So I went against the grain and decided to have a sort of “Junior Composition Recital” this past Sunday.
What an experience! 
The recital featured three pieces of mine, Figments I, Figments II, and the premiere of Dancing with Shadows.
To give a rather brief play-by-play, Figments I was up first. The first movement went off without a hitch and gave me a rather great recording to use for grad school applications 
The second movement, which, of all the movements in all the pieces in the concert was the one that I was most nervous about, also went amazingly! The third movement wasssss….. good enough lol. The ending of the movement right before the coda has always been a bit of a rough-edge part that I think has more to do with how it was written than individual aptitude. In any case, like I said, as a whole the piece went very well in my opinion.
Here’s a video recording and, just as a note, the only video recording from the concert unfortunately 
The next piece on the program was Figments II. It too was a pretty solid performance, but no where near as solid as the one last semester, which makes sense seeing as how we only rehearsed together on two different occasions this semester. All in all though, all of the audience members loved it and so yeah; apparently, as far as performances go, it was MORE than good enough lol
Dancing with Shadows was the last piece on the program and was REMARKABLE. I honestly left the stage speechless for an inability to understand what had just happened lol. The performance, I feel had a level of raw intensity that seemed more concerned with communicating certain musical ideas and lines than with being “in-tune” or playing all the right notes; and the even MORE wonderful part about that is that we were (for the most part lol) in tune, and MOST of the notes were actually there! lol I feel this was one performance in which all our efforts throughout the course of this borderline nightmarish semester TRULY paid off. Not to say that it was better or worse than Figments II last semester or Figments I this semester, etc. It’s simply that I was incredibly impressed by the performance as a whole, but especially the second movement. The fourth movement was a somewhat less successful performance, but we’re talking more like the difference between a 9/10 and a 7/10. But like I said, the piece as a whole was wonderful.
So yeah! In general I was incredibly pleased by the recital and am immensely fortunate to have been able to work with the musicians that I worked with.
Recordings of all the pieces can be found at the following web address: http://soundcloud.com/dorianhawkins
