

Other Composition that I have had recent performances are two choral piece I composed for a church choir in Mequon, WI. About a month ago I was contacted by the music director from Christ Church of Mequon, Wisconsin. He found my website while he was searching for the high school I went to. He told me about how he listened to One of God’s Angels, the choral piece I wrote in high school. He enjoyed it so much that he wanted to get a copy of the score so his choir could perform it. After emailing back and forth for a while we decided the piece was too complicated for his choir. So I proposed that I compose him an original piece for his choir. I asked him for suggestions about what text I should use. Usually I would just find a bible verse or search the internet for a public domain sacred poem. I then found out that his wife is a poet. He sent me two of her poems and I thought they were fantastic. I decided to write two different pieces with the two poems. I composed the pieces in contrasting styles: one is a cappella and the other is with piano and is more melodic. I send him the pieces and he loved them. He moved some things around and told me they would be performing the pieces in the beginning of May. I booked my train ticket and was very excited to hear their hard work. The pieces sounded great and I hope to have recording posted on my website soon.

The last item that needs to be addressed is the recording session. Late this summer I am going to have a recording session for some of the songs from the show Soulmate? that I wrote. I have great musicians lined up and have picked dates. One of the songs from the show was featured in the first video log.

This song ("Goodbye") is going to be done at the recording session. I really hope to have recordings of this up as well, very soon.

That's all for now.

Thanks for reading!