These are three short modules, each about one-and-a-half minutes long, for percussion duet.  Each module morphs into the next, creating an organic flow between sections.  Each module has its own name; each name is based on a combination of root words from various languages that describe the tone of each module.

Valéria: healthy, strong
Aesina: lively, small
Ossiande: separate/alternate, warlike/strong

Phillip Jones, bongos
Alex Guebert, cajón

Valéria - Aesina - Ossiande (bongos & cajón)

I'm fascinated with words; particularly, the way words react with one another.  Two different phrases, made up of words that technically mean the same thing, can have very different connotations.  Even though "you are it" and "it is you" are synonymous, "you're it" brings to mind a game of tag, fast-paced and jumpy, while "it's you" sounds more like a revelation, or perhaps an accusation.

Emily Duescher, piano
Megan Wright, clarinet

You're it / It's you (clarinet & piano)

"Ransom" is based on images from C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy.

I. The Conquered City (percussion, strings, handbells)
II. Oyarsa (handbells)
III. The Floating Islands (vibes, handchimes, strings)
IV. They Have Pulled Down Deep Heaven On Their Heads (all)
V. Morning Sky: Malacandra (all)

Christie Glaser, flute
Mathieu Girardet, clarinet
Kaija Rose Hansen, violin
Josie Boyer, James Clark, cello
Teresa Chambless, bass
Lucas Zumbado, glockenspiel
Kan Adachi, Jeff Ramos, marimba
Kevin Brown, Nolan Wren, vibraphone
Alec Loshonkohl, Roland JX-8p synthesizer
Suzanne Boxdorfer, Marissa Carnahan, Christian Guebert, Lindsay Kane-Barnese, Trinity King, Melissa Kuhns, Jungeun Lee, Katie Montgomery, Sarah Moreno, Beverly Mueller, Carol Pickford, Heather Reilly-Rhoten, Steven Rodriguez, Justin Solis, Cyndi Tully, Megan Wright, handbells
Alex Guebert, conductor

Ransom (five continuous movements for chamber orchestra and handbells)

Rapid 5 started out as a solo piano piece, but with its rhythmic vitality and heavy use of open 5ths (a.k.a. "power chords"), it inevitable gained the instrumentation you see here...

Patrick Gibson, guitar
Alex Guebert, piano/synth
Christian Guebert, bass
Michael Malinowski, drums

Rapid 5

Project for Sound Design class at Cal State Long Beach.

Professor: Rychard Cooper

This piece was created entirely (well, almost entirely) in Sculpture, a virtual instrument in Logic Studio.   Various sounds which I created in Sculpture are woven into a sort of electronic-organic soundscape.

Soundscape 2

Sonata Corrente was composed for Carmen Aleman, sophomore at Concordia University Irvine. Corrente is an Italian word similar to the English "current"; in this sense it refers to the flowing or running of a current, as in a river or stream.

The sonata begins with a broad "Prelude" that foreshadows all of the themes of the first movement. The "Capriccio" is the heart of the movement, and is characterized by lilting 16th-note rhythms, interplay between clarinet and piano, and contrary motion with separate rhythms.

Movement II, "Sarabande", is set in slow 3/4 (with a few meter alterations). I have decided to make use of the clarinet's chalumeau register in a solo that begins this movement because of its characteristic low, rich tone. In the middle section, the clarinet's melody rises and the energy builds to a dramatic, unexpected modulation. The movement ends as it began: with thinly textured piano and soft, low clarinet.

Movement III uses the rondo form ABACABA(coda). All three themes are unique—A is unrelenting and jumpy, B is soaring and legato (sometimes over staccato accompaniment), and C is light and rarely falls on the downbeat of each measure. The coda features reprises of each theme as the sonata rushes to an energetic conclusion.

Sonata Corrente - I. Prelude & Capriccio

The poem "The Land of Dreams"  by William Blake:
http://www.online-literature.com/blake/620/

Written for Natalie Hovsepian, soprano; me (Alex Guebert), vibes; Ellen Daniels, piano.

Program notes from my senior recital where this was performed:

One of William Blake’s simpler poems, “The Land of Dreams” is about a child grieving for his mother, and his father comforting him.  (The boy’s voice is in quotation marks in the text.)  The boy takes solace in seeing his mother come to life in his dreams, but his father wants him to live a full, real life in the waking world, without impossible fantasies.  

This poem is made of contrasts, and I have tried to bring those contrasts forward in the music by separating a pointed “Awake” beginning section from an ethereal, dreamlike middle section.  At the last verse, the “unbelief and fear” of the real world comes to a breaking point of dissonance; all the layers of harmony from the earlier sections are fused together in a chaos of sound—but out of that disorder comes a peacefulness: a quotation from the chorale melody “O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright”.  This clear statement of hope is given as the boy, with the child-like faith all of us should strive toward, explains the real wisdom of the poem; that the true “Land of Dreams” is above the light of Jesus, in eternal glory of heaven.  This comforting thought closes out the piece, and the words “Thy Father does thee keep” from the first stanza are imbued with a new meaning.

The Land of Dreams

Based on a chant I picked out of the Liber Usualis.

For Rick Johnson, tenor; Christian Guebert, marimba; and me (Alex Guebert), multiple percussion.

Program notes from my senior recital, where this was performed:

Gregorian chant has a unique beauty that no other Western music has achieved since; its straightforward simplicity requires no accompaniment.  In this piece, unusual instruments are combined with an ancient melody to give the Latin words an emotional foundation of God’s comfort (coming from the marimba, perhaps the warmest-sounding percussion instrument), and of our human supplication (coming from the multiple percussion, made up of cold, earthly tones from drums, cymbals, bells, and chimes). 

Agnus Dei for tenor, marimba, and multiple percussion

A piece written for the outstanding new music group, Conundrum.  It's about the blue pyramid at Cal State Long Beach.  Why are you a pyramid?  What are you really for?  Why are you so blue?

Conundrum is Mary Elizabeth Southworth, soprano; Danielle Hundley, 
flute; Marianne Breneman, clarinet; and Philip Amalong, piano.

Reflections on a Blue Pyramid

"...there ain't no gettin' offa this train we on, not till we get to the end of the line." —Barret Wallace

Melissa Hulett, Justin Scheid, Alyse Thompson; flutes
Hiroshi Ikeda, Mathieu Girardet, Stephanie Faria; clarinets
Alex Guebert, conductor

Alex Guebert

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