I’ve just returned to Los Angeles a couple days ago from a three-week trip to Thailand to participate in the PRAKOMPLENG PRALENG TAWAI Memorial Concert for HRH Princess Gaylani Vadhana of Thailand. The concert was a huge success and the live version of my piece, IN MEMORIAM, which was orchestrated by Ladd McIntosh, turned out very well indeed. Despite not having a full choir there, we managed to use synths and create a similar atmosphere which resulted in a very emotional evening, along with all the other eight memorable pieces performed that night.
Publicity on the project was also through the roof and I spent my days jumping between the orchestral rehearsals various interviews across town. I did a live interview on Thailand’s Channel 5 with fellow composer Trisdee na Patalung on November 3rd, which turned out to be a particularly fun interview, and did a number of radio interviews for various radio channels including National Radio and ChulaRadio (the sponsors of the project). I’ve had a wonderful relationship with ChulaRadio. They premiered my memorial piece in January this year followed by several more performances of my works and I flew back to do an interview with their classical music host, Seesom Eamsunpang in July this year. Later in August, they informed me that they were putting together a memorial CD in honor of HRH Princess Galyani and asked if they could include my piece in it as well. Naturally, I was delighted at this honor, and things got larger from there.
On November 4th, all the composers were asked to give interviews on their respective pieces for Thai PBS, who was also sponsoring the project. They were filming a documentary about the making of the project, which is supposed to air at some point this month.
After the concert, I stayed for a couple days in Bangkok discussing potential projects with various personel there and had conceived the idea of building a production studio there as well. An idea of such immense scope, it has taken me almost two weeks to recover from!
I finally flew back to Los Angeles a couple days ago to finish the final dub on a trailer for a Norwegian psychological thriller, BØRRE. I’m very glad to be back where I could breathe (almost literally) more easily. This three-week trip to Thailand has been one of the most emotionally broad that I’ve encountered in my entire life, so broad in fact, that it’s left me a bit dazed. Even now, four days after my return, I haven’t left the house yet, due to an odd reaction to my journey over the past few weeks and as I’m now working on a new orchestral/choral piece of a large scale. Details will follow.
