From istanbul: a concerto for viola and orchestra i have never been anything of a musicologist. I much prefer to find the colors of a musical environ- ment by filtering them through my own experiences, or in this case, my lack of experience. I have nev- er been to turkey. But i do know a wonderful, turkish-born viola player named osman kivrak. This concerto is a tourist‘s view of istan- bul. I enjoyed writing a very, very american piece about a country i have only known through nation- al geographic world maps and fuzzy cnn new stories. I worked with osman extensively to find the things that only a viola can bring to a piece of music. The fireman's carnival the clarinetist, ben redwine plays this. And he really found the exact right misty tone to bring this piece to life. When i was eleven years old, my family moved to a town of 800 in rural pennsylvania. I now see what a wonderful way this was to grow up. Each year there was a fireman‘s carnival at the local volunteer firehouse, a rusty quon- set hut a quarter of a mile from our house. This magical event sprang up overnight like a mushroom. The ferris wheel, the house of mirrors and other tiny rides arrived on trucks driven by greasy and somewhat frightening carnies. My sisters and i would ride our bicycles at night on unlit streets to this suddenly illuminated and noisy space that the night before had been an empty overgrown lot next to the firehouse. The far tortoogas in january of 2007 i swore that this would be the year that i got to score a pirate movie. Alas, no one called me to score a buccaneer film of any sort. So i took all the pirate thoughts that have, quite frankly, been building up for years and wrote my own pirate movie. Of course the picture part of this film is up to you. The orchestra on these three pieces is again the crackerjack all-star orchestra. Chris jewel plays the featured bas- soon part. David lonkevich plays the flute and piccolo parts- yes that one aggravating note that appears over and over again. The strings section led by terri lazar and kim miller is always wonder- ful. Percussionist and timpanist mark carson has always amazed me with his pallet of sonic possi- bilities.