Nick Hwang

I haven’t written in a very long time.

Last semester, I arranged and directed music to an LSU theatre production of Maria Irene Fornes’s Promenade , music by Al Carmines. It was an “experimental” musical at the time in the 1970′s, that didn’t reach much success. Fornes’s obsurdist approach to forming the piece may have rubbed audiences the wrong way.

The LSU production of Promenade was a large success, being sold out every night and not not being a main stage show. The work I put into it did pay off in the connections I made with the theatre department. I am looking to do sound design and compose music for at least two shows next fall semester.

This semester I started work on my opera- Southern Werewolf. It’s a one act opera for soprano and baritone, based off a play by a fellow LSU grad student in the theatre department of the same name. It’s a story based in Southen Louisiana, around Lafayette parish. It’s a love story between a werewolf and vampire.

Latex Post

I’m sitting in a 15-seat van on the way to Denton, Texas for Electric Latex, an electroacoustic festival held in the South. It’s an eight hour drive. We’re on hour 6. My electroacoustic professor and 7 composers. At any given time, there are 3 powerbooks/macbook pro’s being used. One is learning to program in java, one notating music, and I writing a blog post.

Yesterday I spent a hundred dollars at Kinkos making copies of my music for my portfolio. It makes me anxious wondering where I will be in a year. That the hundred dollars I just spent will probably be good enough to get me into a good doctoral program.

I told my sister last night that I felt I had finally begun to digest the things that I have learned here at LSU, Baton Rouge, and the people I’ve met here. I am a different person than when I arrived. I feel like a different person from 5 months ago. My transition into Baton Rouge was pretty smooth, will my next move be as easy?

Thanksgiving is coming up and I wonder what I will be doing. 2 years ago, I had a turkey sandwich and fell asleep in my living room (on my futon – my bed at the time). Last year, I went home for Thanksgiving. This year, I’m not sure.