Church (let us let each other be), for six voices SSAATB [2019]
Performed by Leah Tracy, soprano; Erin Burks, soprano; Anna Birkemeier, alto; Hayley Hoss, alto; Brock Burkett, tenor; and Abe Roos, bass. Friday, October 18, 2019, Bryan Recital Hall, Bowling Green State University: as part of the BGSU 40th Annual New Music Festival.
Apples & Oranges, for solo flute [2020]
Apples & Oranges, written for and performed by Natalie Magaña, April 2020. View her full virtual concert, “…in all but name…,” here.
The title of this piece alludes to two misunderstandings, which are not really related to one another, but which were both on my mind as I was composing. I distinctly remember learning about twelve-tone music in a college class. I was assigned to produce a tone row, and then use it to write a short composition. I did so, and was thrilled with my piece, until I brought it into class and discovered (to my great embarrassment) that I had missed some very fundamental rules about how tone rows are meant to be used, and my piece was not actually twelve-tone at all. I do not typically write serial music, but the opening phrase of this piece came to me early in the writing process, and when I noticed it was a six-note phrase with no repeated pitches, I was inspired to write a second phrase using the other six notes. I thought I might take a hexachordal approach to the piece, and pondered the phrase, “six of one, a half dozen of the other.” Years ago, I said that phrase to my partner (who apparently had not heard it before), and he misheard it as “six of one-half-dozen of the other,” and (reasonably) took it as nonsense. I always think of that now when I say it, and wonder about its clarity and whether it is commonly known – and so I tend to prefer the other idiom with that meaning: “apples and oranges.”
Trapped, for Soprano, Bass Clarinet, and Djembe [2020]
Recorded remotely by SputterBox ensemble, spring 2020. Alina Tamborini, soprano; Kathryn Vetter, bass clarinet; Peter White, djembe. Text by Adelaide Crapsey.
Sputter (SHRINKS THE) Box is a collaborative project with composers from around the world, designed to keep the ensemble playing together, keep composers writing, and to share music with everyone in their homes.
The Liminal Voices, for Orchestra [2016]
Read by the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, November 8, 2016. Michael Lewanski, Conductor. This is not a performance, it is an unrehearsed reading. Recording used with the permission of the TSO.
To be liminal is to be on a threshold – to exist between two states of being or of consciousness. “The Liminal Voices” was inspired by my time spent in the woods of Vermont, and the songs of the birds that inhabit these woods. Their vocalizations seem almost human, but are at the same time otherworldly. On occasion, I am lucky enough to hear my favourite singer – my namesake – the hermit thrush. As I listen, I think of lines from Whitman and Frost that exalt this little bird’s song. These poets’ words, like the sound they describe, can transport the mind far away from everyday life.
Of Myself, for Soprano and Violin [2017]
Performed with Roy MacNeil, violin. Opening act for Roomful of Teeth, Highland Center for the Arts, July 3, 2017.
The Common Thread for Alto Saxophone and Percussion [2016]
Written for and performed by Bent Frequency at the Charlotte New Music Festival, June 2016. Jan Baker, alto saxophone; Stuart Gerber, percussion.
The Common Thread
i. spathiphyllum
ii. aloe vera
iii. solanum lycopersinum
iv. chlorophytum cosmosum
v. crassula ovata
This piece is about my house plants. I love them very much.
“chlorophytum cosmosum” is based on the song “One Day” by Roy MacNeil.
La Dame for Soprano, Bass Clarinet, and Djembe [2020]
Recorded remotely by SputterBox ensemble, April 2020. Alina Tamborini, soprano; Kathryn Vetter, bass clarinet; Peter White, djembe. Text by Guillame Apollinaire.
New Life, for Flute and Vibraphone [2013]
Performed by Anatolia Evarkiou-Kaku, flute and Rebecca McDaniel, Vibraphone at 5th Wave Collective’s “Retreat from Winter” concert, February 9, 2019.
New Life depicts the remarkable transformation that water undergoes in the spring: the slow dripping of icicles in the sun, followed by the somehow surprising rivers of melted snow and ice; the rain that pours down, and the miraculous appearance of the first plants – refreshed after a very long rest – that begin to come out of the ground. It was written as part of a larger project focused on changing seasons; a concert called “Early Frost: Music for Changing Seasons.” I find that those brief periods when seasons are shifting – particularly winter changing into spring – tend to lead me into spells of heightened creativity. This piece is a meditation on – as well as a product of – that notion.
I So Liked Spring, for SSA Trio [2014]
Performed with Elijah McCormack and Sarah Hughes, Skidmore College, Spring 2014.
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