With more than 120 applications and two interesting if wildly different winners, the inaugural Music X competition was a successful experiment. Both winning composers made it to Cincinnati for the 8bb treatment of their works last Sunday.
Anthony Cheung was an amazingly polite, wonderfully geeky bloke. (I can say that because I proudly share his status as a geek.) Even though he was only in town for 36 hours, he managed to do some sightseeing in Cincinnati at the only two places that really count: the zoo and the Creation Museum. No, I’m not kidding, there is a museum of creationism in Cincinnati – check it out here. We are still waiting for a report, Anthony…
After a short, positive rehearsal of Anthony’s piece on the day he arrived, we quickly switched into 8bb juvenile mode. Grabbing some mattresses found in the rehearsal room cupboards and throwing them onto the ground, fart jokes and chest bumping commenced. Realizing that Anthony was still sitting, innocently observing the mayhem, Matt suggested:
“Um, you might not want to tell people about this. You should tell them we are really very mature and professional.”
Jeremy, like his piece, was the polar opposite to Anthony. An incredibly laid back, easy-going bloke, he was joined by his pregnant wife, Leah Lloyd who was responsible for the video that accompanied his piece.
The pieces divided the audience. At the bar after the concert, I found myself in the middle of a discussion between two folks at the bar, one who loved Anthony’s piece and found Jeremy’s too cliched, and one who loved Jeremy’s piece and thought Anthony’s bafflingly inaccessible. This sort of honest opinion-sharing seemed to me a pretty ideal reaction to a diverse 8bb concert program.
Here is a shot with 8bb and the two composers. Anthony is in the back row, far left; Jeremy is on the far right.
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