Hello friends, I’ve got another musical treat for you from our Musical Millennial, who is a college senior studying Jazz Composition and piano. We saw him perform his original jazz composition, Not a Nightmare, with the University of Texas Jazz Orchestra a few weeks ago, and now it is available on YouTube. I hope you’ll give it a listen – it’s wonderful! These performers, a diverse group of undergrads and masters/doctoral students, are incredibly talented.
Big thanks to everyone involved for breathing life into this music – namely, my peers in the UTJO for performing it beautifully; our director, Jeff Hellmer, for leading the charge and conducting; and finally, my two fellow soloists, Aaron Garcia and Ben Newsome for lending their unique improvisational talents.
Thomas Wenglinski, introducing the recording in a Facebook post
I love instrumental music, but can connect to it more when I know something about it. Especially when it has a provocative title like Not a Nightmare. The inspiration for the tune is described in the program notes from the concert:
An “unprecedented sense of clarity and ease”…I want to have a dream like that! During the dreamy performance of Not a Nightmare, the mood was more thoughtful concentration, as you can see from the photo below.
I realized that Thomas looks a little bit like Schroeder from the Peanuts, don’t you think?
Our Musical Millennial 
Schroeder from the Peanuts
If you listed to the recording and would like to hear more, you’ll find that most of the posts under the Music tab in the menu bar above include compositions from our Musical Millennial, AKA Thomas Wenglinski. (Or you can just click here to browse through them.) There’s also a concert coming up on Friday, November 15 at 7:30 CST that will be live-streamed at this link.
More to come…
Great music and very good musicians, looking forward to checking out more from your Musical Millennial.
Best regards
Jan