On February 21, 2016 the Pittsburgh Symphony premiered a symphony which I orchestrated for composer Stewart Copeland. Originally a smaller commission from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, we expanded it to a full 3-movement symphony entitled Tyrant’s Crush. In addition to orchestrating for Stewart I also was the music copyist and engraver for sheet music publisher G. Schirmer.

Fun story about this piece:

My first project with Stewart was in 2010, a large one for the Dallas Symphony which required a lot of time for instrumental parts preparation. While doing that work I was listening to a lot of Stewart’s music, and late at night I landed on a track called Regret. It was the last track of a compilation album, only one minute long, almost thrown away, but it had a nice quiet vibe. I left it on repeat for hours while working in the middle of the night.

The CD liner notes, in tiny print, on the last page, also thrown away, said this little theme was one of his favorite and he hopes to make it into something larger one day. It was only piano and bass, and it sounded like virtual instruments. My guess was that it had never been transcribed, so I wrote it down for him.

My little transcription sat prominently on a music stand near his workstation for a long time, and eventually he got around to it. One of the prominent themes in this symphony Tyrant’s Crush is that theme from Regret.