PERSONAL LIFE

I spent most of this past June viiting family up in Maine. I had the opportunity to see some old friends, hang out with the folks, and enjoy the pleasant weather this time of year in New England. While visiting I stayed at the house in which I grew up, in my home town of Windsor.

I took the opportunity to dig through some stuff I'd left there as a kid, including about four hundred musical sketches I made in high school. I used to have a bus ride of about twenty to thirty minutes in the mornings, and I would kill that time by sketching in a little book of manuscript paper. When I got to school, if I had the chance I would try out the melodies on the trumpet or piano. On occasion I would run materials by the jazz combo group at Erskine Academy.

In addition to these sketches, last month I made three new updates to my website.

AUDIO STORE

First, I uploaded two new tracks to the Audio Store. This is a small but growing resource of tracks designed to be used in media (e.g. games and videos). I'm adding new tracks to the Audio Store every month.

These tracks are free to listen to, and in most cases I've included sheet music to go along with the recordings. If you are a content creator interested in using one of these tracks in your media, become a subscriber to bentibbetts.net. You will have access to all the resources on the Audio Store as well as a page of exclusive content.

BIRTH OF A GORGON

The second project I released in June was an experimental animation called "Birth of a Gorgon". This was a collaboration with mezzo-soprano Liz Cass and writer Ken Hallowell. This music began its life as an art song based on Ken's poem. It tells the origin story of a mythical Gorgon in ancient Greek mythology (e.g. Medusa).

The animation in "Birth of a Gorgon" was generated by artificial intelligence. It's strange, alien, and sometimes disturbing--and for these reasons I think it fits the subject matter perfectly.

MUSIC FROM "PORCO ROSSO"

Finally, in June I also posted a piano arrangement that I made of music from "Porco Rosso", one of the many fantastical animated films from Studio Ghibli in Japan. Like classic Disney films, the animated movies from Studio Ghibli use storytelling to explore the human condition. They often feature elements from mythology, magic, and surrealism. In "Porco Rosso", the main character is a World War I fighter pilot who has been turned into a pig by a magical curse.

Like many of Studio Ghibli's films, the score was written by composer Joe Hisaishi, whose style was influenced by both jazz and classical music. One of my piano students wanted to play some of the music from this movie, but neither of us could find an arrangement online that we felt comfortable with, so I made this one. The sheet music is available for subscribers to my website, and a performance of the arrangement has been posted on YouTube.

"HIGH STRUNG" VIOLIN CONCERT

My main project this month coming up is a violin concert called "High Strung". This is collaboration with Graham Yates, Brittney Benavidez, Carol Brown, and Keith Allegretti. It's a concert comprised of premiers of original music for violin and piano. Each of us has a piece on this program.

We're currently raising money to help pay these performers what they deserve. If you'd like to contribute to this, here is a link to the fundraiser. All of the proceeds will go straight to the performers; I and the other composers will not be taking a cut. Plus, if you visit the fundraiser page, you get to see a very "special" promotional video we've all put together.

CONCLUSION

As always, thank you for reading this, and especially for listening to my music. It means a lot to have an audience out there, and I appreciate this ability to keep in touch. Talk to you next month.