Accepting applause after a performance of Teton Pass.  «  

Awakening  «
for Wind Ensemble  «

composed in 2017  «
2+picc.2+cor ang.2-6+bcl+cbcl-2asax+tsax+barsax-3.4.3.1.1-dbs-5perc  «
2'30"  «
premiered March 25th, 2018, Brendle Recital Hall, Wake Forest University  «

Awakening was commissioned by the Wachovia Winds Youth Wind Ensemble conducted by Danny Green.  As the commission specified inspiration from specifically Moravian sources, I thought back to the piano recitals in Moravian churches that I participated in as a kid, and the welcoming attitude of their denomination.

Aubade for the Midnight Sun  «
for Wind Ensemble  «

 
composed in 2017  «
2+picc.2+cor ang.2+cbsn-6+bcl-2asax+tsax+barsax-3.4.3.1-dbs-6perc  «
8'00"  «

Aubade for the Midnight Sun was inspired by a road trip I took to Alaska in summer 2017.  While not explicitly programmatic, the broadness and the lyricism of the piece is inspired by various stages of the 40-day journey.

The Cremation of Sam McGee  «
for Baritone and Large Percussion Ensemble  «

 
composed in 2017  «
11'30"  «
text by Robert Service  «

My great-grandfather was a great man of letters, and at the center of his bookshelf long sat a bookmark-addled tome of poetry by Robert Service, the so-called “Bard of the Yukon.”  Though not Canadian by birth, Service was nonetheless drawn to the beautiful, hostile, and largely unexplored landscapes of Canada’s Yukon territory, and he turned his pen towards capturing the essence of rugged frontier life.  This book was my first exposure to descriptions of life on that rough-hewn edge of the North American continent, and its imagery has stuck with me ever since.

The ballad “The Cremation of Sam McGee” is widely considered one of Service’s best poems, if not his magnum opus.  While ostensibly rather creepy in subject matter, it nonetheless contains significant humorous elements, which led me to conceive the accompaniment of a percussion ensemble, whose timbres range from the serious to the absurd, and whose harsh and gritty sounds were perfect for portraying the rough-and-tumble daily life of the Gold Rush–era Yukon.

The length of the poem dictated a distinct approach to the setting, involving a conceptualization of the text not unlike that of a music drama, where each “scene” was written almost as a separate movement, then linked together with its surroundings via manipulation of the percussion ensemble.  In total, the piece is a tone-painting of life in the Yukon winter while illuminating the fictional tale of how one Tennessee man has his final wish fulfilled.

Symphony № 1 “The Grand Tetons”  «
for Orchestra  «

 
composed in 2016  «
2+picc/afl.2+cor ang.2+bcl/cbcl.2+cbsn-4.4.3.1-timp-2perc.cel/pno.hp-str(8.8.6.6.4)  «
35'30"  «
4 movements:  «
»  Teton Pass  «
»  Chapel of the Transfiguration  «
»  Moose  «
»  Oxbow Bend  «
“Teton Pass” premiered April 22, 2017, Crawford Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «
“Teton Pass” professionally premiered by the Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra,  «
February 3rd, 2018, Wait Chapel, Wake Forest University  «

On June 1^st, 2013, my family and I visited Grand Teton National Park in northwestern Wyoming.  The sights and experiences of my time in the park stayed with me more than I had ever expected, more so than many other National Parks through which I’ve been.  My Symphony № 1 is a recollection of the events of this day.  The first movement, “Teton Pass,” chronicles the difficult journey up and down the ten-percent grade of the pass of the same name, ending with a triumphant entrance to Jackson, Wyoming.  “Chapel of the Transfiguration” is an introspective movement inspired by the small chapel in the unincorporated community of Moose in the park’s borders, and which is angled so as to frame the Tetons in its windows.  “Moose” is a raucous movement inspired by my father's successful attempts to locate a live moose for me to see, and it depicts the creatures themselves by a set of low-pitched instruments including the contrabass clarinet.  The piece concludes with “Oxbow Bend,” which depicts the evening beauty of one of the most gorgeous parts of the Snake River.

Rainfall  «
for Piano and Orchestra  «

 
composed in 2014  «
2+picc.2+cor ang.2.2+cbsn-4.3.3.1-timp-3perc.cel.hp-pno-str(8.8.8.8.6)  «
or 2+picc.3.3.2-4.3.3.1-timp-3perc.cel/synth-pno-str(8.7.4.4.4)  «
9'00"  «

In March 2010, a tornado struck my neighborhood.  While the tornado skipped over my house, the experience was chilling and to this day I remain unnerved by thunderstorms.  Rainfall takes its inspiration from this storm and includes a cataclysmic middle section of orchestrated tone clusters and sheer percussive force from an expanded percussion section that includes a tornado siren.

The UNCSA Cantata Singers premiere The Pines.  «  

The Land God Forgot  «
for Soprano, Guitar, and Harp  «

 
composed in 2020  «
8'00"  «
text by Robert Service  «

My great-grandfather was a great man of letters, and at the center of his bookshelf long sat a bookmark-addled tome of poetry by Robert Service, the so-called “Bard of the Yukon.”  Though not Canadian by birth, Service was nonetheless drawn to the beautiful, hostile, and largely unexplored landscapes of Canada’s Yukon territory, and he turned his pen towards capturing the essence of rugged frontier life.  This book was my first exposure to descriptions of life on that rough-hewn edge of the North American continent, and its imagery has stuck with me ever since.

“The Land God Forgot” is the first poem from his first published collection, and embraces the lonely and forbidding landscapes of the Yukon for its inspiration.

Sonnet 116  «
for Soprano and Piano  «

composed in 2018  «
4'00"  «
text by William Shakespeare  «

This Shakespeare setting was commissioned by soprano Bonnie Blackwell, which provided an interesting challenge from a text-setting perspective, as I’m unaccustomed to the metrical structure of setting older English.

The Parson's Son  «
for Tenor and Speaking Pianist  «

 
composed in 2018  «
9'00"  «
text by Robert Service  «

My great-grandfather was a great man of letters, and at the center of his bookshelf long sat a bookmark-addled tome of poetry by Robert Service, the so-called “Bard of the Yukon.”  Though not Canadian by birth, Service was nonetheless drawn to the beautiful, hostile, and largely unexplored landscapes of Canada’s Yukon territory, and he turned his pen towards capturing the essence of rugged frontier life.  This book was my first exposure to descriptions of life on that rough-hewn edge of the North American continent, and its imagery has stuck with me ever since.

The ballad “The Parson's Son” is emblematic of Service’s style.  It tells the story of an old Yukon man who lived in the wilderness prior to the gold rush and is reminiscing about his time there at the end of his life.

The Spell of the Yukon  «
for Soprano and Piano  «

composed in 2018  «
6'00"  «
text by Robert Service  «
premiered November 11th, 2018, Watson Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

My great-grandfather was a great man of letters, and at the center of his bookshelf long sat a bookmark-addled tome of poetry by Robert Service, the so-called “Bard of the Yukon.”  Though not Canadian by birth, Service was nonetheless drawn to the beautiful, hostile, and largely unexplored landscapes of Canada’s Yukon territory, and he turned his pen towards capturing the essence of rugged frontier life.  This book was my first exposure to descriptions of life on that rough-hewn edge of the North American continent, and its imagery has stuck with me ever since.

“The Spell of the Yukon” first appeared in the volume of the same name, which was the first collection by Service to be published.  It’s narrated from the point of view of a prospector who is reminiscing about time spent in the Yukon and a desire to go back—not for the lure of gold as much for the life on the very edge of civilization.  In one of the stanzas omitted from this setting, the narrator states that “it isn't the gold that I’m wanting / so much as just finding the gold.”  I feared that the poem’s length might be an issue when it came to a convincing setting, so I took out many of the narrative elements and slightly rearranged a few stanzas to create a version of the poem that retains Service’s penchant for conjuring striking imagery while making it compositionally manageable.  In this light, the poem becomes an ode to the Yukon from anyone’s perspective, not just that of a quasi-masochistic prospector.

Unforgotten  «
for Soprano and Piano  «

composed in 2018  «
6'00"  «
text by Robert Service  «
premiered November 11th, 2018, Watson Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

My great-grandfather was a great man of letters, and at the center of his bookshelf long sat a bookmark-addled tome of poetry by Robert Service, the so-called “Bard of the Yukon.”  Though not Canadian by birth, Service was nonetheless drawn to the beautiful, hostile, and largely unexplored landscapes of Canada’s Yukon territory, and he turned his pen towards capturing the essence of rugged frontier life.  This book was my first exposure to descriptions of life on that rough-hewn edge of the North American continent, and its imagery has stuck with me ever since.

“Unforgotten” appeared in Service’s first volume of collected works, and represents a surprisingly large and wholly underappreciated part of Service’s œuvre.

Legacy  «
for Soprano and Flute  «

composed in 2018  «
sop-fl(+afl)  «
6'00"  «
text by Julia Illana  «

My friend Julia once placed in a poetry contest with a work entitled “Legacy,” and I got her permission to set it to music.  Much of the challenge of the work was in creating a compelling text setting while working with a highly range-limited texture; as a result, it’s primarily contrapuntally and melodically driven.

Drowned Sailors  «
for SATB  «

composed in 2018  «
4'00"  «
text by Madelyn Ward  «
(visit her Web site)  «

My friend Madelyn approached various composers with her poetry for potential settings, and of the ones I perused, one called “Drowned Sailors” especially intrigued me.  I set the short poem in a through-composed, unaccompanied, almost lullaby-esque style.

The Pines  «
for SATB and Piano  «

composed in 2017  «
7'00"  «
text by Robert Service  «
premiered April 7th, 2018, Crawford Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

My great-grandfather was a great man of letters, and at the center of his bookshelf long sat a bookmark-addled tome of poetry by Robert Service, the so-called “Bard of the Yukon.”  Though not Canadian by birth, Service was nonetheless drawn to the beautiful, hostile, and largely unexplored landscapes of Canada’s Yukon territory, and he turned his pen towards capturing the essence of rugged frontier life.  This book was my first exposure to descriptions of life on that rough-hewn edge of the North American continent, and its imagery has stuck with me ever since.

The imagery in “The Pines” ranges from dark, dreary, and thoroughly desolate all the way to rousing shouts of victory and triumph over the ravages of time.  Like most Service poems, his ability to conjure extremely evocative and vivid images is what drew me in enough to pursue an appropriate musical setting, especially as the cadences of his stanzas reflected something thoroughly lyrical and inherently musical to my mind’s ear.

The UNCSA Cantata Singers conducted by Dr. Nathan Zullinger,
Morgan-Elise Brady, soprano, Jacob Kepley, bass, Thomas Little, piano

Tears!  «
for Soprano, Clarinet, Cello, and Piano  «

 
composed in 2017  «
4'00"  «
text from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass   «

A poem from the same book in Leaves of Grass that furnished texts for Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony.  I generally find Whitman either very easy or very difficult to set, and this atonal lamentation fell into the former camp.

Unstable Minds  «
for Two Voices and Piano Four Hands  «

 
composed in 2016  «
mzs.bar-pno(2)  «
or sop.ten-pno(2)  «
20'00"  «
5 movements:  «
»  Elysium  «
»  Ennui  «
»  Paroxysm  «
»  Dysphoria  «
»  Revenant  «
“Paroxysm” premiered in arrangement for two horns and piano four hands  «
February 9th, 2018, Watson Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

Behind the practice rooms at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts lies an abandoned half-tunnel that appears to be an access to the now-locked remains of a boiler room which was used in the music building’s days as a high school.  This half-tunnel is now continually covered in poetic graffiti, and over the course of a semester at UNCSA I went down there to make a record of these texts.  The text was then separated by overarching themes and set to music.

Some claim the location from which these texts originate is haunted by the ghost of a former student who committed suicide there, although the same legend says that any student who goes down in there more than once is cursed—although I (and others) have been there many times to no ill effect.  While the tradition of writing poetry in this semi-sheltered environment may indeed have originated with a suicide note at one point, the texts which now adorn its walls change on a weekly basis.

Amphigory  «
for SATB and Ensemble  «

 
composed in 2016  «
picc.arec/cl.bgp/ob.acc-hps-SATB-2perc-2vlas  «
23'00"  «
5 movements:  «
»  Jabberwocky  «
»  Numbers Stations  «
»  Lorem Ipsum  «
»  Weird Twitter  «

Writing effective choral music presents a set of challenges unlike anything in purely instrumental composition.  Of these, one of the most important is textual clarity; above all else, the listener has to be able to discern the words.  Ironically, Amphigory, a setting of nonsensical texts, needed this more than a “serious” choral piece; otherwise, the audience may mistake the piece’s intended meaning.

In English, the world of nonsense is vast and comes in many different varieties, from nonce words to codes to non sequiturs.  In the movements of Amphigory, I explore what I have defined as the four major variations of nonsense, all set against an eclectic instrumental ensemble consisting of unusual instruments and/or those with unfortunate reputations amongst musicians.

The explosive premiere of Shadow Waltz.  «  

Strange Languages  «
for String Quartet  «

 
composed in 2019  «
42'30"  «
7 movements:  «
»  Ithkuil  «
»  Múra-Pirahã  «
»  Toki Pona  «
»  Kay(f)bop(t)  «
»  Lojban  «
»  Guugu Yimithirr  «
»  Kēlen  «

I’ve often found tenuous, yet intriguing links between the spoken language of a given culture and the grammar of that culture’s music, and I began to wonder how Western music would sound if unique grammars outside the Western tradition were more rigorously applied to musical forms.  Thus, Strange Languages “translates” Western music into forms approximating the grammar of the languages after which the movements are named.  Five movements are “conlangs” (constructed languages), while two originate from indigenous tribes.

Shadow Waltz  «
for Two Curing, Piano/Ceng-Ceng, and optional Celesta  «

 
composed in 2018  «
6'00"  «
premiered November 11th, 2018, Watson Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

For years, I’ve been a part of various Balinese gong kebyar ensembles (Wake Forest’s Gamelan Giri Murti & MIT’s Gamelan Galak Tika).  Since my first exposure to the group, I’ve been fascinated with the idea of synthesizing Balinese and Western traditions and approaches.  This piece uses the interaction between instruments in various ways as a formal device, including the celesta (or piano) engaging in gamelan-esque interlocking repetition and the curing—the two highest-pitched of the paired metallophones common to Gamelan Giri Murti’s performing traditions—being treated as Western instruments by virtue of exploiting what Western ears commonly hear as being “detuned.”  While I wrote Shadow Waltz in time for inclusion on my senior recital, the concept of treating the instruments of one tradition as if they are instruments in the other is one to which I hope to return.

The Shores Where the Sea Breaks its Back  «
for Flute, Bass Clarinet, Horn, and Piano  «

 
composed in 2018  «
5'00"  «

This piece originated as a companion piece to my wind ensemble piece Aubade for the Midnight Sun, but as I continued to work on it, it was clear that the musical material needed a more intimate setting, and so I scaled it back to chamber size.

Of Ashen Waste  «
for Flute and Guitar  «

composed in 2018  «
4'15"  «
premiered November 11th, 2018, Watson Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

This duet takes inspiration from the Pennsylvanian ghost town of Centralia, where an underground coal fire has been burning for half a century, rendering the town nigh-uninhabitable between its sinkholes and toxic fumes.  I visited Centralia in 2011 and 2018, and was struck by its weirdness on both occasions.

Sonata for Violin and Piano  «

composed in 2018  «
23'00"  «
3 movements:  «
»  Coup de Foudre  «
»  Cri de Cœur  «
»  C'est la Vie  «
premiered November 11th, 2018, Watson Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

The Sonata splits the difference between composition by intuition and composition by preplanned formal design.  Various sections were composed by intuitive processes, which were subsequently analyzed.  The resulting information informed the compositional process of subsequent sections.  This led to a through-composed, yet formally cohesive musical fabric with everything hinging on what came before.

The first movement, “Coup de Foudre” (literally “stroke of lightning”), is a take on variation form.  I took the economy of means inherent in the form and removed the aspects of it that I found uninteresting.  The result is a movement that is spread out in distinct sections in way that every previous section exerts a level of control or influence over subsequent sections, mostly through the derivation, treatment, and elaboration of scalar structures.

The second movement, “Cri de Cœur” (literally “cry of the heart”), makes use of scales derived from the first movement, and develops them to the point of using quarter-tones.  The levels of interaction between the two instruments’ materials are complicated by a series of prepared tones.  These were derived in the first movement, but are here turned into road blocks, set off by the violin’s quarter-tones.

The finale, “C’est la Vie” (literally “such is life”), begins with a violin cadenza that riffs the piano’s introduction to the second movement, before launching into a wistful offbeat melody based on an intervallic row, which itself is derived from one particular measure in the first movement (which appears right before that movement’s titular “stroke of lightning.”)  While this happens, the piano is now dealing with the prepared tones in a freely contrapuntal manner that eventually accepts them into the texture.  At the end, all precompositional shackles are taken off as the violin plays a modal version of the thorny and chromatic opening gesture of the first movement.

Michele Zimmerman, violin, George Mobley, prepared piano

Machines Making Machines  «
for Piccolo, Viola, Baritone Saxophone, and Piano  «

 
composed in 2018  «
2'35"  «

Invasion of the Minor Seconds  «
for Pierrot Ensemble and Percussion  «

composed in 2017-18  «
fl.cl-vln.vlc-perc-pno  «
7'00"  «

Though freeing, the idea of writing for an ensemble as legendary as Eighth Blackbird was daunting, and the idea of titling the piece Invasion of the Minor Seconds came as a result of the difficulty I had during the compositional process.  I went through several points of inspiration, as my goal was a seemingly through-composed piece where motives could also subjected to development before their exposition.  The goal of this whirlwind process was a whirlwind piece, but the final piece was not put into place until I realized how structurally I was using the minor second, major seventh, and minor ninth.  They do not emerge in the score in outright motivic ways, but permeate the orchestrational choices and textures.  Once I had that as a core concept, the rest of the piece fell into place, and the title became an artifact of meta-humor.


I Want to See You in the Summer  «
for Flute Ensemble  «

 
composed in 2016  «
2picc.4fl.afl.bfl  «
4'00"  «
premiered April 1st, 2017, Watson Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

I Want to See You in the Summer was inspired by the YouTuber and poet Savannah Brown.  I happened upon her poem of the same name by sheer happenstance, and immediately felt as if it had an inherently musical character to it.  I took the words and set them to a continuously flowing melody, then set about orchestrating them for a flute ensemble, adding counterpoint and texture while still retaining the sense of fluidity, as if the music continually spins itself out from the initial motif.

Sonata for English Horn  «
and Piano  «

composed in 2016  «
cor ang(+ob)-pno  «
18'00"  «

The structure of the English Horn Sonata is a synthesis of past forms.  The melodic content, harmonic content, and overall texture are informed by three distinct formal layers.  The melody and harmony are presented in a nested form where each large section breaks down in increasingly complicated ways, while the textural form presents four ideas in a kind of formal counterpoint.

Insomniana  «
for Cello and Metronome  «

 
composed in 2015  «
8'15"  «
premiered May 31st, 2016, Thomas Dale High School, Chester, VA  «

The idea behind Insomniana came on a sleepless night, when all I heard was the ticking of a clock.  I wondered how one could use such a steady beat in a musical way, and how it would be interesting to have a piece that’s built around the idea of having such a steady beat, but ignoring it almost completely.

Four Paroxysms  «
for String Quartet  «

 
composed in 2015  «
9'30"  «
4 movements:  «
»  Pain  «
»  Fever  «
»  Joy  «
»  Fear  «

The miniatures that comprise Four Paroxysms are intended to evoke very brief spurts of intense emotional affectations, from the intense bow pressure and tight microtonal harmonies of “Pain” to the open-ended spookiness of “Fear.”

Flight Portraits  «
for Two Piccolos  «

composed in 2015  «
7'00"  «
4 movements:  «
»  Butterflies  «
»  Hummingbirds  «
»  Fireflies  «
»  Bats  «
premiered April 20th, 2016, Crawford Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

Flight Portraits doesn’t take inspiration from the creatures after which its movements are entitled, but rather the flight patterns of these creatures.  Writing for piccolo duet meant that I was extremely confined in everything from range to tone-color; much of the piece was written in the lower register, with excursions to the more piercing ranges reserved for more intense moments.

Gossamer Limerence  «
for Viola, Piano, and optional Percussion  «

 
composed in 2014  «
7'45"  «
premiered July 13th, 2014, Crawford Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

Toy Soldiers  «
for Brass Quintet  «

 
composed in 2013  «
ctpt+bbtpt+hn+trbn+tba  «
4'00"  «

Nocturne  «
for Flute, Cello, and Piano  «

 
composed in 2013  «
6'45"  «
premiered July 12th, 2013, Watson Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

Dance! I & II  «
for Piano Trio  «

 
composed in 2012  «
vln+vlc+pno  «
10'00"  «
“Dance! I” premiered July 11th, 2012, Watson Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

Dr. Jubal Fulks premieres Imaginary Poetry.  «  

Quirky Fugue  «
for Organ  «

composed in 2019  «
4'00"  «

Based off of an old, incomplete fugue exercise from a counterpoint class, Quirky Fugue features unusual harmonic shifts and elaborations based off of a short motif that one of my former colleagues came up with.

Nonexistent Chimera  «
for Alto Flute  «

composed in 2018  «
5'30"  «

Nonexistent Chimera was written for Robin Meiksins’ “52 Weeks of Flute” project, and features a melodic use of quarter-tones and a unique notation that graphs out various levels of rubato for the performer to interpret.

The Elephant's Foot  «
for Organ  «

composed in 2017  «
13'00"  «
2 movements:  «
»  Meltdown  «
»  Aftermath  «
premiered April 18th, 2018, Crawford Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

In the early morning hours of April 26th, 1986, a catastrophic meltdown occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in modern-day Ukraine.  Steam generated during a test led to a feedback loop that all but annihilated reactor 4 at the plant.  Thirty-one people were killed in the explosion and meltdown, and up to seven million throughout Eurasia were affected by fallout, from Belarus to Finland to England.

During the disaster, the core melted into the basement of the facility, combining with concrete and sand and other materials into a solid object that came to be known as the Elephant’s Foot, a highly radioactive mass that would kill anyone who was in its presence for less than a minute.  By 1996, it had cooled to the point that 500 seconds proved a fatal dose.  It is radioactive to this day and remains one of the most dangerous objects in the world.

The Elephant’s Foot is a tone poem about this infamous and tragic meltdown, setting the eerie nighttime mood in the Ukraine with polytonality and a folk-like melody, before building up to the thunderclap of the meltdown itself.  The second movement deals with the consequences of the tragedy, from the manic response to the modern-day Exclusion Zone.  The Elephant’s Foot was commissioned by the American Guild of Organists as a part of their 2018 Student Commissioning Project, alongside its premiering organist Carina Sturdy.

Imaginary Poetry  «
for Violin  «

composed in 2017  «
9'00"  «
2 movements:  «
»  Sun-Glow  «
»  Borne Aloft  «
premiered March 24th, 2018, Watson Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «
arrangements available for solo viola & solo cello  «

The model for my melodic work in Imaginary Poetry came in the form of the rhythms of the human voice when reading Whitmanesque free verse from various authors.  The two movements take the form of expressive and vocally conceived lines, without the limitations of text setting and range and copyright and the myriad other externalities involved in actual vocal music.

Imaginary Poetry won a call for scores and was subsequently premiered by Dr. Jubal Fulks.

Two Pieces  «
for Guitar  «

 
composed in 2016-17  «
11'00"  «
2 movements:  «
»  Unease  «
»  Exordiana  «

The Wind Rider  «
(Piano Sonata № 2)  «

 
composed in 2016  «
16'00"  «
3 movements:  «
»  Andante misterioso e sostenuto  «
»  Adagio solenne e quasi religioso  «
»  Toccata volando: prestissimo entusiasmo e feroce possibile  «

Nightmare-Fantasy  «
for Harp  «

 
composed in 2016  «
4'00"  «

Nightmare-Fantasy was originally conceived as an exercise for an orchestration class, where I wrote a short passage for harp that was tuned in such a way that there were five consecutive half-steps.  The unexpected experience of hearing dissonant clusters performed on an instrument usually associated with traditionally pleasant sounds became the basis for this piece.

The Unspeakable Thing  «
for Contrabassoon  «

 
composed in 2015  «
4'00"  «

The contrabassoon is a deeply unusual instrument that is generally relegated to beefing up the low end of the orchestra and with only occasional solos in larger orchestral works.  I felt as though there might be something more to explore with the contrabassoon, and so The Unspeakable Thing came about as a cadenza for the instrument, which explores the power of its lowest notes and its surprising resonance in its criminally underutilized upper register.

Arianna Suite  «
for Piano  «

 
composed in 2014  «
22'00"  «
8 movements:  «
»  Prelude  «
»  Humoresque  «
»  Scherzo  «
»  Waltz  «
»  Intermezzo  «
»  Gymnopédie  «
»  Arabesque  «
“Robot Circus”  «
»  Ballade  «
premiered July 11th, 2014, Crawford Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

The Arianna Suite originally comprised twenty-three movements of increasing difficulty, written for a young prodigy.  It was the first time that I’d written a piano work with the intent of making it accessible to another; many of the movements are short and do not require a hand span of more than an octave.

Four Colors  «
(Piano Sonata № 1)  «

 
composed in 2014  «
17'30"  «
4 movements:  «
»  Cerulean  «
»  Ianthine  «
»  Icterine  «
»  Eigengrau  «
premiered July 11th, 2014, Crawford Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

The Four Colors are intended to be a cyclical work; the movements should be played in order, but are linked together so that the end of one foreshadows (or otherwise leads into) the next.  While it was written and premiered in the order shown above, they may be played starting with any movement.

Lydian Prelude  «
for Piano  «

 
composed in 2013  «
5'10"  «
premiered July 11th, 2014, Crawford Hall, UNC School of the Arts  «

Low & Lower rehearses Overdrive.  «  

Zibaldone  «
for Ensemble, Electronics,  «
and optional Live Video  «

 
composed in 2020  «
1.1.0.0-0.1.1.0-1.0.1.0-perc-pno
10'00"  «

In 2019, I was commissioned by Valerio Murat and the Brandeis Arts Council to participate in Murat’s “Journey to Rome” project, which involved writing a piece based off of an artist who spent time in Rome, and incorporating video shot by Murat in Rome.  Zibaldone (an Italian word for a loose collection, often in book form) takes footage of an actor dressed as Mahler in Rome, the incipit of Mahler’s incomplete Tenth Symphony, and various electronically manipulated public-domain recordings of Mahler’s works and combines them into a multimedia experience focused on the difference between memory and reality.  (Zibaldone may be performed without the video element, if a projection system is unavailable.)

Sands at Seventy  «
for Soprano and Electronics  «

 
composed in 2017-18  «
9'00"  «
2 movements:  «
»  Broadway  «
»  Yonnondio  «
texts from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass   «
“Yonnondio” premiered December 2nd, 2017,  «
Center for Design Innovation, Winston-Salem, NC  «

Originally conceived as standard Whitman settings for voice and piano, the texts I found in the annex to Leaves of Grass called “Sands at Seventy” lent themselves to a successful experiment in electronic orchestration of an existing piece of music.

The premiere of “Kismet's Bend” (Cosmogyral).  «  

Hommage à Feldman et Brown  «

 
composed in 2019  «
12'00"  «
premiered April 17th, 2018  «
Stevens Center, Winston-Salem, NC  «

Hommage was written for the UNCSA School of Dance’s recreations of John Cage/Merce Cunningham collaborations.  The Max/MSP patch that comprises the piece splits the twelve-minute structure into one-minute chunks, which are then further split into eight chunks of four through eleven seconds.  These sections alternate between chords and silence.  There are only twelve unique four-note chords in the entire piece (generated from four different twelve-tone rows where all vertical sonorities are different notes), but are disguised through transpositions and being run through different synthesizers, which differ in their envelopes and in their set frequency-modulation ratios, generating very different sounds on adjacent notes.  Each minute is governed by a heavily granulized background tone, and the four chords which are played within a given minute are the four from the governing “chord row” which contain that note.

17  «

 
composed in 2018  «
4'05"  «
premiered as part of M3 Spree, April 26th, 2018  «
Freedman Theater, UNC School of the Arts  «

Choreographer Alexandra Barry dedicated her dance “17” to the memory of the seventeen lives lost in the Parkland shooting.  I only sought to provide the appropriate somber mood for her work, adapting the music to fit a very specific moment-by-moment structure.

Dance-a-Day 2017  «

 
composed in 2017  «
4'28"  «
3 movements:  «
»  Germaphobia  «
»  Joyride  «
»  Ragdoll  «
workshopped from December 11th-13th, 2017  «

UNC School of the Arts’ various choreographers and composers often collaborate on short pieces at the end of the fall term in a project known as “Dance-a-Day.”  The goal isn’t to create full modern-dance works; rather, teams have about 90 minutes to work together and present something that’s artistically coherent.  While many composers stress unduly under this kind of pressure, I found my experiences during Dance-a-Day to be extraordinarily enjoyable.

As a part of the 2017 Dance-a-Day, I worked with choreographers Molly McGlennen and Alexandra Barry.

Cosmogyral  «

 
composed in 2016  «
4'15"  «
premiered as part of M3 Spree, April 28th, 2016  «
Agnes deMille Theatre, UNC School of the Arts  «

Choreographer Kirsten Hedberg and I worked together on this piece, to a dance she called “Kismet's Bend.”  For much of the process, she encouraged me to explore vast and space-like sounds.

Five Dances  «

 
composed in 2015  «
10'38"  «
5 movements:  «
»  Factory  «
»  The Milgram Experiment  «
»  Under a Ladder  «
»  Pokémario  «
»  Outcomes of War  «
workshopped from December 7th-11th, 2015  «

UNC School of the Arts’ various choreographers and composers often collaborate on short pieces at the end of the fall term in a project known as “Dance-a-Day.”  The goal isn’t to create full modern-dance works; rather, teams have about 90 minutes to work together and present something that’s artistically coherent.  While many composers stress unduly under this kind of pressure, I found my experiences during Dance-a-Day to be extraordinarily enjoyable.

As a part of the 2015 Dance-a-Day, I worked with choreographers Emily Hopfenberg, Garrett Parker, Brooke Partin, and Kristen Hedberg.

Snowfall  «

 
composed in 2014, rev. 2018  «
5'00"  «
electronically orchestrated in 2018 for the Tanglewood Festival of Lights  «

Christmas Dance  «

 
composed in 2013  «
2'10"  «

In 2013, the Tanglewood Festival of Lights commissioned several composers to write music for their Dancing Christmas Tree.  Christmas Dance is based on several upbeat ditties that I and other family members had come up with many years prior.

A still from Mother Nature.  «  

Mother Nature  «

 
scored in 2018  «
6'00"  «
animation  «
directed by Logan Barrick and Malory Pacheco  «
selected for the 2018 Full Bloom Film Festival  «
selected for the 2018 Carrboro Film Festival  «
selected for the 2019 RiverRun Film Festival  «
selected for the 2019 Real to Reel Film Festival  «

Mother Nature follows the adventures of a mother beaver who is separated from—and eventually reunited with—the rest of her beaver family.

Before the Caps Fly  «

 
scored in 2017  «
7'00"  «
live-action  «
directed by Michelle DeGrace  «

Before the Caps Fly is a plucky ’80s comedy about a kid, his best friend, his crush, and a prank on the principal that goes horribly awry.  The retro setting of the film allowed me to break out the cheesy synthesizers to an extent I enjoyed perhaps a little too much.

Guardians  «

 
scored in 2017  «
3'00"  «
live-action  «
written and directed by Jacqueline Olivo  «

Guardians is a short about an angel and a devil who appear to a man who’s very distraught over his breakup.