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Here are some audio excerpts of recent pieces that you may download and listen to
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Here are some downloads of scores for One More Moment and Omega Loops
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score excerpt from Supercell for percussion and electronics
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Program Notes for excerpted scores/recordings:
Splintered Refrains for viola and piano (2004) works as a platform to allow the exploration of perpetual transition as well as a study in short yet constant flow of form. The music thrives under the auspices of suggestive but stilted melodic fragments - an abstraction of a narrative of sorts. The work can stand-alone or act as a segued purgatory into another composition, Roadside Picnic for two pianos. Performers: Emily Rideout - viola, Jon Korth - piano
Omega Loops for violin, guitar, and piano (2006) This instrumental combination led me to explore ideas about timbre, gesture, and the interaction thereof. I was intrigued by how these three very different instruments are related by the single mechanism of the string, yet at the same time, I wanted to explore how each instrument used that same mechanism to create its own unique and diverse timbral palette. Same and similar materials are looped together and repeated like the textures of a soft fabric carpet. I am greatly indebted to Louella, Bathsheba, and Paul for their dedication towards the realization of this piece. Performers: Louella Alatiit - violin, Paul Cesarczyk - guitar, Bathsheba Conley - piano
Supercell for percussion and live electronics (2006) involves the construction and decoupling of multilayered complexes. The instrumentation and modes of production are seen as elements of an organic whole that are separated as a study in the mechanics of operation of that whole. The metaphor of the 'whole' in this piece is language as neologism. Musical elements parse out components of language. Instruments merge with the voice and electronics to gradually reveal the separate elements as layers of a larger orchestration. The 'whole' has greater significance than the separate parts: any possible interpretation of embedded meaning in this language. Electronic processes include filtering, frequency shifting, ring modulation, granular synthesis, live amplitude triggering, and live pitch triggering. This work is dedicated to Mike McCurdy. Performers: Mike McCurdy - snare drum, vibraphone, voice
Fairfax for stereo digital audio playback (2000) is a collage piece that interweaves and layers a series of dramatic narratives. Approximately 85 –90 percent of the sounds were derived from raw or manipulated vocal sources. The work is a study in the relaying of a story and how the devices of dramatic storytelling can become a story in and of themselves. Furthermore, the work explores the inherent musical qualities implied in the inflected human voice.
One More Moment for piano trio (2000) was written as an implicit study in the potentialities of quiet music as an expressive medium for delicacy and urgency. The music exists as unassuming events – intuitively conceived and coexisting, equal in importance, neither driving towards nor fighting against the next event (although the piano does coerce a sort of dialogue with the strings by introducing certain interrupting, harmonic gestures). All devices of rhythm, timbre, and pitch are designed to convey an essentialness and simplicity of change. One More Moment was selected for performance at the 2001 June in Buffalo Festival in Buffalo, New York. Performers: Yuri Chai – cello, Ben Robison – violin, Sunny Kwo – piano
Wisdom and Surprise for contrabass & tape (2003) considers the ethereal qualities of the contrabass through the explorations of various timbral and frequential continua. The work is intuitively structured using rhythmic breath cycles in order to intone a certain inward meditative breadth of motion. Furthermore, certain spectral ideas, both harmonic and inharmonic, are hinted at in order to suspend the notion of internal contemplation. A general fluidity and intermingling of micro-intervals is perpetually established between the timbral and harmonic variances of the live bass and the processed sounds of the bass and the singing bowl on the tape. The piece was recently selected for honourable mention for the 2004 Bourges Residence in Electroacoustic Music. This work is dedicated to Jenny Labonté. Performers: Jenny Labonté - contrabass
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