Patrick dedicating the work to me. it reads: "A candle does no good under a rock. Thank you for having the courage to hold your creative light high so the world may be brightened by it."

I just acquired Patrick Gorman Pettis' beautiful work Past That Comes Between Us. I first met Patrick on Facebook, and was very taken by his art. I look forward to following Patrick's career and will undoubtedly want more of his vividly dark works to enjoy and ponder and puzzle over.

You can find out more about Patrick and see his work on his artmajeur.com website.

On May 5, 2011 the Cypress String Quartet premiered my Serenade (String Quartet No. 2) at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. There are few experiences so thrilling for a composer as working with a fine group like this. They don't just play the music, they take ownership of it and turn it into something entirely of their own making.

Thank you Cecily, Tom, Ethan and Jennifer!

How do you respond artistically to a distant time? For composer Jeffery Cotton, the answer to this question was simple — you make a new distant land.

Click here to read the entire article.

The Cypress String Quartet has commissioned Jeffery Cotton's "Serenade (String Quartet No. 2)" and will be premiering the work in San Francisco on May 5, 2011. The Quartet commissioned Cotton's first string quartet and premiered it in 2003.

Call & Response
Thu, May 5, 8pm – 10pm
Herbst Theatre, San Francisco CA

Program:
Glazunov: from Five Novelettes
Schulhoff: Five Pieces for String Quartet
Jeffery Cotton: Serenade * WORLD PREMIERE *
Bloch: Landscapes and In The Mountains
Debussy: String Quartet in G, Op.10

I only just today discovered that in his blog entry of May 29, 2009, It's Pretty and It's Easy, Sibelius' Product Manager Daniel Spreadbury wrote about how Sibelius has since addressed all the issues I discussed in my article, It Isn't Pretty Being Easy, which raked Sibelius over the coals. Daniel was gracious beyond all reason in his communication with me back then, and he remained so in this blog entry.

Unfortunately the blog entry is now closed to comments, as I would have like to post my congratulations to Daniel and the Sibelius team for their hard work and dedication to what is undoubtedly one of the most difficult challenges to software developers: creating a robust and yet intuitive application to create musical notation.

Best wishes, Daniel, and while I don't need to say it, keep up the good work!

Last night the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and guest conductor Scott Yoo performed my Suite from Pyramus and Thisbe here in Winnipeg at the Westminster Church. It was only the second performance of the work in the nearly 20 years since I first began sketching it.

And a terrific performance it was! The group only began rehearsing the piece the day before, but in spite of the typical first rehearsal rough edges, I could tell this was going to be a great concert.

My heartfelt thanks to concertmaster Karl Stobbe, principal cellist Yuri Hooker and principal violist Daniel Scholz for beautiful, shimmering solo work (of which there is a LOT in this piece).

Here is a very lovely review of the performance from the Winnipeg Free Press.

The Seattle Chamber Music Festival has commissioned Jeffery Cotton to compose a new work for flute, viola and harp, to be premiered during the Festival's 2008 summer season.

The venerable American Academy of Arts and Letters has awarded Jeffery Cotton the Walter Hinrichsen Award for the publication of a work by C.F. Peters.

You can read the press release here.

The Cypress String Quartet has released their new recording of Jeffery Cotton's String Quartet No. 1, which the ensemble commissioned in 2003 as part of their Call and Response program.

You find more information about the recording here, and can purchase it from amazon.com.

Yehudi Wyner

Just yesterday I was listening to NPR, and heard the announcement that Yehudi Wyner, a wonderful composer and good friend, has been awarded the 2006 Pulizter Prize in Music.

Congratulations, Yehudi!

Yes, I will be at the Atlantic Center... as an attendee, not as a Master Artist (not that this should surprise anyone, but I am old, you know).

I'll be working with Yehudi Wyner, a composer who has been very supportive of me in the past and from whom I'm looking forward to learning a thing or two about writing art song.

Jeffery Cotton's latest article rejects the idea that we have to lure young people back into the classical music hall with gadgets and sex (yes, gadgets!). Click here to read it.

The Cypress String Quartet

The San Francisco based Cypress String Quartet premiered Jeffery Cotton's String Quartet No. 1 on March 19, 2004, at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, and followed with three more performances around the Bay area over the following week. The new work was commissioned as part of the ensemble's Call and Response program, and was programmed together with the Haydn op. 33 no. 5 and the Mozart K. 421.

In the Mercury News, reviewer Richard Scheinin says the new quartet "charmed, frightened and rang out with song." Click here to read the entire review.

The Composer's Studio at Camargo, Cassis, France

The Camargo Foundation of Cassis, France has awarded Jeffery Cotton a 2004 Fellowship. Jeffery will be composer-in-residence at the Foundation facilities in Cassis, France, from mid-January through the end of May, 2005.

The project Jeffery submitted to the Foundation is a new sonata-cycle. The three works, one each for violin and piano, viola and piano, and cello and piano, will be called Three Sonatas to Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita", and will be composed simultaneously.

The Tucson-based Arizona Friends of Chamber Music have commissioned Jeffery Cotton to write a new work for violin and percussion, to be premiered during their 2005 Festival (March 6 through 13, 2005). Cotton will compose the work specifically for violinist Joseph Lin and percussionist Svetoslav Stoyanov.

The Cypress String Quartet

The San Francisco based Cypress String Quartet has commissioned a new work from Jeffery Cotton, which will be premiered in March 2004, and performed on tour through California. The new work, String Quartet No. 1, is part of the ensemble's Call and Response commissioning program, and will be programmed together with the Haydn op. 33 no. 5 and the Mozart K. 421. Cotton's work is to reflect, in a manner of the composer's choosing, the relationship between the two extant works.

Jeffery hard at work on his balcony at the Villa Orbiana overlooking Bogliasco.

The Boliasco Foundation awarded Jeffery Cotton a fellowship for work at the Liguria Study Center in Bogliasco, Italy, just outside of Genova. Jeffery worked at the center from November 15th through December 16th, where he enjoyed spectacular views, the wonderful mild temeratures of the Golfo Paradiso, and even managed to put the finishing touches on his new Symphony for Strings for the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra. The work will be performed in Troy, New York at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall on January 23rd, 2004, and at Jordan Hall in Boston on January 24th.