The “Muse Room” is the room in my house where I make music and my wife makes visual art. Published (as of this month!) the first Friday of the month, each issue of Letters from the Muse Room will include news and updates about my music, as well as something that has inspired me creatively over the past month.
Dear friends,
Welcome to Fridays! I really appreciate those of you who responded to the survey in my last email and let me know which day of the week was best for you to receive my newsletter. I hope you will enjoy getting Letters from the Muse Room on Friday mornings now!
Two updates for you on the news front:
1. panicpanicpanic is finished! I’m really happy with the way it turned out, and I am excited to send it out into the world in search of a premiere. If you know a choral director who might be interested in a piece for speaking chorus about a panic attack, let me know. :) In the meantime, you can check out a perusal score and read the full program notes on my website at https://www.ajharbison.com/music/concert/panicpanicpanic.
2. My website store is live! It’s taken me a long time (because I’m a perfectionist), and there are still some small tweaks to make here and there, but I’m now set up to sell sheet music as well as other digital and physical products (anyone remember my 2010 CD Songs From My Shelf?). Feel free to take a look around at https://www.ajharbison.com/store.
Next month I’ll send some recordings — a kids song I wrote for our church’s annual vacation Bible school program, and maybe another excerpt from panicpanicpanic (I’m particularly proud of the way the piece ends).
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This last month, a musical event inspired me in a not-particularly-musical way. On May 26 the Kansas City Symphony hosted the 17th annual Bank of America Celebration at the Station, a patriotic concert on the eve of Memorial Day. From humble beginnings, it’s grown to become an event with support services for veterans, a fun family area, a large array of food trucks, multiple opening acts and an evening Symphony concert that regularly draws 50,000 people from all over the metro area.
As you might imagine, it’s an all-hands-on-deck kind of event for the Symphony, so as an employee I got a firsthand look at the event both in front of and behind the scenes. It was pretty remarkable, the sheer amount of activity going on and how smoothly everything ran.
What inspired me, though, was that Celebration really owes its existence to a single person — Symphony Executive Director Frank Byrne. Seventeen years ago, when he had only been Executive Director for a couple of years, he looked at Memorial Day weekend concerts held in Washington D.C. and elsewhere and said, “Why shouldn’t Kansas City have something like that?” And with a great team and a lot of hard work that idea became a reality. Seventeen years later, it’s the largest free Memorial Day weekend event in the Midwest and a beloved annual tradition for thousands of Kansas City families.
So, I guess all that to say: If you have a good idea, gather some good people around you and put some good work into it. You never know how far it might go.
Peace,
AJ Harbison