SHERMAN, TEXAS — Three compositions written by John McGinn, Austin College assistant professor of music, are featured in the August playlist put forth by the National Association of Composers/USA website.
McGinn’s pieces are among 37 selected in the three-hour playlist, available at Web Radio at www.music-usa.org/nacusa. The playlist repeats continuously throughout the month.
“I’m pleased that I’m being featured and I hope people enjoy the music,” McGinn said.
His compositions are “A Few New Tricks,” movements three and four; “Free Improvisation” with Susan Forrest Harding; and “Dream Prologue.”
“A Few New Tricks” is a 1995 composition performed by the San Francisco ensemble CityWinds. The improvisational piece is from a solo CD produced in 1999. McGinn performs on the keyboard while Harding plucks the strings inside of a piano. The piece won a “Burton’s Best of the Best” listener award on the “Latest Score” show on the WOMR radio station in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
“Dream Prologue” was written while McGinn was an undergraduate and is his most- performed piece. He plays the piano in the solo piece.
Last year, two of McGinn’s compositions were performed. A 20-piece ensemble entitled “Score for Score” was performed by the Inscape Chamber Orchestra in Maryland in October, and “A Tad Low-Strung” was performed at the College Music Society regional conference in March.
McGinn is composing a piece for trio—clarinet, violin, and piano—to be performed in the fall with Austin College faculty Ricky Duhaime, professor of music, and Cathy Richardson, adjunct instructor, as well as an ensemble piece for the Sherman Symphony orchestra, to be performed in the 2011-2012 season.
McGinn will teach music theory, ear training, composition, and 20th century music appreciation during Fall Term 2010, as he begins his third academic year at Austin College.
Austin College is a leading national independent liberal arts college located north of Dallas in Sherman, Texas. Founded in 1849, making it the oldest institution of higher education in Texas operating under original charter and name, the college is related by covenant to the Presbyterian Church (USA). Recognized nationally for academic excellence in the areas of international education, pre-professional training, and leadership studies, Austin College is one of 40 schools profiled in Loren Pope’s influential book Colleges that Change Lives
