Adam O’Dell – photo by Dan McClanahan and McClanahan Studios, Ames, Iowa.

Last month we announced the winners of the “Take Your Music Further with Garritan” composition contest. Today I’d like to introduce one of the winners, Adam O’Dell, who received a runner-up prize for his composition An Irish Morning. Adam O'Dell is a composer, freelance pianist, and a freshman music composition/piano performance major at Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa.

Scott Yoho: First of all, congratulations! Where were you when you heard that you learned you were one of the three winners?

Adam O’Dell: I was with my friends in the Clarke cafeteria. I had gone to the Finale site to check on the contest and clicked on “winners announced.” When I saw my picture in that row of three, I just about dropped my phone! Needless to say I was pretty excited.

SY: As the winner of a $700 air travel gift certificate, do you have travel plans?

AO: I think I’m heading to Ireland in July with a friend of mine who has some relatives there.

SY: Which is perfect, given the Irish flavor of your composition. Did you create it in Finale?

AO: Yes.

SY: What was your introduction to Finale?

AO: I went to Dubuque Senior High School here in town. My teacher, Mr. Rowley, had Finale 2003 in the music lab. I had written a few things that I was playing on piano but hadn’t notated. Mr. Rowley introduced me to Finale and suggested I use it. From there I started writing down some jazz band things that I did, and that same year I started writing my first band piece.

SY: What is your compositional workflow? Do you compose in Finale, or do you sketch first – what is your work process?

AO: When I think of something and I’m in some random place like at the store, I’ll have my iPod or my phone on me, and I’ll just hit record and just hum an idea in, which may make me look a little crazy.

Otherwise I’ll improvise at the piano and if I hear something I like I’ll write it down.

SY: Then Finale comes into play as you flesh things out further?

AO: Absolutely. I tend to think harmonically when an idea comes to me, but I often find out after putting my ideas into Finale that the harmony might not work as well as I wanted it to. That's when I start playing the chords on piano, fixing things or noodling with textures on Finale, and giving the piece another listen. I'm pretty sure I've pressed the Playback button more than any other Finale user in history.

SY: For the sounds in your piece, did you use only Garritan sounds that came with Finale?

AO: Yes. Primarily the orchestral harp and flute player 1.

SY: It sounds great. I think it’s exciting for those new to Finale to hear your piece and think that they have all the gear they need to create something that sounds this impressive!

What can you tell me about the inspiration for your piece? 

AO: Clarke is an Irish Catholic school, so we have the opportunity to learn a lot about Irish culture. I became instantly fascinated with Celtic music, so I’ve been looking into the music and poetry trying to find more to work with. I’ve starting writing Celtic chamber music; I composed a setting for the Irish blessing text. So I was inspired by the music and culture of Ireland.

Also, I’d like to thank my composition professor, Dr. Amy Dunker, as well. She really helped me develop my compositional style, and helped me fine-tune the piece to be the best it could be.

I’d like to thank Adam for sharing his thoughts with us, and for acknowledging the role music educators played in his development – a great reminder to us all how we can really make a difference in our students’ lives.

MakeMusic CEO Karen van Lith

Juan Costello, senior analyst for the Wall Street Reporter, recently interviewed MakeMusic CEO Karen van Lith.

In addition to highlighting our Finale, SmartMusic and Garritan products, the investor-focused conversation covers:

• Recent corporate developments and partnerships,
• Karen’s perspective on future education and technology trends,
• MakeMusic’s advantages in the marketplace,
• Karen’s background and experience in transforming companies, and much more.

If you’ve ever been curious to hear about the business strategy behind MakeMusic, this is a great opportunity to hear it directly from the top.

Take a listen to the interview here: http://www.wallstreetreporter.com/2012/05/make-music-nasdaqmmus-ceo-interview and let us know what you think by clicking on “Comments” below.

Composer Christopher Theofanidis with students at Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School in New Haven, CT

BandQuest® is a project of the American Composers Forum (ACF) that pairs up world-class composers with middle school bands. The program recently came up in conversation, and I realized what a great story it would make for our blog. So I scheduled a call with Suzanna Altman, the manager of education and community engagement at the ACF, to help me fill in the details. As you’ll see below, the timing of our conversation was very fortuitous.

Scott Yoho: What are the origins of BandQuest?

Suzanna Altman: Back in the 1990s the ACF underwent a very extensive survey of music educators. We were trying to learn what the forum, as an organization with a really great resource of national composers, could do for the field of music education.

What we discovered, through an overwhelming response, was a shortage of repertoire for middle school bands. We recognized that we could help by commissioning composers to write new music for middle school band, and we could publish the results nationally.

SY: How does the program work?

SA: BandQuest has two parts: There’s the initial commission, and the residency process. So there’s one specific school that has a very personal experience with one composer. The composer writes that school a piece that’s really for them – they get to premiere it and have a great experience with that composer.

We set up the residency; the composer visits the school several times, and then works on writing the piece for the school. We stay in contact with the composer and the school through the process of the writing. As the composer finishes, they send us files. Hopefully they are Finale files, if they’re not we convert them because we do all our editing in Finale. We can ensure that the final look is always consistent by using Finale. Then we publish the music. Hal Leonard distributes for us, so the pieces get really widely distributed not only throughout the U.S. but also around the world.

SY: How much repertoire have you created?

SA: We’re about to publish our 19th piece with the series – at first we did a few a year, now we do one each year. It’s been highly, highly successful. We’ve added a lot of new pieces to the repertoire that have a very different feel than what was available before.

Michael Colgrass wrote a piece that’s been very popular called Old Churches that calls for metal mixing bowls to be played by the percussionists to kind of sound like church bells in the distance – and there’s a little bit of graphic notation involved in that piece. He spent a lot of time with the students in the school where he did his residency to write the piece, talking to them about graphic notation, and encouraging them to write their own pieces using graphic notation.

The piece that came out last year was by an up-and-coming composer named Chris Theofanidis, who is a professor at Yale. He wrote a piece called Sweet like that for a band in New Haven. He went into the school and asked the students: “This is going to be a piece for you. What would you want?” One student asked to play drum set, other percussionists wanted to play fun percussion instruments, and of course the flutists all wanted to play piccolo (some, but not all of them get to play piccolo in the piece).

The tuba player wanted a solo because he so rarely gets to be heard, so the piece starts and ends with a low brass emphasis. It’s been a really well-received piece in part because Chris responded to what students were looking for and what they wanted.

SY: And Michael and Chris are just two members of an amazing list of participating composers.

SA: The goal was always to get the best composers we could to be a part of these. Our advisory board has a dream list of who they’d love to have participate, and it’s remarkable how many of these composers have agreed to participate and add to the education repertory, and affect the lives of children.

Okay, here’s where the story gets even better. The very day I spoke to Suzanna, she received some exciting news. She learned that this year’s BandQuest composer—who is currently working with the Scarsdale Middle School in Scarsdale, NY—had won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in music. He is, of course, Kevin Puts!

SA: Kevin is actually the fourth BandQuest composer to win the Pulitzer Prize. It’s fun too, because he’s not done with the residency, so I just got to email the teacher to share the news!

Imagine being a band director and sending home a note that your students have been studying with a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer.

You can learn more about BandQuest at the official site. Here you can listen to all the pieces, and several include additional curriculum materials (and more are on the way). In addition, many BandQuest pieces are also available in SmartMusic, so feel free to explore them there too.

Check out the compositions and let us know what you think by clicking on “Comments” below!

Jeremy Levy and Scott Yoho at the 2012 NAMM Show

After receiving a master's degree from the University of Miami in Studio Jazz Writing in 2004, Jeremy Levy headed to Los Angeles with the goal of bringing his music to a wider audience. Since then he has worked in nearly every medium, including film, television, and video games. Recent examples of each include Tower Heist, The Event, No Ordinary Family, Battlestar Gallactica, Batman: Arkham City, Infamous 2, and God of War 3. He has also provided arranging and music preparation services on everything from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, to American Idol.

Since 2007, Levy has co-led the Budman/Levy Orchestra alongside saxophonist Alex Budman and a host of first-call LA session musicians. On April 17, their first album, “From There to Here” is being released on Origin/OA2 records. I recently spoke to Jeremy about the CD release, his career, and his use of Finale.

SY: What brought you to LA, what were your goals?

JL: Like all composers moving to LA, I was hoping to get into the film world. I’ve subsequently put most of my effort getting into film orchestration, because that seemed like the best fit as I’m mostly from a strict notation background. Seeing as piano is not my primary instrument, I’ve always preferred the digital pen and paper way – like Finale – over using DAW software. I’ve always written in that fashion for full orchestra or big band or large ensemble, where you’re dealing with all the minutiae, which I’ve always really enjoyed. Originally, I did more session work as a trombonist too, but I’ve had to pare that down in favor of my writing.

SY: How does it work co-leading the group? Do you each assume separate roles?

JL: Originally we were both composing, but the way it’s gone he’s done more studio and touring work, and I’ve done more composing/arranging/orchestration since then. So I’ve sort of taken over the writing side of the band.

The way it’s going to work out is the way it is on the record. As composer, I create the internal musical voice for the band, and as the artist, Alex brings it to life. Like if you look at some of those Michael Brecker records where he had Pat Metheny playing. Pat already has his own distinct musical voice (and is a huge influence on my writing), but Brecker would bring something wholly unique to his tunes. That’s what we did on this record. There are 11 tunes, 9 are originals, two are arrangements. I wrote all the music, and Alex is featured on almost everything.

SY: Let’s talk about the recording. The sound of “From There to Here” is decidedly up-to-date. What or who inspired the sound you were going for?

JL: Musically, I think of it as somewhat along the lines of Maria Schneider, that kind of contemporary jazz orchestra type of thing. I have a diverse musical background, and it all comes to play into this. I’m interested in rock and pop production, and I love all the great fusion records from the 70s and 80s. We also do an arrangement of a song from Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, to further keep things fresh. I’m definitely coming from a less pure jazz point of view than from the Blue Note era.

SY: This is a modern recording, and you went to great lengths to craft the sound.

JL: We approached this project sort of like a film session. The rhythm tracks were recorded separately from the band. Then we recorded the ensemble sections in a larger studio, and later solos, string quartet, and percussion, so the production was more like a pop or rock record. We were going for a much tighter, produced sound.

We were aiming for a modern big band sound, especially in the mixing. We hired Alex's good friend, Steve Baughman, to mix the record. He has mixed records for lots of best selling hip-hop artists, like 50 Cent and The Game. He got us sounding very modern and not entirely like a traditional big band record, which I think is a good thing.

SY: Tell me about Finale’s role in the process.

JL: Every single tune, every single note, every single part was written in Finale. This would be impossible for me to accomplish without Finale.

SY: Is your creative process to sketch on paper first?

JL: That’s kind of come and gone over the years. Now I tend to have a template open and put sketches right into Finale. I pretty much start at point A and go to the end. Sometimes I might sketch out the whole arrangement, then go back and fill in the orchestration, but most often I’ll write the whole thing, full orchestrated, from beginning to end, over two or three days or sometimes faster. I’m pretty quick. I tend to think in more full-fledged ideas.

SY: I imagine some of this is the result of the discipline you’d had to acquire through your professional work, doing weekly TV shows, and other projects with crazy deadlines.

JL: Yeah, I’m definitely pretty fast entering notes and moving music around using QuicKeys to program all my shortcuts and keystroke combinations. Tim Davies (Hollywood orchestrator/conductor), whom I've been working with for quite awhile, really helped get my chops up. I consider him a Finale guru.

SY: What are some of your favorite Finale productivity tools?

JL: I like Jari Williamson’s new Explode plug in, I’ve been using that a lot. (http://www.finaletips.nu) When doing parts I use the TG Tools Modify>Transfer—it's one that I couldn't really live without. (http://www.tgtools.de)

SY: I haven’t used Jari’s new Explode plug-in, what is it that you like about it?

JL: The biggest difference is that it automatically explodes down from the top staff of whatever is selected, instead of having to manually click a destination choice. Getting rid of that extra step really speeds things up. Jari also created a plug-in called "Rhythm Copy," which has been incredibly useful for quickly changing rhythms without changing the pitches.

SY: You were kind enough to share notation examples from two tunes ("From There to Here" score and piano part and "It's Like That" score and tenor sax 1 part). Soundcloud links to audio of each piece appears at the bottom of this post. Can you tell me a little about each peice?

JL: The title track “From There to Here” features pianist Andy Langham on melodica, while on “It’s Like That” we really dug into the pop production. I think we used 3 different types of guitars over five or six separate tracks of overdubs.

SY: Nice looking parts!

JL: I always aim for my parts be that classic LA session look, generally four bars to a line, easily laid-out page turns, so all my parts are always 5-7 pages. It’s always that compromise between page turns and legibility. I find players really respond well to nicely prepared music that is easy to read down.

SY: In addition to your personal website and the group website, you also have an online shop for your music, including your charts, at http://jlevymusic.myshopify.com/. Got any tips for others trying to sell their scores and parts?

JL: I’m selling recordings and charts through Shopify, which is sort of an online shop template/host. You pay a monthly hosting fee, and they deal with everything else. You just enter your products, tweak their slick looking templates, and it’s all set up. I use a plug-in called Fetch for digital content like pdfs and mp3s. When someone buys a CD, I get an automated text message telling me the PayPal payment was received, along with the buyer's shipping address. Then, I just have to head over to the post office.

SY: What are your goals for the CD?

JL: In general, I’m looking to get some more national exposure for my writing, to get more commissions and arranging work. I’d like to be doing more production and arranging on rock/poprecords. My friend Chris Walden is a great example of the kind of work I would like to further pursue. I'm currently helping Chris with arrangements on a new record for Matthew Morrison of Glee fame, being produced by Phil Ramone. By the way, Chris is another fellow Finale user!

The CD release show for “From There to Here” is happening in Studio City, CA on May 1, 2012. Check out the show and share your subsequent review by clicking on “Comments” below.

Like to read manuals? Neither do I. I learn much better when I watch something done in context.

One great way for people like me to learn how to get more out of Finale is to attend a live demonstration by Finale product specialist Tom Johnson. Tom brings great enthusiasm, humor, and energy to the subject while sharing only the essentials. Unfortunately, it hasn’t always been possible to have Tom come to your house on your schedule.

Until now.

During his recent visit to Minnesota we captured Tom on video, demonstrating some of the “Eight Great Finale Tips” that have been so popular in his live demonstrations. Today the first four of these are available for you to view at your convenience.

Click on Tom above to check them out, and let us know what you think by clicking on “Comments” below.

Today’s blog post is admittedly a lot like an ad, but it does answer a commonly-asked question.

Q: I own Finale 2012, which contains some great Garritan sounds. Why would I buy Garritan Personal Orchestra or one of the other additional Garritan Libraries?

A: While Finale 2012 includes sounds from many Garritan libraries including Jazz & Big Band, Concert and Marching Band and World, it borrows most heavily from Garritan Personal Orchestra 4 (GPO4). That said, Finale includes only a subset of GPO4’s “greatest hits.”

To get a sense of what GPO4 offers Finale users, take a look at the difference in the flute section alone:

Finale includes: Flute Player 1, Flute Player 2, Flute Player 3, Flute Solo, Flute Section, and Piccolo Solo.

GPO4 includes: Alto Flute Solo, Alto Flute Player 1, Alto Flute Player 2, Alto Flute Player 3, Bass Flute Solo w/vibrato, Bass Flute solo no vibrato, Bass Flute Player 1, Bass Flute Player 2, Bass Flute Player 3, Flute Solo w/vibrato, Flute solo no vibrato, Flute Solo Keyswitch (allows user to switch between vibrato, non-vibrato and flutter), Flute Solo Flutter, Flute Player 1, Flute Player 2, Flute Player 3, Piccolo Solo w/vibrato, Piccolo Solo no vibrato, Piccolo Solo Keyswitch, and Piccolo Flutter.

In short, if all you need is a couple examples of the most commonly used instruments, Finale has you covered. If you want a wider selection of instruments and performance techniques, GPO 4 (and the other full Garritan Products) are for you. Interested? Finale owners can download GPO4 for $129 today.

Additional resources:

• See a list of all the Garritan sounds in Finale
• The best list of all the sounds in GPO 4 begins on page 104 of the GPO 4 Manual
• Here's an abbreviated GPO4 list
• Learn more about Instant Orchestra, and all the other Garritan Libraries

What do you think? Too much like an ad? Helpful? Please let me know what you'd like to see in future blog posts by clicking on "Comments" below.

Manuscript image © Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. All rights reserved. Excerpt from the English translation and chants
of The Roman Missal © 2010, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation. All rights reserved.

The Roman Missal is the book of ritual texts used for all celebrations of the Catholic Mass throughout the church year. It existed only in Latin until the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s allowed its translation into modern languages. Four decades after that historic change, the Catholic Church authorized an updated English translation which is more faithful to the original Latin. This new translation was introduced to English-speaking Catholics on November 27, 2011.

The new translation also required new musical settings, since many parts of the rite can be chanted instead of spoken. The Missal contains more than 400 such musical examples. Today we’ll meet Steve Fiskum, one of the people behind engraving all those chants in his role as senior music engraver at World Library Publications. A five-time recipient of the Music Publishers Association’s Paul Revere Award, Steve clearly had the expertise required to meet the exacting standards for this historic publication.

Scott Yoho: How did World Library Publications (WLP) come to work on this project?

Steve Fiskum: Interested publishers submitted requests to BCDW (the Bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship) for permission to publish the book. We were one of seven publishers granted permission to do so, and the only major U.S. music publishing company.

SY: I understand that ICEL (the International Commission on English in the Liturgy) provided music examples to the various publishers, and that unlike other publishers, WLP decided to re-engrave those examples.

SF: Every publisher has their own criteria, their own style. The examples provided did not meet our standards, so we chose to re-engrave them. Because we had the right expertise, engravers, and editors we were able to take this on.

SY: For those who haven’t seen the book in person, it’s beautiful—and immense. It has more than 1,400 pages. Despite the fact that the translation has been underway for quite some time, I understand you had a crazy deadline.

SF: Thank you. Yes, we didn’t receive the music files until January 2011, and frankly, the text was still being tweaked while we were in the middle of all this. It took us about a month, from January to mid-February, to determine styles, processes, and approve sample printouts. Once all decisions were made, we had three weeks to get the music engraved with little to no corrections. That’s 400 files of difficult chant music.

SY: Three weeks? How many people worked on this project?

SF: Four. It was 24/7. I put a bed in my home office, and told everyone they could contact me 24/7 for the next three weeks. It’s not unlike doing copy work, especially when working on tight recording sessions, or touring shows where copying music is usually the last thing and seems to be done under extremely tight deadlines if not less than 24 hours with an orchestra waiting for the charts. You work until you fall asleep, work until you fall asleep—you go back and forth awhile. Your sleep rhythm gets off for a while, but you get back on track. Those who know me know I like to take on difficult challenges.

SY: The size and the deadline weren’t the only challenges.

SF: One of the bigger challenges was the middle of the book, the Order of Mass. Here all the page turns were dictated to us so all of the publishers had to have the same page turns. This was done so priests could pick up any publisher’s book and not have to relearn all of the page breaks. We were allowed a bit of leeway with the music elements, especially page turns for better phrasings and such, but all text had to remain in the same place in all publishers’ books. Very difficult to re-engrave and achieve these results. We were able to do it with the help of Finale, QuicKeys, TGTools and the Patterson plug-in collection.

Another challenge was that the engraving style dictated to us that the text drives the book—even when it’s under music, because the text was to be the most important element on the page.

This means that the music spacing doesn’t determine where the text sits under the music but the text spacing determines the spacing of your notes—where your notes sit, which is different than what we would ordinarily do in any other music publication. With this project it’s interesting to see how involved in specific styles of music engraving the church decided to become. In our current time in history it is usually left up to the music publisher and their house style. This is definitely a change to be noted in music engraving history.

SY: You also chose to create new font characters?

SF: There are several symbols, like Vs and Rs with little lines through them, which we created as fonts using Fontlab. Then we had to send these fonts to the printer to make sure they all work the same for them that they do for us. We have to do that anyway for things like line thicknesses. We had to send the prototype fonts to the very press that the book will be printed on.

SY: You mentioned you need to do this with line thicknesses. I guess most people would assume this is a constant with modern printers.

SF: Whenever I’m working with a new printer I send out test samples for staff line thickness. They FedEx hard copies back to us and we review. All presses are different—even within the same plant. Each can output the same PDF I provide in different ways. With the new digital presses, the lines seem to be getting thinner, more precise.

I am fascinated by the huge differences subtle line thickness can cause. If the line thickness is too thick, the notes appear to go back and seem too small. Thinner lines help bring out the music. That’s part of the beauty of the art of music engraving. It’s a little geeky, but it’s something I love about all of this. And that’s what keeps me going. Finale lets me tweak anything to make it look exactly the way I need it to look.

SY: Where do you see this project in a historical context?

SF: It’s an important book. The last time this book was done was 40 years ago. This is the first time this has been done with electronic engraving using Finale and in the history of music engraving this is the first time in quite a long time that the church took a role in setting very specific music engraving criteria.

We looked at all the past Roman Missals and reviewed their styles before working on our book. Our work on this book will represent where engraving was in our lifetime (at this point in history) and I’m glad Finale was a part of that, not just on our end, but from ICEL as well. That they chose to use Finale over any other means is a great testament to what Finale is all about.

Eons from now, they’ll be able to say, here’s where Finale started with the Roman missal.

SY: Anything else you’d like to add?

SF: There’s no way we could have done this in three weeks using any other software—period!  

Contest winners Anthony O’Toole, Bojan Hoover, and Adam O’Dell

Today we’re pleased to announce the winners of the “Take Your Music Further with Garritan” composition contest.

For those of you unfamiliar with the contest, we asked contestants to develop a musical theme to create a piece of music—using Garritan sounds—that evoked their dream travel destination.

More than 200 entries were submitted. Ten finalists were selected by nearly 15,000 votes. The winners are:

• Anthony O’Toole of Media, PA, won the grand prize for his composition CA-91.
• Bojan Hoover of Minneapolis, MN, received a runner-up prize for his composition Sagarmatha.
• Adam O’Dell of Dubuque, IA, received a runner-up prize for his composition An Irish Morning.

To illustrate the ability of superior sounds to transport the creative process (and our listeners), the contest awards are travel-related. Anthony will receive a $2,000 United Airlines gift card and $500 in spending money. Bojan and Adam will each receive $700 United Airlines gift cards.

I hope to share more about the winners and their compositions in future blog posts.

Please join me in congratulating Anthony, Bojan, and Adam, as well as all the other contestants. The quality of the entries was amazing and my coworkers and I enjoyed hearing great sounds used so well. Check out all the compositions at the contest site.

Provided theme from the “Take Your Music Further with Garritan” composition contest.

As we posted last week, we plan to announce the winners of our “Take Your Music Further with Garritan” music composition contest next Tuesday, April 3, 2012. The winners will be selected by our panel of judges.

Who are these judges? In order to prevent cases of caviar and champagne mysteriously appearing in their mail slots, we’re keeping their identities confidential. But we’re glad to share a little about their credentials.

Our judging panel consists of four active composer/performers who all work in MakeMusic’s repertoire development department. Their department’s primary responsibility is the creation of notational content for SmartMusic. Regarding their accreditation:

• Judge #1: Bachelor’s degree in performance from the Manhattan School of Music
• Judge #2: Bachelor’s degree in commercial arranging from the Berklee School of Music
• Judge #3: Master’s degree in composition from Ithaca College
• Judge #4: Master’s and PhD in music composition from the University of Minnesota

While we all wait to hear their decision next Tuesday, I have a quickie contest to share with everyone.

The contest question is: “What significance does the provided theme (seen above) have in the context of the “Take Your Music Further” contest?” Or: “What about this theme makes it ideally suited for this contest?”

Whoever provides the correct answer first, by clicking on “Comments” below, will win a Finale T-shirt.

Please note: while blog comments are time-stamped the instant you send them, they don't appear until they are approved by a human. This keeps a ridiculous amount of spam off of the blog, but does result in a delay, so don't worry if you don't immediately see your reply!

Back in January we launched our “Take Your Music Further with Garritan” music composition contest.

Created to illustrate Garritan sound libraries' ability to transport the listener, the contest encouraged composers to develop a musical theme to create a piece of music – using Garritan sounds – that evoked their dream travel destination.

Today the contest finalists were announced. Determined by popular vote, the ten compositions that will proceed to the final round are:

• Rome - The Empire! by Jonathan Williams of Estes Park, Colorado
• CA-91 by Anthony O'Toole of Media, Pennsylvania
• Colorado Canyons and the Rivers of Time by Wanda Canfield of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania
• The Grey by Bryan Laurienti of Phoenix, Arizona
• Divided Korea by Bruce Buckingham of Kent, Washington
• Sagarmatha by Bojan Hoover of Minneapolis, Minnesota
• An Irish Morning by Adam O'Dell of Dubuque, Iowa
• Egyptian Verve by Dylan Perese of Minneapolis, Minnesota
• The Gates of Olympus Mons by Michael A. Russo of Brooklyn, New York
• United Soaring by Michaelangelo Henegan of Athens, Georgia

The next step will be for the contest judges to identify the contest winners. The results will be announced on Tuesday, April 3, 2012.

To underscore the ability of superior sounds to transport the creative process, the contest awards are travel-related. The grand prize is a $2,000 United Airlines gift card and $500 in spending money. Two runner-up prizes of $700 United Airlines gift cards will also be awarded.

I’d like to congratulate all the finalists as well as everyone who submitted a piece—everyone I’ve spoken with has commented on the high quality demonstrated by the entire field of entries.

Please listen to these amazing entries and learn more at the contest site, then share your reactions with us by clicking on “Comments” below.