Keep Calm (2016)

Amy DUNKER (1964)

Equilibrium (2017)

Nima HAMIDI (1984)

Brass Quintet (2017)

Michael ECKERT (1950)

On the Guarding of the Heart (2011)

Djuro ZIVKOVIC (1975)

Keep Calm was written for the Noise2Signal Ensemble. The work has been described as minimalist noir with its repetitive rhythmic drive and jazz inflected motivic ideas.

A state in which, opposing forces are balanced. In other words, the condition of a system exists in such a way that all-competing influences are stabilized, in a wide variety of contexts. Equilibrium is an attempt to reconstruct a similar situation. The concept of creating a stable unit, using unstable elements, is a feature of this work. Recently I’ve been experimenting with several unstable musical elements including timbre, rhythm, and dynamics, and more specifically, the concept of timbral instability. The notion is influenced by a unique performance practice in traditional music of the Middle East, which reflects an expressive bowing system. Several features including the random positions of bowing, dynamics, and a flexible left-hand finger pressure combined with drastic textural changes, range transformations, and a variety of sounds fields all provide unstable states of equilibrium. In order to balance these features, the composition is constructed carefully using temporal structure extracted from Piano Concerto by Beat Furrer. Equilibrium is an auditory experience that tries to compare a stabilized moment alongside an extreme number of unstable musical ideas.

I composed Brass Quintet for my colleagues in the Iowa Brass Quintet. The first movement dates from 2013; the second and third were completed in March 2017. Despite similar tempo markings, the movements present contrasting characters and textures. The first movement begins with a scalar idea that ramifies into increasingly complex interplay among the instruments. Conceived as an elegy for my parents and my wife’s mother, the second movement employs a rhythmic motive from, and eventually quotes, the beginning of the Sanctus of the Missa pro Defunctis (Requiem Mass) by Pierre de La Rue (c. 1452-1518), and ends with an allusion to “Taps.” The third movement begins with a fanfare-like idea in the trumpets that recurs in various guises, and rounds off the energetic closing. The movement durations are approximately 4:30, 4:45 and 3:30.

On the Guarding of the Heart is directly inspired by my two previous pieces, I Shall Contemplate... and Le Cimetière Marin. All of them are religious music, which I freely call cantata, the name I borrow from and refer to Bach's masterpieces. On the Guarding of the Heart is an instrumental cantata, and it derives many of the compositional ideas from I Shall Contemplate..... Both pieces could be performed attacca, in such a way that the latter ends the pieces.
    The main theme of On the Guarding of the Heart is the need to return into oneself, to descent with the intellect in to the depths of the heart, to guard it and to seek there the hidden treasure of the inner kingdom. The music is very stimulated by reading of the Philokalia; it is about a hard-achieved detachment, stillness and watchfulness, it is about solitude and exile.