RHS 2015 musicians. Here is all the info for musician rehearsals and performances for TAG’s 2015 production of The Rocky Horror Show at the Historic Lincoln Theatre in Mount Vernon, WA.
ENNW Jan 2015 Cover Story: Romeo and Juliet the musical
Thank you to Marla Bronstein and Entertainment News Northwest magazine for their cover story on the premiere of my third full length musical: Romeo and Juliet.
Read the full article on the ENNW website at http://issuu.com/ennw/docs/ennw-january_2015
Continue reading “ENNW Jan 2015 Cover Story: Romeo and Juliet the musical”
Romeo and Juliet the musical – World Premiere January 2015
Romeo and Juliet the musical will have it’s world premiere January 30 – February 15, 2015 at the Historic Lincoln Theatre in Mount Vernon, WA.
RJ is my largest and most advanced musical score to date and features 10+ live musicians with a cast of 30+. The script and lyrics use only the original source text from William Shakespeare’s original Romeo and Juliet. Our time period is the authentic time period of Shakespeare’s original world premiere of RJ, late sixteenth century (1592-1594).
This work is orchestrated for Key 1, Key 2, Trombone, Horn, Flute/Piccolo/Recorder, Oboe, Clarinet/Bass Clarinet, Drums Bass and Guitar.
In over 400 years, since the original premiere of Romeo and Juliet, there has never been a successful musical rendition that has been embraced by both audiences and theater critics. Artistically this is a momentous challenge as we aim to do just that. We are brave. We are strong. We are RJ 2015. HUZZAH!
Follow our progress at the website for Romeo and Juliet the musical
Lyman, WA photos
I had a great time taking a break to take some photos in Lyman, WA. Particularly I enjoyed the rustic landscape and looking for interesting textures that we might overlook on a brisk walk.

I’m always amazed how just having a camera in hand can change our perspective for what the eye notices in it’s surroundings.
Sibelius and MainStage for Music Scoring
(Score sample of Keyboard Two part from Conrad Askland’s “Romeo and Juliet – the musical”, July 2014)
As I’m working on orchestrations for my third full length musical, “Romeo and Juliet” (http://www.RJmusical.com), I realize the need for a particular scoring approach for the Keyboard Two part. Here is the solution I came up with to incorporate Apple’s MainStage with Sibelius for use in orchestrations and creating the final Keyboard Two patch setup.
Rock of Ages 2014 NCL New York Arsenal band Spanish newspaper write up

From left to right: Miki Santamaria (Guitar 2), Conrad Askland (Music Director and Keyboards), Paul Wandtke (Drums) and Angel Paz (Guitar 1).
Diario de Pontevedra, a Spanish newspaper, published an article about our Rock of Ages lead guitar player Angel Paz and included a photo of our band. This is “Arsenal” for the 2014 Rock of Ages at NCL New York.
We’ve had a great run as the 80’s Arsenal band on this show. A lot of work, but totally worth it and a stunning cast to work with both on and off the stage. Now, if I can only figure out what the article actually says…
PAN scores completed
The scripts and scores are completed for my latest musical – “PAN” (http://www.PanMusical.com). Even though the show had a community theater premiere in Sept. 2013, the follow-up process of completing the scores is very intense. Edits to script and score from the live run have to be incorporated. Tech notes, alternate melodies, clarifications to script and tech, and the never ending process of adding as much complete information as possible to the final orchestral score.
Rock of Ages band NCL Breakaway 2014
Here’s the Rock of Ages band for the NCL Breakaway run from March through September 2014 out of New York. We just finished several weeks of rehearsals down by Tampa, Florida and we’re getting ready to install the show on the ship.
Auditions Oct. 7-8, 2014 Romeo and Juliet the musical
Auditions for Conrad Askland’s Romeo and Juliet the musical will be October 7-8, 2014 at the Historic Lincoln Theatre in Mount Vernon, WA. Visit www.RJMusical.com to sign up for auditions.
This show will be a world premiere with an all new musical score set to the original words of William Shakespeare. Directed by Joe Bowen and presented by META Performing Arts. This live musical version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet will run Jan. 30 – Feb. 15, 2015 at the Lincoln Theatre in Mount Vernon, WA.
There will be NO participation fees for this particular production.
C.L. Askland’s Romeo and Juliet opera scored on an Akai LPK25
My upcoming musical theater opera, “Romeo and Juliet” was written with an Akai LPK25 two-octave USB keyboard. What? Muahaha, yes! In retrospect kind of hard to fathom, but there she is. I did all the music composition and beginning orchestration sketches in the Officer’s Bar of a cruise ship on my off time. The Akai LPK25 keyboard has convenient octave switching buttons on the side so I was able to easily navigate through bass and treble parts for fairly effortless composing. It was only a little tedious when doing soprano vocal lines; that’s when I really wish I had that extra octave. But hey, writing an opera on a two octave keyboard that fits in my computer bag – I’ll take that! Thank you Akai for an awesome product!
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