Sounds of Night

Originally Inspired by the nightlife of Iowa City, the piece strives to describe an array of sounds and impressions that a night can offer, from the sounds of popular tunes coming from the local bars to the sounds of wind. The work calls for the violins to be retuned to microtonal tunings, to add an air of exoticism to the piece. Violins are retuned not according to any specific system, but rather to achieve an acoustically pleasing sound.

Breakfast for Dinner

was composed for two marimbists to play on a single instrument. Over course of this short piece, the individual marimba parts strike a balance between leading the duo, imitating the other, and maintaining individual roles. There is no significance to the title; the idea of breakfast for dinner is just always hard to turn down.

ismriy for flute and electronics

makes use of PureData to analyze the sound of the flautist. It creates a web of sound using this analysis, based on the pitches and timbres created by the flute. The events created by the software are random in their timing and content, but follow a general morphology over the course of the piece.

Beginning

This piece consists of typical three sections, A-B-A'. The A section begins with open strings and they are developed by expanding their range to the climax based on homophonic texture. The B section is a slow part which includes chromatic melodies proceeding to A' section. Returning to A' section, the coda comes with brilliant passage to the end.

Resistance is Futile

is a programmatic piece that symbolically represents the Borg, a fictional race of technologically enhanced aliens bent on assimilating other cultures into their collective, often destroying entire cultures in the process, seen throughout Star Trek. Throughout the piece, clips from various Star Trek television series and movies give the audience members who have not seen the show an idea of what the Borg are, and for those who have, a chilling reminder of the atrocity that is the Borg. This piece focuses on the dehumanizing aspect of the Borg, as the subject is first assimilated (a process explained in the piece) and then becomes gradually less human and more machine-like, until all of his or her humanity is lost, and all that is left is the single, unified thought of the Borg Collective.

Angelus Novus II

'Angelus Novus' shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. —Walter Benjamin

My intention in Angelus Novus II is to juxtapose elements, signifying the shift in conception from pitched based to sound based. Traditional ideals of melody, pulse, and technique are contrasted with more modern notions of clarity/noise, relative timing, and extended techniques. Instead of being perceived as disparate elements, they are presented in a fluid and tiered manner, fading in and out of one another, as one would experience an event at various degrees of proximity.

A Divisive Dichotomy

Did you know it's an election year? This piece received its premier at the Eastern Trombone Workshop in 2012, which is held annually just across the Potomac from this nation's Capitol. Inspired by the location of the event, I wrote this piece with two opposing ideas in mind. One might be considered more conservative while the other more liberal.

3 Duos

These brief duets are selections from a larger set (in progress) modeled on Ligeti's Musica ricercata. Prelude, Ballad, and Hocket represent the second, eighth, and third pieces, respectively. Each piece explores a particular sound world through allusion and quotation. An over-arching goal in composing this set has been to find subtle ways of maximizing the violin's sonic potential. I am deeply grateful to Sophie and Eric for lending their artistry and hard work in making this performance possible.

Shipbreaking

The life expectancy of any large sea vessel is about twenty years. After that time, the rising costs of maintenance and insurance make the ship unprofitable. So where do ships go to die? To the beaches of Chittagong, Bangladesh, where laborers working for iron recycling companies such as PHP (Peace, Happiness, Prosperity) dismantle the giant ships almost entirely by hand. There are no cranes, no lifts, no scaffolding, no hardhats, no jack hammers; just blowtorches and many human hands. This is a powerful example of accomplishing a monumental task with very simple means. The cutters (those with blow torches) literally cut the ship into large pieces which are then carried on the shoulders of twenty men to nearby trucks. This composition reflects musically on the wonderment of shipbreaking, specifically as portrayed in the photography of Edward Burtynsky. The electronic sounds are derived from recordings of metal: banging, scraping, clanging, grinding, sawing, dropping, hammering, and cutting metal pieces of a variety of shapes and sizes. The intersection of the saxophone and metallic sounds is explored through the use of extended techniques including slap tonguing, altissimo, and multiphonics.

Sonata for viola solo

is developed in two sections, which conflicts with each other, first by using the possibilities of harmonic to create the naïve and sparkling emotion while the second is full of running notes to create the aggressive and chaos emotion.

Amalgamations
 

Fourth Stream Chronologies

Ebullient and pulse-driven, Fourth Stream Chronlogies explores time - fast time, contracted time, layered time, and static time. Meter is implied then disguised throughout, culminating in several spots as quadra-meter - a polymeter with four distinct layers. Sprinkled here and there are unusual sounds such as a Marimba and Electric Bass duet as well as the lone hi-hat aiding not only in time management but proclaiming its own virtuosic, quasi-improvisatory voice into the milieu. The piece borrows unabashedly from well-established styles of music.