On October 24th I’ll be premiering a work at the Bowling Green New Music Festival with trombonist Bill Mathis. The piece, by BYU composer Steven Ricks, is called “Force of the Mind,” and is written for 2 trombones and electronics. Yet another element of collaboration in the piece involves a sculpture, shown below, by BYU art professor Brian Christensen. The sculpture (which actually contains parts of a trombone from a studio “trombone toss” of several years ago) will be placed center-stage during the performance. It will contain speakers projecting the electronic sounds, as well as a separate click-track generator that we will plug headphones into, giving the appearance of our being plugged into a big, brass brain. Should be pretty exciting. Just gotta figure out how to get the thing on the plane!