Summer Engraving/Recording Projects

July 16, 2021, 7:44 PM · One of the things I've been doing this summer has been engraving projects for a couple of people. My biggest project I completed last week was arranging Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto for a COVID-complient ensemble: a wind quintet and camber strings, plus the solo violin, of course. That was a really fun project, and I learned a lot about the piece in doing it. I've also done an arrangement of a Vaughan-Williams song for a setting of a Wizard of Oz play. I'm hoping to continue to do these sorts of small projects. I'm sure I'll discuss this more on my composition website at some point in the future, so let's move on for now.

The other big project I'm working on is my Animal Crossing album! This is a project I started planning in earnest in May, and will definitely be a long-term process. Even though I've lost interest in the series at the moment, I'm still excited to celebrate its music! The piece I slowly arranged on paper first and then putting into Finale is an Island Medley, consisting of music tracks related to the various islands your character could travel to - or live on, in the case of New Horizons! I won't spoil those tracks, but I will say in addition to me playing violin, I have asked some of my musician friends who also play Animal Crossing to record parts as well for this track: harp, cello, alto saxophone, and trumpet! When I get to the mixing stage, I hope I'll be able to apply everything I've learned through my time at UIUC in building a well-mastered track that will be a YouTube video as well as a track on the CD.

I have been busy doing some recording! With a violinist friend, I did record "For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)" from Frozen, as a violin duet! I arranged this piece in May or June 2020, so it's been a year since we started looking at it. We played this one in-person, which was quite welcome after all the click track pieces I've recorded. I haven't mixed it quite yet, but I'll be happy to update that as well! I do have a recording of my other friend's lullaby she and her sister wrote. It was a lovely piece to work on! I recorded violins and piano, and also did the mixing.