Penka Kouneva and I just finished another orchestral project, a 10-minute commission titled “Triptych” that she composed for the Youth Symphony Orchestra Progressive in her home country of Bulgaria.

Penka did all the composing and orchestrating for the orchestral instruments, but because she was busy working on other projects at the same time she entrusted me with the percussion arranging to support her writing. Penka is a very high-caliber and exacting composer, so the fact that she entrusts me with her music is always a great honor. We dropped my percussion writing into her score, our trusty ally Junko Tamura did the music copyist work, and everything worked wonderfully.

Rehearsals begin soon, and the concert will be held on July 24 in the ancient Roman Amphitheater in the city of Plovdiv, which was built between 90-100 A.D.