Composer/Teacher/Scholar/Performer
I started writing this piece in Paris–something of an homage to the french origin of the saxophone, blending French Romantic and Impressionistic influences, with a hint of fin de siècle Russian music. Like most of my music, the strives to balance formal rigor with broad, lyrical melodies.
Grand-Duo-edits2-Full-Score-1There is something dream-like about this evocative little piece. There is something cinematic. There is something French. I wrote this miniature for the Composers of Oregon Chamber Orchestra’s second annual concert, part of a series of miniatures written by OCF composers for that event.
The “Winter” in this piece is heard in the two outer movements, begun about a year apart during the holidays in snowy New England. The first movement’s slow introduction embodies the cool austerity of winter with sharp clear octaves and dotted rhythms. The ensuing allegro turns these rhythms into something jagged and aggressive until a lilting lyrical theme takes over, evocative of the warmth of home and family. Material from the introduction returns throughout the allegro. The final movement, while more flowing and improvisatory, is based largely based on music from the first movement.
The second movement was written during my summer at home in New England, and it reflects the warm geniality of the place. It is an extended, passionate song, at times echoing the symphonic slow movements of Beethoven and Mahler.
Piano-Sonata-no-2-in-B-minor-Complete-scoreSonata e fantasia was written at the request of the flautist Linda Jenkins, whose expressive, elegant, and virtuosic playing made this a pleasure to write. In the Classical repertoire, pieces for a single monophonic instrument are quite rare. Although there are some for the quasi-polyphonic violin and cello, there is no precedent for Classical sonata form applied in solo flute repertoire (CPE Bach’s Flute Sonata in a minor actually uses binary form!). This Classical sonata form is the “Sonata” part of the title; the “fantasia” part represents the dominant affect of the piece, especially the character of the beginning, with its freely spun-out arpeggios and melancholy melodic figures. In combining these “sonata” and “fantasia” elements I tried to create a play between freedom and order, expression and balance. Compound melody and registeral shifts suggest multiple contrapuntal voices within the flute’s monophonic line. This, combined with the frequent fast arpeggios, serves to better define the underlying Classical harmony, and shape the overall sonata form.
Written for Esteli Gomez’s 2018 residency with Oregon Composers Forum, this joyful and serene setting of Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud” comes alive as an extended Mozartean concert aria for soprano and miniature orchestra. The music shifts between lyrical, cantabile phrases that seem to float above the scene while shorter, playful figures evoke the dancing daffodils. The piece culminates in an elaborate coloratura passage, answered by an ebullient coda for instruments alone.
I Wandered Lonely as a CloudThis overture was premiered at the inaugural concert of the Composers of Oregon Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble I co-founded with fellow composers Susanna Payne-Passmore and Joseph Vranas. It was particularly fun to figure out how to orchestrate Classical figurations for a chamber orchestra’s predominantly one-on-a-part instrumentation. Doubling the solo strings with woodwinds created sweet blended sonorities, while the timpani and brass choir (2 horns, trumpet and trombone) sustained thunderous climaxes. The music expresses a naive, youthful pleasure through long arching melodies, which contrast with vigorous, fiery developmental passages.
Overture for Chamber Orchestra - Full ScoreThis is the second set of three sonnet settings I wrote for my dear friend Jessica Rossi, the first of which was Three Milton Sonnets). This Shakespeare set is late-Romantic in idiom, contrasting with the more austere, Classical set of Milton poems. The first song, with its bustling textures and winding chromatic harmonies, may project more joy and hope then the poem seems to imply. The second song is pure wistful lyricism— it may be that some of my earlier experience writing show tunes shows through here. The third song does actually start off bleak, in a somewhat Russian manner, but with the sonnet’s typical turn in feeling “haply I think on thee etc.,” the music warms and rises to a Romantic climax.
Three Shakespeare SonnetsI wrote this organ prelude while learning German in Munich during the summer of 2017. Although the organ was an instrument I had been studying for several years, this was my first composition for the instrument. I drew on the rich German tradition of organ composition especially that of Buxtehude. The structure is similar to his Preludia – sectional. The first section draws on the baroque French overture affekt, with its typical scales and dotted rhythms, to which I add overlapping suspensions. This is followed by a freely played recitative and a solemn fugue in the parallel minor. There is no return to the loud pomposity of the opening; the final section is quiet and lyrical – a brief minuet for manuals alone. The ending, with its delicate imitations, should seem to evaporate into silence.
Praeludium für Orgel - Full ScoreThis piece is an experiment: can the Classical concerto idiom be realized by a marimba? The instrumentation is likewise eccentric, with alto saxophone and bass clarinet in place of standard Classical winds, and a mixed ensemble of mostly winds instead of a string-predominant orchestra. The novelty of the marimba timbre did inspire a few oddities – for example, the piece modulates to the bVII key area in the exposition – but the overall structure and orchestration employed the paradigms of Mozart’s piano concertos. Though very different, the featured instruments contain a few important similarities. Like the marimba, the piano’s tone is percussive and clear, and both can execute similar runs and arpeggios. Mozart’s Concerto-sonata form guided the structure of the piece, and the piano in the Fantasy Concerto takes the functional place of the string section.
Fantasy Concerto for Marimba“Abendmusik” means “evening-music” and can refer both to evening church concerts and to courting serenades sung outside the beloved’s window. This piece uses the clarinet dark, round timbre to evoke the hushed intensity of evening. Delicately winding melodies woo the listener with their Mozartean charm.
Abendmusik