Hello and welcome!

I have much to report, dear friends. I’ll try not to be too boring.
It’s been a year of many fabulous changes. My groovy business partners, Jamie Shields and Adam White, (composers extraordinaire) and I, officially signed on with an agent! the magnificent Amy Stulberg at Vanguarde Entertainment. Here’s the contact info, in case you’re interested:

AMY STULBERG – VANGUARDE ARTISTS MANAGEMENT
AGENT b: 416-972-9542 | f: 416-925-5337
119 Spadina Avenue, Suite 501 | Toronto, Ontario Canada M5V 2L1
www.vanguardeartists.com

So far the relationship has been mutually beneficial. Much enjoyable employment has ensued!

This year saw the release of a fabulous new Flying Bulgar CD, “Tumbling Into Light”, produced by Indie-madman, Dave Newfeld. We released the recording with a wildly ambitious, multi-media presentation at Toronto’s Young Centre in the super-cool Distillery district. Here’s a song from our record (video directed by the lovely and talented Bruce McDonald):

On the “yay me” front, I managed (along with J + A this time), to receive my third Gemini nomination, in the category of “Best achievement in bragging” (Actually in “score for a non-fiction series”)

2010 was definitely the busiest year for this lowly composer EVER.
Some of the projects I sprinkled with music included:

–Sex and Religion, a 13 part series produced by Robert Sandler, Liam Romalis and Jason Charter. David Buchbinder was my collaborator. Ooh, sexy…
–Thinking Cars, a feature doc about the future of safe car technology
–Science of the Soul, a doc for History US, in which scientists discuss spirituality
–Cupcake Girls, a staggeringly popular, internationally successful reality-based thingy about two engaging, charismatic business-women.
–Fearless in the Kitchen, a cooking series about inept cooks being thrown into high pressure culinary situations
–Recessionize, a hilarious and strangely moving doc about middle class folks and how they’ve bravely dealt with the recession
–In the Name of the Family, an incredibly emotional feature doc about honour killings in North America
–The Nanny Business, a brilliant expose doc about exploitation of international nannies in Canada

On the slightly more, some would say, experimental front, I continued my long standing collaboration with the fabulous John Greyson. We created a number of musical videos, including “The Ballad of Roy and Silo”, an operatic short film celebrating the wedding and divorce of the famous gay penguins of the central park zoo. Needless to say, this fascinating little work is in the midst of being expanded into a full length dramatic feature. More on this later.
For those of you interested in viewing some of our past work, please watch the following:

Barcelona Aria (from John Greyson’s Fig Trees) from Jared Raab on Vimeo.

More recently, I had the good fortune of being commissioned by Robert Everett Green and the highly discerning folks over at the Globe and Mail to write a Christmas song for my own people, the Red Sea Pedestrians (thanks, Monty Python).
To view the accompanying article and hear the tune, go to:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/music/schmeck-the-halls-how-jewish-songwriters-created-christmas/article1842448/

Surely the most exciting thing in our house this year was the appearance of “Spork”(Kids Can Press), my wife Kyo’s first children’s book. Here’s the cool youtube vid:

2011 is already stacking up to be a real hum-dinger. Projects for the coming year include:

-a feature comedy/drama by actor/director Dominic Desjardins, entitled “La Sacree”
-a doc by the magnificent Catherine Annau, profiling the internationally acclaimed architectural resurrection of Toronto’s fabled Brickworks
-an episode for CBC’s The Nature of Things, profiling scientists trying to re-introduce weasels back into the wilds of Saskatchewan
-a second season of Cupcake Girls
-a sure-to-be hilarious and revealing doc by Matt Gallagher about the gritty, underground poker scene
-Village on a Diet, a sweet and exciting series for the CBC about a town in British Colombia that goes on a mass-health improvement regimen

And there you have it, a shameless, annoying bit of self promotion. But it had to be done.

Have a wonderful new year!

xoDW