Watch the award-winning music video for Part 3: https://filmfreeway.com/Bulosan

Full score PDF available: https://andresrluz.weebly.com/bulosan-project.html 

Featured on WIND ORCHESTRA MASTERS, VOL. 1 album from ABLAZE Records.

Wind Symphony of the College-Conservatory of Music
Erik Nordstrom, narrator
Kevin Michael Holzman, conductor
Corbett Auditorium, University of Cincinnati

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNWTGvUJLrA2PBMsg2c3VZ6qO3nLh1p3w
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For performance materials, go to https://www.murphymusicpress.com/products/w-868
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My dissertation provides background on the life of Carlos Bulosan, as well as a thorough analysis of the work, found at this site:
https://esploro.libs.uga.edu/esploro/outputs/doctoral/Compositional-Innovations-in-PassacagliaChaconne-Forms-from/9949450527702959
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Bulosan: On American Democracy is the Winner of the 2023 American Prize in Composition, College/University-Level Wind Ensemble Division.  It was also chosen for the 2022 Ablaze Records International Wind Ensemble Call-for-Scores to be featured in Volume 1 of the Wind Orchestra Masters series now available at www.ablazerecords.net

Bulosan: On American Democracy draws inspiration from selected excerpts from two important literary opuses written by the labor union organizer and writer, Carlos Bulosan (1913-1956), who was active on the U.S. West Coast in the 1930s-40s. In both his semi-autobiographical novel, America is in the Heart (1946), and the essay, “Freedom from Want” (1943), Bulosan wrote on themes about the preservation of American democracy at a time when it was under threat by the rise of Fascism in Western Europe and Authoritarian Communism in the Soviet Union. As the U.S. had emerged from the years of the Great Depression and entered the Second World War on two fronts, Bulosan stressed that in order for democracy to survive at home, the nation must seek to preserve a thriving, independent, and well-educated populace situated in a culture that values the natural rights of individuals as well as intellectual and artistic freedoms.  Despite numerous instances of rampant racism, xenophobia, class discrimination, and workplace-related harassment and violence, Bulosan steadfastly believed in the American values of liberty, opportunity, and excellence even in the face of abject poverty, poor working conditions, and societal marginalization which he and his colleagues had experienced living in the United States. 

The resulting text is assembled from Carlos Bulosan’s semi-autobiographic novel, America is in the Heart (1946), and the essay, “Freedom from Want” (1943). This order is meant to illustrate a ruminative evolution from darkness to light—a gradual movement (1) from a spirit of steadfastness in the face of fierce antagonism and gross inequality, (2) to a consideration of value placed upon national unity and the many faces of the American identity, and finally (3) to a contemplation on the fulfillment of the American dream based on democracy’s fundamental aims supported by the many people who embody them. Additionally, an underlying theme that is revisited in the work is the paradoxical nature of the United States as both “kind” and “cruel” in its treatment of immigrants and minorities as depicted in Bulosan’s America is in the Heart.

Bulosan: On American Democracy - Grand Passacaglia for Narrator, Wind Symphony, & Fixed Media

Petteril makes emotive, textural, electroacoustic music inspired by the complexities of the human condition, nature and the parallels between the two. Using a dying accordion, baritone guitar, field recordings and electronics, Petteril improvises, manipulates and processes sound to craft narrative driven musical collages—a cathartic response to personal struggles and rural remote living.

Petteril’s debut EP ‘CYRE’—released on Puremagnetik—was featured in Bandcamp’s ‘Best of Ambient’ September 2021 and is definitely worth checking if you have not already. 

So as always, sit back, relax and take a load off. Enjoy.

Tracklist:

Klara Lewis & Peder Mannerfelt — Sell Art
Pétra — Aire
DOVS — Whining Acid
Vanessa Amara — Leopards 3
Arovane — Reihen
Johan Carøe — Human
Andrew Pekler — Description of Rain (Over Frisland)
Yolabmi — III
Shuttle 358 — Lyndon Tree
Felicia Atkinson & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma — Quelque Chose
Nadia Struiwigh — Organic
Astrid Sonne — Moderato
Ruth Mascelli — Missing Men
Yo La Tengo — Let's Save Tony Orlando's House (Sonic Boom remix)

Take a Trip with Petteril

here comes Tomorrow, for clarinet, violin, violoncello and piano, op. 6 (2013), was composed to commemorate the union of two friends, Ashika Singh and Jacob Nava-Coulter,  on their wedding day, Friday, April 13, 2012, in Burlingame, California.

This work is built around two melodies: the first is a Carnatic raga fragment, a hindola (janya) from Melakarta no. 20, originating from Natabhairavi, South India, of Hindi origins; while the second melody is a cancion called “Vamos a la mar, Morena” in 5/8 time from Yaguaraparo, Venezuela. Although this rich and rather unlikely juxtaposition may seem curious at first encounter, it is intended to celebrate the love between Ashika and Jacob, and the unique blend of their cultural backgrounds.

Of Hindi origin, Ashika was born in the Republic of Fiji in the South Pacific, a descendent of Indian settlement facilitated by colonial British rule from an earlier time. 
Jacob, on the other hand, traces his roots along his Venezulan and mixed European ancestry.

Many thanks to Redshift (Jeff Anderle, clarinet; Andie Springer, violin; Rose Bellini, cello; and Kate Campbell, piano) for their creative input and reading of this work while still in-progress in Spring 2012 at California State University, East Bay, Hayward, California.

Special acknowledgements to Dr. Rafael Hernandez and Dr. Jeffrey Miller for making this artistic collaboration possible.

Andres R. Luz
Daly City, CA
November 2013

here comes Tomorrow, for clarinet, violin, violoncello and piano  (2013)

"Pop Song" No. 3 - DripDrop. Created in Ableton Live between August and September 2022.

"Pop Song" No. 3 - DripDrop

Viderunt Omnes for ensemble

These two works represent different views of how the external metaphors of wind and earth may be shaped to reflect the more intimate internal worlds of the human heart and mind.

Tempest, my flute concerto, was shaped by the thought of wind—such an essential element to the flute and flute playing—and how, in the natural world, this courses across the planet in different ways from benign to hostile. The three movements reflect different wind patterns found around the globe and served as a departure point for a three movement work cast in a quasi-classical frame of fast-slow-fast structure. Each movement engages a message, I hope, beyond mere tone painting, to reflect deeper aspects of the human condition, the human experience, thought, reflection, psychology and emotion.

Unfinished Earth is a longer and deeper work, again cast in three movements, and delving into the constant degradation and reformation of earth and sea. Just as the earth slowly changes and evolves, we ourselves are constantly evolving through the deepening of our life experience, the processing of life’s joys and tragedies, and the inner passage of our turmoils and triumphs. Tendering, the first movement, is about the formation of earth and the molten rock that is risen from the subterranean earthen smelter to become land. For me, this is a movement about becoming, and through such becoming, firming in our senses of self, just as earth does as it becomes land. Eternal Ocean, the second movement, evokes the shifting currents of deep ocean, again, as a metaphor for the unfocussed and at times even conflicting currents of the inner emotional worlds of the human experience. The final movement Tearing Drift is again a work with multivalent meanings: some referring to the ripping apart or fractures in the earth’s surface as might happen in an earthquake perhaps; to the alternative meaning of the first word of the title not as being torn but as crying. This notion of an earth cry or deep subterranean swell of grief was a central image and intent of this movement. The strident wind and brass microtonal peals and screams against the strong percussive thrust of this movement was intended to reflect such an earth cry—or even the Munchian silent scream of isolated man.

Knehans—Unfinished Earth

Buy disc

Tempest-Concerto for Flute and Orchestra—3. Etesian

Contact Zae Munn directly for score access: zmunn@saintmarys.edu

This is the premiere of Hushed Haiku, for mixed choir and piano, composed by Zae Munn. Commissioned by the South Bend Chamber Singers, Nancy Menk, conductor, David Eicher, piano. 12/17/17, Church of Loretto, Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, IN. The lyrics are five unpublished haiku by American novelist and poet Karen Hesse.

Hushed Haiku, written for the South Bend Chamber Singers and completed in 2017, is a musical setting of five unpublished haiku by Karen Hesse, an American author of historically based books for young adults. As with traditional haiku, Hesse’s five evoke images of the natural world, and these five have a particular focus on the season of winter.

Haiku syllabic structure requires five syllables in the first and third lines of each three-line haiku, and the number five figures prominently throughout Hushed Haiku—five sections, five-part chorus, 5/8 and 5/4  meters in alternating sections, and a five-word phrase, built of one significant word from each of the five haiku, provides the text for a unifying musical ostinato. 

In her choral and vocal works, Munn typically sets texts by living writers, including Peg Lauber, Marilyn Taylor, and Karen Hesse. One of Hesse’s young adult novels, Witness, was the basis of the libretto for Zae’s 2006 full-length opera of the same name and her very short opera, Night of Blue Magic, sets 22 haiku by Hesse. 

Everything is hushed
on the first snowy morning,
even the sparrows.

A single candle
lighting the cave of winter,
reflects in your eyes 
Days so short, the light
becomes an honored guest who
never overstays.
Little mouse sleeping
in a nest of grass and weeds.
Tail wrapped close around.
Beautiful new snow,
resting its white cheek against
the quilted rooftops.
	--Karen Hesse

Hushed Haiku

Gerardo Lopez, flute solo.
Recorded at the University of Redlands, 27JUN19.

Jackson Pollock’s early surrealist work, Guardians of the Secret (1943), is displayed in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and serves as the inspiration behind Enigmatic Improvisation for solo flute and electronics, op. 16  (2019).  The painting exudes the heavy, mystical air of an ancient, shamanistic scene far removed from common, everyday experience, and is cast with a sense of foreboding that verges on the apocalyptic.  The shadowy background figures, armored sentinels standing guard in their protective display of the secret image, appear surreal and menacing in their wild depiction.  A lone coyote, the spirit animal of dark magic and trickery in some Native American cultures, rests beneath the enigmatic relic with a watchful eye. 

Given these elements, I crafted the fixed media background with a similarly dark and weighty intensity, to conjure an ominous, and sometimes violent, clamorous landscape that defies simple explanation.  Disembodied whispers, animal cries, crashes, and subsonic eruptions depict the nocturnal absence of reason in the first movement, entitled Guardians.  This gives way to the transparent, diaphanous textures found in the meditative Mythos, portraying the radiant luminosity of the mysterious, secret artefact in a loosely unfolding prolation canon.  The final movement, Emergence, proceeds with a dark grandeur.  It arises from a sense of transcendent epiphany, one that suggests for the observer an unexpected awareness and wonder for the titular secret at the heart of this work. 
-ARL, 24MAY19.

Duration - Approximately 13 minutes

Enigmatic Improvisation was selected as a Finalist for the Red Jasper Award for Music Composition in February 2022.

This work was also chosen to be featured at the 2020 Turn Up Multimedia Festival at the Fred Fox School of Music at the University of AZ, Tucson.

Enigmatic Improvisation for flute & electronics, op. 16 (2019) -- Original version

Les Instances (2019)
for diffused synthesized sounds and large ensemble

2019 annual Columbia Composers concert series
Conductor: James Baker 
Ensemble: Talea ensemble
March 29th, 2019
DiMenna Center for Classical Music – New York 

The piece was written for TALEA ensemble 
and is heartily dedicated to George E. Lewis

In "les instances" I am exploring the coexistence among digital, synthesized sounds and instrumental material. I am interested in experimenting with the reflection of an instrumental group on a synthesized soundscape that dominates the music discourse and has no spectral and/or sonic similarities with the material articulated by the ensemble. The structure of the piece is driven by a continuum of interchangeable, phrasal collages of distinct sonic and rhythmical structures, projected as sonic blocks, and formulating, eventually, the dramaturgy of the piece. The piece was written for Talea ensemble and is heartily dedicated to George E. Lewis.

Les Instances (2019), for diffused synthesized sounds and large ensemble

Penumbra for String Quartet.  Performed here by the sadly now defunct Cordova Quartet.

Penumbra for String Quartet

Semyon Bychkov, conductor

Poulenc Concerto for 2 Pianos in D Minor
  Katya and Marielle Lebeque, piano
Strauss Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40
Originally recorded at concerts on November 17 and 19, 2011

Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 78
  David Robertson, conductor
Originally recorded at concerts on November 1, 3, and 4, 2006

Beyond the Score: Strauss Ein Heldenleben (13-26)

Harnessing the chugging, energetic sounds of contemporary postmodernism as a starting point, Andres R. Luz develops his artistic idiom from the legacy of music history stretching back to medieval and Renaissance stylistic practices, up to those of the present-day.  
Andres Luz has studied with Jeffrey Miller at California State University, East Bay (B.A. Music, magna cum laude, 2013) and taken private studies in electroacoustic music with Ian Dicke, as well as master classes with Hannah Lash, P.Q. Phan, Zae Munn, and Paul Salerni.  Andres Luz completed the Master of Music Composition at the University of Redlands in 2016.

In 2022, Andres Luz completed the Doctorate in Musical Arts in Composition at the University of Georgia (UGA), Athens, studying with Peter Van Zandt Lane, Adrian Childs, and Emily Koh.  Andres Luz also served as Visiting Assistant Professor of Theory and Electronic Music Composition at the University of Redlands and as the assistant of the Dancz Center of New Music at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at UGA.

His music has been played internationally and notably by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Wind Symphony of the College-Conservatory at the University of Cincinnati.  Among his electroacoustic pieces, Andres Luz’s 2017 fixed media work, Premotions, Landscape at Twilight is featured on MUSLAB-Cero Records’ PLANETA COMPEJO album from Fall 2023.  Among the works for large ensemble, Dr. Luz’s dissertation composition, Bulosan: On American Democracy for Narrator, Wind Symphony, and Fixed Media (2021, rev. 2023), won the 2023 American Prize in Composition, College/University-Level Wind Ensemble Division and Runner-up among American Prize compositions featuring Social Justice content.  This work is featured in Ablaze Records’ first volume of the Wind Orchestra Masters series released in Summer 2024.  In the upcoming November/December 2024 issue of Fanfare Magazine, reviewer Ken Meltzer describes Bulosan as “an eloquent and moving work, one I recommend heartily.”  In another review by Colin Clarke, Bulosan is lauded as "expertly structured and emotionally powerful," while Natalie Szabo writes that the album documents a "masterful ensemble performance.  Five stars."

Andres Luz is a member of ASCAP, SEAMUS, Millennium Composers Initiative, and Society of Composers, Inc., and is published by Murphy Music Press and Post-Classical Music.