diff --git a/texts/compositions/Arcadia.md b/texts/compositions/Arcadia.md index e21eb1f..a0f94a0 100644 --- a/texts/compositions/Arcadia.md +++ b/texts/compositions/Arcadia.md @@ -7,4 +7,17 @@ date: 2020-10-01 categories: - Chamber --- -Information about _Arcadia_. +_Arcadia_ was commissioned by _Musaics of the Bay_ and written in response to June +Yokell's painting entitled _Paradise Lost_. + +When I first saw her painting, I knew immediately that I must compose music from it. +The colors of the landscape spoke to me directly, reminding me of the geography of +my childhood home in Western Wisconsin. Arcadia is not only the name of a small town +in Wisconsin, it is also an ancient Greek word for an ancient, unspoiled wilderness, +where humans live in harmony with nature. + +In 2020, as I looked at the surrounding Wisconsin landscape while composing this work, +I had feelings of loss, alienation, and sadness. While much of the natural +world was (and still is) still incredibly beautiful, I had a sense that somehow a metaphorical +poison had covered the land, rendering it a _Paradise Lost_. _Arcadia_ seeks to capture +these emotions that I experienced through June's painting in that time. diff --git a/texts/compositions/Capriccioso.md b/texts/compositions/Capriccioso.md index e1e56e6..1577529 100644 --- a/texts/compositions/Capriccioso.md +++ b/texts/compositions/Capriccioso.md @@ -7,4 +7,16 @@ date: 2021-11-01 categories: - Chamber --- -Information about _Capriccioso_. +Capriccioso is a musical response to Carel Fabritius’ 1654 painting _The Goldfinch_, +as well as the history surrounding the painting itself. + +Generally, the music is meant to evoke the playfulness of the small bird in the painting. +It is a stylish but silly bird: complicated, sparkling harmonies appear from the very +beginning of the music, and short, pointy melodic ideas abound as I imagined +the bird hopping around its home. + +However, as the work evolved, I had two competing yet somehow related ideas in my mind: +the first of the painter’s tragic death in the gunpowder explosion in Delft the same +year the painting was completed, and the second of the bird losing its chain and flying +away in escape. This brought about music with a mysterious, foreboding character, and in +the end music for the bird miraculously taking off in flight. diff --git a/texts/compositions/Conversations.md b/texts/compositions/Conversations.md index c115967..9b06731 100644 --- a/texts/compositions/Conversations.md +++ b/texts/compositions/Conversations.md @@ -6,4 +6,27 @@ date: 2017-06-01 categories: - Chamber --- -Information about _Conversations_. +This work was written for Jocelyn Zhu and Mariella Haubs in commemoration of their _Concerts for Compassion_ Tour, +Summer 2017. They premiered the work at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, New York, NY, on April 3, 2019. +It was subsequently performed on WQXR's _Young Artist Showcase_. + +This piece depicts a conversation between two people: they meet, argue, come to an agreement, and then part. +These four events are split across two movements. + +In the first movement, we begin with their greetings. Each violinist trades the main theme, +and they then develop it and chase it into new variations and ideas, reaching an exciting climax +which restates the very beginning music. However, conflict immediate follows: a bickering scherzo +in which the two cannot agree on what the harmony or rhythm should be. At times the argument is +bitter and coarse, and at others more light-hearted and playful. +In the end, though, they remain in total disagreement. + +After this heated conflict, the second movement begins with the two violinists pouring out their anguish +in loud dissonances. After calming down, each tells a variation on a sad story: a long, lonely theme +accompanied by constant pizzicato. A chorale briefly appears: they reconcile their sadness and pray together. + +Once reconciled, they engage in a break-neck fugue of "civilized discourse". +They work out their argument in a disciplined, diplomatic fashion, finally reaching an agreement. +They join together in celebration, playing the harmonies that began the first movement and staying +in unison rhythm for nearly the rest of the piece. + +Finally, as in all conversations, the two must part ways. It is lonely and bittersweet, and we are left wondering why. diff --git a/texts/compositions/FourPiecesForPiano.md b/texts/compositions/FourPiecesForPiano.md index 64df158..9cd76d7 100644 --- a/texts/compositions/FourPiecesForPiano.md +++ b/texts/compositions/FourPiecesForPiano.md @@ -6,4 +6,10 @@ date: 2019-05-01 categories: - Solo --- -Information about _Four Pieces for Piano_. +This work was written for my dear friend Julia Hamos. +It is a set of four small pieces, each varying wildly in character: + +1. A "celebration", full of radiance, and in a flowing tempo. +2. A bit mysterious, and in a slow, very free tempo. Echoes of Debussy (who himself echoed Wagner). +3. A moderate toccata, alternating between quietly agitated (though somewhat playful) and furioso characters. +4. Slow. Feelings of resignation and loss. diff --git a/texts/compositions/Illuminatio.md b/texts/compositions/Illuminatio.md index 960cfbb..a6025e3 100644 --- a/texts/compositions/Illuminatio.md +++ b/texts/compositions/Illuminatio.md @@ -6,4 +6,16 @@ date: 2013-02-01 categories: - Wind Ensemble --- -Information about _Illuminatio_. +_Illuminatio_ (Latin for "Illumination") was written in response to "Innovation in the Liberal Arts", +St. Olaf College's campus theme of the 2012–13 academic year. In the traditional way of thinking about +the liberal arts, the study of multiple, diverse disciplines can often seem to be a process of merely +learning a plethora of diverse facts. However, one can recognize this process instead as a deeper +enlightening, that of becoming aware. The study of diverse lines of thought not only gives one many +different pieces of knowledge, but it heightens one’s perception of the world through experiencing +many different perspectives of other human beings. The innovation is thus a change of the way one +thinks about the process of learning in the liberal arts. _Illuminatio_ seeks to capture musically +this process of becoming aware. + +The St. Olaf College Collaborative Undergraduate Research and Inquiry program sponsored my work on _Illuminatio_. + +The work was premiered in March 2013 by Dr. Kent McWilliams and the St. Olaf Band, with the composer conducting. diff --git a/texts/compositions/Intermezzo.md b/texts/compositions/Intermezzo.md index b8d7984..39bccc2 100644 --- a/texts/compositions/Intermezzo.md +++ b/texts/compositions/Intermezzo.md @@ -6,4 +6,7 @@ date: 2015-12-01 categories: - Solo --- -Information about _Intermezzo_. +This work was written as an homage to composer and friend Will Healy. The bass line of the +first four measures is taken from the latter half of his piece entitled _The Song I Wanted to Hear_. +I decided to harmonize it with a similarly jazz/post-impressionist influenced sound. Cast in ABA form, +the middle section winds into a _Liebestod_-esque climax. diff --git a/texts/compositions/Movement.md b/texts/compositions/Movement.md index ce6ab27..6c7a5d8 100644 --- a/texts/compositions/Movement.md +++ b/texts/compositions/Movement.md @@ -6,4 +6,18 @@ date: 2013-04-01 categories: - Chamber --- -Information about _Movement_. +This piece was written for my dear friend Seiji Cataldo. After having had many opportunities +to hear his fine playing, I became inspired to write a work for him, and this is the product. +In this work, I appealed to his strong, sensitive, and charismatic playing style with bright, +agile lines and a plethora of multiple stops, but also with smooth, lyrical tunes and delicate +harmonics. + +The movement is cast in a sonata form. The piece begins with a fanfare-like rhythm, +which gives way to a background of colorful tertian harmony. The violin enters with the first theme, +declamatory in character and with a strong tritone. A harmonically adventurous transition brings +the music to the second theme, a lyrical tune with octatonic suave. A slow development with +omnipresent off-beat pulses follows, and eventually the music arrives at the recapitulation. +Both themes are heard again, finally arriving in the original key. + +This work was premiered by Seiji Cataldo and Jesse Brault at Urness Recital Hall, +St. Olaf College, on April 12, 2013. diff --git a/texts/compositions/NearUnderFar.md b/texts/compositions/NearUnderFar.md index 05db072..ba56501 100644 --- a/texts/compositions/NearUnderFar.md +++ b/texts/compositions/NearUnderFar.md @@ -7,4 +7,17 @@ date: 2021-03-01 categories: - Solo --- -Information about _Near, Under, Far_. +_Near, Under, Far_ is a response to Luc Tuymans’ painting _Die blaue Eiche_ (“The Blue Oak”). +I was struck by both the loneliness and angularity of the painting, +and sought to capture these two ideas musically. + +As I was first sketching the piece, the region where I was living experienced extreme cold weather. +Standing outside one afternoon during this cold snap, I asked myself: what is the opposite of _Die blaue Eiche_? +I imagined a large blue oak, green with many leaves, somewhere in a field in California. +I thought of viewing it from a close distance, from underneath its shade, and from far +away on a distant hill. I then imagined these views of the long-frozen tree of _Die blaue Eiche_. +In picturing these opposite scenes, I felt both unease and longing, which I subsequently set out +to express musically (in addition to the painting’s loneliness and angularity). + +_Near, Under, Far_ was commissioned by _Musaics of the Bay_, San Francisco, California, +and was composed for cellist Gabriel Cabezas. diff --git a/texts/compositions/Quintet.md b/texts/compositions/Quintet.md index 77131aa..053bb3b 100644 --- a/texts/compositions/Quintet.md +++ b/texts/compositions/Quintet.md @@ -6,4 +6,31 @@ date: 2013-03-01 categories: - Chamber --- -Information about _Quintet_. +_Quintet_ is a summation of my work as an undergraduate. The work contains a plethora of tributes +to and quotes of other composers, as well as quotes of my own work, all of which are tied together +with original material to create a musical-dramatic structure that is nearly symphonic in size. + +The most prominent quote is the primary rhythmic motive from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. +As is for many musicians and music lovers, that symphony holds a special place in my soul, +and here this motive is meant to invoke the same as in his work: a sense of fate, perhaps the absurdity of life, +ever present. In addition to this particular motive, there are various other quotations of +the symphony in this work. + +Another important musical theme is _Why fum’th in fight_, a tune by the 16th century English composer Thomas Tallis. +This theme was made famous by Ralph Vaughan Williams in his work _Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis_. +This musical theme is one I have listened to as long as I have been an admirer of classical music, +and, since it deeply resonates with my inner ear, I felt compelled to place it in this work. + +Finally, I would like to acknowledge the debt that this work owes to the music of composer David Maslanka. +With many references to his own musical language, including both a prominent use of _Old Hundredth_ (which I first heard +in his Fourth Symphony) as well as various references to his Ninth Symphony, I am deeply in debt to his music. +_Quintet_ fully reflects this. + +There are many other small quotes, especially of my own music. Overall, however, the work is not +meant to be a "quotation collage". These quotations are to me powerful symbols for my musical being, +the combination of which is meant to serve a greater musical narrative. + +In the end, I hope the work to be a journey from cynicism and despair to an affirmation of love and life. + +This work was premiered by Sara Baumbauer, Seiji Cataldo, Josh Wareham, Audrey Slote, Erin Roe, +and Jesse Brault at Urness Recital Hall, St. Olaf College, on April 12, 2013. diff --git a/texts/compositions/SonataShambhala.md b/texts/compositions/SonataShambhala.md index 2f043be..49520f4 100644 --- a/texts/compositions/SonataShambhala.md +++ b/texts/compositions/SonataShambhala.md @@ -6,4 +6,61 @@ date: 2018-09-01 categories: - Solo --- -Information about _Sonata Shambhala_. +This work is a musical response to _Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior_ by Chögyam Trungpa, +a book which was recommended to me by a dear family-relative of mine in the spring of 2017. +At the time, I was in a routine involving waking up very early in the morning and reading +by the morning sunlight until it was time for breakfast. Reading the words of this book +in such a setting was deeply inspiring, and it was not long after that I proposed the idea of +composing an extended solo piano piece in reflection of the book to my dear friend Benjamin Hochman. +Over a year's worth of labor later, I produced the score for him, and Mr. Hochman premiered +the work at Marlboro College near Brattleboro, VT, on November 11, 2018, with performances following +in Seattle, WA, and Ghent, NY. Around this time, Rinchen Llamo, a friend of Mr. Hochman and a +former-student of Trungpa himself, sponsored the final labor of composing this piece, +and I am deeply grateful to her for her support. + +In this work, I have not sought to depict the teachings of the book literally in the music, +but rather to reflect musically my own feelings, experiences, and thoughts upon encountering +and meditating upon them. Below are quotes from the book that I found particularly relevant +to each movement after composing the work as a whole: + +I. _Kingdom Visions (Chaconne)_ + +> When you awaken your heart, you find, to your surprise, that your heart is empty. +> You find that you are looking into outer space. +> What are you, who are you, where is your heart? ... +> If you search for your awakened heart, if you put your hand through your rib cage +> and feel for it, there is nothing there except for tenderness. You feel sore and soft, +> and if you open your eyes to the rest of the world, you feel tremendous sadness. ... +> It occurs because your heart is completely exposed. ... +> For the warrior, this experience of sadness gives birth to fearlessness. +> (pp. 31–32) + +II. _Warrior's Path_ + +> The Great Eastern Sun is a rising sun ... it represents the dawning, or awakening of human dignity— +> the rising of human warriorship. It is based on celebrating life. ... It is based on seeing that +> there is a natural source of radiance and brilliance in the world— +> which is the innate wakefulness of human beings. (pp. 43–45) + +III. _Pilgrimage – Ascent – Kingdom_ +> That mind of fearfulness
+> Should be put in the cradle of loving-kindness
+> And suckled with the profound and brilliant milk of eternal doubtlessness.
+> In the cool shade of fearlessness,
+> Fan it with the fan of joy and happiness.
+> When it grows older,
+> With various displays of phenomena,
+> Lead it to the self-existing playground.
+> When it grows older still,
+> In order to promote primordial confidence,
+> Lead it to the archery range of warriors.
+> When it grows older still,
+> To awaken primordial self-nature,
+> Let it see the society of men
+> Which possess beauty and dignity.
+> Then the fearful mind
+> Can change into the warrior’s mind,
+> And that eternally youthful confidence
+> Can expand into space without beginning or end.
+> At that point it sees the Great Eastern Sun.
+> (p. 91)