I recently composed a piece, Mandala, to celebrate the retirement of my undergraduate saxophone professor. Read about it, listen to a recording, and download the score for free!
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Welcome to Season 2 of The Theisen Journal! Take two minutes to read up on what’s been going on and everything I have in store for you…
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Soprano Laura Strickling recently launched her 40@40 Project - a mission to commission forty new songs by forty composers as a fortieth birthday present to herself. Read up about this incredible undertaking - and my own compositional contribution!
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I was recently interviewed for the podcast The Composer Chronicles and that episode is out now! I had a great time discussing my approach to composing, my backstory, and moving between musical genres with podcast creator and host Stephen Trygar. Listen here!
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I was recently interviewed for the podcast The Process and that episode will debut this coming Friday! Hosted by Doug Bielmeier, we listened to my 2014 composition Ondes et Ombres and discussed my earliest composer gigs, working with form, and the importance of the audience. Read more about this exciting podcast and its goals…
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Sometimes collaborations take a while to actually come into existence. I have known Dr. Cheyenne Cruz for a dozen years but only recently had the occasion to compose a work for her. The result was Chaotic Neutral/Chaotic Good for solo bass clarinet - a three-minute piece that is all fury, funk, madness, and groove. Listen to the premiere and read more about my goals as I wrote it…
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The voice/saxophone performance duo and curatorial team I am in, Megan Ihnen & Alan Theisen present… (MIATp), recently became a partner ensemble with ADJ•ective New Music Composers’ Collective and we could not be happier about that fact! We spoke about this - and many, many more subjects - with ADJ member Robert McClure on a new episode of the Lexical Tones Podcast.
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This is the twentieth issue of The Theisen Journal and to celebrate I am going to share some big career news! I have resigned my position as tenured associate professor at Mars Hill University, leaving full-time academia in order to focus on my work as composer, performer, author, and private studio educator.
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A couple of months ago, I was interviewed for the podcast Sounds of the World and that episode dropped this week! We discussed my early life, my journey as self-trained composer, my list of Top 5 Scotches for under $100 per bottle, and so much more. The entire episode is about an hour long and I promise you’ll have a great time. Pieces of mine featured include excerpts from Ondes et Ombres, “there are so many tictoc” from when you touch, and Crescent City Postcards.
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This week marks the one-year publication anniversary of the NewMusicShelf Anthology of New Music for Alto Saxophone, Volume 1, curated by yours truly. To celebrate this occasion, I am dedicating Issue No. 13 of The Theisen Journal to reflecting on this project’s inception, goals, composers, launch recital, and further developments!
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I was recently interviewed by collaborative composer Adam Kennaugh for an episode of his Making Noise Podcast. What resulted was an intense 150 (!!!) minutes of discussion about purpose, empathy, creativity, psychoactive substances, the power of self-imposed discomfort, meditation, and “following dumb ideas.” Listen here!
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This past week was a joyous one. My sister got married on Saturday and two compositions of mine were performed on opposite ends of the United States: Sleep Now O Sleep Now for clarinet/piano and Planetesimal Bump for jazz ensemble. If you want to listen to the streamed recordings and discover a little about these pieces, read on!
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