I’m very much looking forward to having two world premieres of instrumental works at Michigan Technological University in ultra-snowy Houghton, MI as part of “UP North-South: a festival of music from both ends of 41.” This series of festivals is organized annually on different themes by Libby Meyer, composer and director of the composition program at Tech, and my fiancé Thomas LaVoy both immensely enjoyed attending last year’s events as well.

The first concert, focusing on composers and musicians from the Upper Peninsula, will be on Friday the 17th at 7:30 pm in McArdle Theater. The PULSE Trio from Miami (the other end of Route 41) will perform on Saturday the 18th at the Rosza Center at 7:30 PM, and the festival will end with more performances by Upper Peninsula musicians on the 19th at 3 pm at McArdle Theater.

My piece Heliograph, written for Patrick Booth (saxophone) and Carrie Biolo (vibraphone), will be featured on the Friday concert. Pat and Carrie are both well-known performers in the area and elsewhere, and they have compositions being performed as well. My “fantasy” for solo violin O Wast Wind will also be featured on the Sunday concert, written for Danielle Simandl of Superior String Alliance. My fiancé Thomas LaVoy will also be performing his composition Two Urns for solo piano, opening the Friday concert. Other featured composers include Elena Ruehr and Griffin Candey.

US Route 41 runs from the Copper Harbor on the remote tip of the Keewenaw peninsula, through Wisconsin to Chicago, along the western edge of Indiana to Nashville and Chattanooga, through Georgia along the west coast of Florida to terminate in Miami at the scenic coastal Route 1.