I just got finished playing an awesome work by my good friend Dylan Glatthorn. Dylan is a native of St. Petersburg, Florida and a fellow senior at New York University with me. He is the winner of the Alan Menken Scholarship here and I believe he has been working on the musical since he’s been here at NYU. I played some of the music last year when it was beginning to take shape at his Junior recital and was called again to play at his backer’s audition just yesterday.
I remember when we played it last year and I only had a glimpse of some of the show’s big numbers. “Who wears the pants around here” and “My Dear Friend” were among those and I was tremendously impressed with the fluidity and ease of the composition. Not only were the some of the songs catchy, but for a number from a musical, I found “My Dear Friend” to be quite moving. Maybe it’s just the music nerd in me, but the double fugue in that number rocks.
This past Monday though, the completeness of the work, and the ability of the songs to pull my strings just floored me. I would like to congratulate Dylan for the incredible work he’s put in the project and the sheer awesomeness of scope, art and “professional soundingness” of the piece he just laid out.
That being said, along with the disclaimer of him being my friend and working for him, there were some issues I had with the show. The book, though short in temporal space, seems long, particularly (I think) because there are so many threads interwoven in the story. I think the songs are far stronger than the dialogue (no disrespect to the director). I also think that the music could be a little tighter nit from a motivic standpoint, but I don’t doubt that this will improve as there are further revisions to the show (the first half was very well put together in this regard, the second was a little loose).
This is me boosting for the incredible Dylan Glatthorn.