An Old Man's Winter Night
"All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him—at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off;—and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon,—such as she was,
So late-arising,—to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man—one man—can’t fill a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It’s thus he does it of a winter night."
-Robert Frost

Through The Thin Frost (Orchestra)

Unravel is a piano quintet commissioned by Andrea Allen. This piece is set to dancers and tells the story of a romantic relationship that unravels throughout the piece. Special thanks to all of the performers involved! 

Violin: Phoenix Abbo
Violin: Asia Charles
Viola: Kelly Bartek
Cello: Manuela Baric
Piano: Grant Carrington

Unravel (Piano Quintet for dance)

This five movement chamber piece explores the darkest corners of the human psyche. You will hear seemingly random text dispersed throughout the first movement, “Prodrome” (meaning the onset of a disease), text that may not even make logical sense at first listen, however, the words are not intended to tell a coherent story from start to finish, but rather add to the atmospheric quality while pushing the piece forward. In the final movement, the text returns in a new context. My intent is for the listener to experience the text in a completely different light in the final movement when compared to their experience of hearing it for the first time, thus, the title of the fifth movement, “Clarity.” 

The statements used are a collection of quotes taken from different infamous serial killers throughout history including; David Berkowitz, the “Axeman”, “Zodiac”, Charles Manson, Albert Fish, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Ted Bundy. I have always been drawn to the macabre, though my fascination with these depraved figures stems more from my fascination with the human psyche and mental state, and how individuals could be capable of committing such heinous crimes. It is not my intention to draw attention to such individuals, but more so to explore the different stages typically found in psychosis. The figures themselves are irrelevant. The text itself is what I am more interested in exploiting within this composition.   

Each movement explores a new stage in this mental disorder, becoming more and more unhinged as the piece progresses. Though each movement has a unique and individual sound, motives and other connections are still present. The piece is a journey that I wanted to share with others, whether listeners find the journey itself enjoyable is out of my control.

Conductor: Ji-Hyun (Jenny) Yim
Soprano: Brenna Santos
Flute: Laura Pillman
Clarinet: Lucas Willsie
Violin: Mia Detwiler
Violoncello: Kourtney Newton
Piano: Grant A. Carrington

Text:
"In this hole lives the wicked king"
"For I am in close relationship with the angel of death"
"Peekaboo! You are doomed"
"Paranoia is just total awareness"
"None of us are saints"
"...sick, pathetic, miserable life story..."
"You feel the last bit of breathe leave their body. Your'e looking into their eyes. A person in that situation is God."
"I want to master life and death"

IV. Mania (clarinet, violin, violoncello, piano)

I wrote this poem shortly after my father Alan Stephens was placed in a care facility for dementia. This piece is dedicated to his memory. This piece is structured in arc form, abcba, where I decided to move between a wide array of tonal centers, evoking a sense of motion and forward movement. I decided to write for choir for several reasons; first, practically the voice is the best way to project the text, second, I wanted to utilize the human voice to create an angelic and serene atmosphere. I created the “fake latin” words because of the different vowel placements they added, as well as the sense of ambiguity they entice. This piece is my outlet of expression for this loss, and more importantly, to celebrate his life and the impact it had on my own.

Acsentimus, Üfendimus, Oculento
Where have you gone?
A distant land,
I cannot see?
Blinded by light,
colorful indeed.
Where have you gone?
Nothing but Obscurity.
I'll carry on.
Goodbye, you are free.

Conductor: Ryan Deignan
Soprano: Madison Neusal, Leahna Acosta
Alto: Frances Jimenez, Bridgette Pineau
Tenor: Nick Standish, Derek Fletcher
Bass: Bryan Aguilar, Andrew Martin
Piano: Dario Llanos Javierre

Requiem For A Good Man (ssaattbb, piano)

Over the process of composing this piece, it slowly became a self-portrait, a reflection of sorts that represented this period of my life, a period of uncertainty, anxiety, and most of all, the unknown. Amor Fati translates to “love of one’s fate.” Though this piece was nearly complete before I stumbled upon this title, somehow this phrase resonated with me in a way that countered any looming negative thoughts I had, as well as described how I aspire to view my own fate.
   	The piece opens with a very intense and agitated theme, which over the course of the music is transformed. The piano’s role is one of conflict towards the orchestra. The dialogue between the ensemble and soloist, though at times may sound harmonious, is filled with dissension. The two are constantly combating each other’s themes by interrupting and rudely dominating the music in the midst of the other’s sentence. However, during the final climax, the two finally merge into a single entity, representing hope and… well, a love for one’s fate. Whether the listener truly makes the connections between how I view the concerto’s themes matters not. I only ask that you fully allow the piece to take you, and let your imagination dictate what this piece means to you.

“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it.”

-Friedrich Nietzsche

Conductor: Daniel Wiley
Pianist: Eldred Marshall

Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra, "Amor Fati" (piano, orchestra)

"My goal for this piece was to create a colorful and rich sound world with a unique soundscape, saturated in harmony and timbre. The text I chose comes directly from the Book of Revelations and pushes the piece forward with its narrative. This piece is not a statement on religious beliefs, nor meant as a representation of my own beliefs, however, a story I wanted to tell. This story, filled with imagery, symbolism, characters, etc., provides the perfect backdrop for the music to thrive. Due to the nature of the story, I chose to keep the text in its original Latin form, creating a greater sense of ambiguity and mystery. The unorthodox instrumentation was chosen based on the uniqueness of each of the instruments and how they benefited my musical palette. Though this piece is seven movements long, it is a continuous work where each movement flows directly into the next. You will hear a distinct character change in the music as each movement contains its own personality. This book from the Bible has stirred the most controversy and created countless debates among Theologians as to its meaning. Due to the disputable nature of the text, I felt it was the perfect story to tell through music."

-Austin Simonds, 2017

Infernus Sequebatur Eum... (2 sopranos, mixed ensemble)

This short exercise consists of using processed sounds for my material and is made up of excerpts of other pieces of mine, as well as recordings from a piano recital I presented quite a few years back. Every sound was either personally recorded or is an audio clip taken from recordings of my own compositions that have been manipulated and transformed. This short etude is merely a distorted reflection of my own work as a composer as well as an experiment in personal expression using electronics. This was also a meditative effort to break from my traditional approaches to composing, as I do not frequently work with electronics. Though that is something I am looking to change.

Distorted Reflections (fixed media, computer music)

Refraction: the fact or phenomenon of light, radio waves, etc. being deflected in passing obliquely through the interface between one medium and another or through a medium of varying density.

The musical DNA of this piece is grounded and constant throughout. The material itself does not change, yet the manner in which it is explored and the transformations it undergoes all encompass the concept of this piece. The initial tone is stretched into a cluster sonority that later informs all aspects of the proceeding material including the rhythmic, noise, and harmonic aspects of the piece. Each section is conceptually a new medium the original material passes through. My hope is that the listener is able to discern the expansive alterations as they occur and recall past events that may have evolved into greater significance, essentially following the material through this journey of refraction.

Refraction (saxophone quartet)

After coming across the Elizabeth Bishop poem, Insomnia, I became very interested in imitating the clever contrasts and literary devices of poetry within music. Similar to the prose of literary writings, my aim was to explore juxtaposition; material that vastly differs from one another placed side by side in unique scenarios. The opening rhythmic attacks merely hint at the climactic ending before quickly moving to the bulk of the material for the first half of the piece. Large swarms and gestures of composite sounds unite the ensemble, but later transition to the distant shimmers of light among the winds. The piece eventually comes full circle to familiar territory and ends with a rhythmic dance-like climax. Special thanks to Ensemble Dal Niente for this performance.

CCCC 20190510

Into that World Inverted (mixed chamber ensemble)

Luxuria, in Latin, refers to one of the seven cardinal sins; lust. Though often related to sexual impulses and adultery, lust can also refer to a longing for money, power, and other physical desires. This piece aims to capture the internal conflict of luxuria and the struggle of overcoming such destructive impulses. Within the music, there is a duality present between the sharp rhythmic gestures that continue throughout, and the darker piano ostinato that returns longer and longer each time with slight variation. The string quartet and piano are also placed in a binary scenario where they alternate between unity and disjointedness. The relationship between the two evolves and devolves, unison passages to highly syncopated moments. In the end, it is up to the listener to determine which force ultimately proves to be victorious.

Artwork: The Birth of Venus by Alexandre Cabanel (1863)

Luxuria (piano quintet)

When asked to compose for this remarkable instrument, my mind immediately took me to my childhood memories of attending church service. The distinct, repeated attacks of the bell in a rhythmically monotonous fashion serve as the foundation for this piece. Fantasy and Fugue is certainly more fantasy than fugue, in any strict sense of the word. The challenge for me was to utilize the absolute fullest capabilities of the instrument, while maintaining true to what my material could offer. 
The piece begins with a brief introduction, a “tolling of the bells” of sorts, before officially beginning the subject of this quasi-fugue. The subject is made up of a quarter note melody that remains constant throughout the first section and serves as a thread throughout the work. The countervoice rhythmically upsets the beat and subtly creates an illusion of slowing down the centered quarter note theme. A short interlude of resonance allows the bells to breathe and ring out with space before the piece moves to a much more energetic and dense middle section. The original material emerges once again, now surrounded by multiple voices of chromatic counterpoint. The bells eventually fade in the distance as a reminiscent allusion to the fantasy that was. 

Special thanks to Joey Brink for all his work on this piece.

Carillon sess edit 20190819

Fantasy and Fugue (carillon)

Pleiades refers to one of the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky. This piece is inspired by the wonders of the vast cosmos and its provocative, awe-inspiring existence. Whenever life feels too big to handle, I look up into the sky and observe the Pleiades cluster. I observe the beautiful, frightening reality of how small our home really is. This piece aims to evoke that sense of wonder, excitement, and adventure along with the postulation that however big our world is, the universe is even bigger.        

“However big our world is — in our hearts, our minds, in our out-sized atlases? The universe is even bigger. There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on the world's beaches. More stars in the universe than seconds of time that have passed since Earth formed. More stars than words and sounds ever uttered by all humans who have ever lived.” -Neil Degrasse Tyson

Composed for the Mansfield Philharmonic, difficulty a level 1 piece for community/volunteer orchestras and ensembles

Pleiades (chamber orchestra)

Some fooling around on Super Collider plus a little Brahms equals this.

i <3 Brahms (fixed media, computer music)

Work on this piece began during the first extended period of my life where I had been out of school and thrust into the workforce. I had just finished my graduate studies in Chicago and entered the ‘real world’ so to speak for the first time. Initially this piece referred to how I felt; all motion seemingly coming to a stop with regards to my advancement in my educational and personal pursuits. Ironically, as I concluded the final details on these pages, the Covid-19 pandemic swept the globe and brought about the world to a seemingly ‘still’ state of motion. The piece begins with contemplative and foreboding tension as the string trio gradually builds. The piano is merely an ominous presence drifting in the background. The piece then erupts as the piano emerges and pushes the strings into a fierce chase, with dialogue that seems to be in conflict with one another. This chaos ensues before merging these two forces, (the trio and piano) together into a pulsating entity that accepts its gradual transformation into its final form. 

Artwork by LiYing Xie

still (piano quartet)

This piece was constructed following a fractal-like process where every aspect of the material all stems from an original 1 bar motive I wrote. This piece is a segmented, kaleidoscopic view of different scenes from the same source. As a result, but not a conscious effort, the piece became a narrative in the sense that the music drifts to new sections and materials, while remaining very much grounded in one unified sound world. After nearly completing the piece, I decided on the title. Aurora refers to the northern lights, the colorful scenery caused by the curious wonders of nature beyond our immediate perception. After hours of listening and internalizing the final product, it very much felt right to describe this piece as a winter storm; delicate and mysterious at first, which eventually erupts into a fierce and violent climax, and ends with a contemplative and vibrant landscape of colors.

Aurora Winter (piano)

Composer and pianist Austin Simonds (b. 1996) has been praised for his use of thought-provoking themes connected to literature, philosophy, the macabre, and the human psyche. Much of his work deals with lyricism, texture manipulation, and often contains a narrative or programmatic element. Award-winning composer Claudia Howard Queen  described his work as "passionate, beautiful, and memorable." 

He has worked with choreographers, filmmakers, and music theater directors in collaborations and other projects, though most of his efforts focus toward concert music. His work has been performed across the U.S. , Hong Kong,  as well as in Fontainebleau, France. Performances from ensembles include University of North Texas Symphony, Roomful of Teeth, ~Nois Saxophone Quartet, Ensemble Dal Niente, and the Donald Sinta Quartet. More recently, his new work for solo piano, "Aurora Winter" was selected for the Keyboard in the 21st Century International Conference for Composers. In addition, his piece, “Luxuria” for piano quintet, was notably selected as the 1st prizewinner of the Prix de Composition Maurice Ravel.

As a pianist, Simonds has collaborated with other composers and premiered new work, performed alongside other pianists in Dallas, as well as having hosted several solo recitals. His passion for the piano is evident throughout his compositions.

He is also a founding member, and active board member of the new art collective Eclective, a group of artists dedicated to the curation, promotion, and performance of new art. Through Eclective, Simonds has been active in many projects, some of which include a cross-collaboration art film, theater commission, and a string quartet project.  

His composition studies have included lessons under Ermir Bejo, Kirsten Broberg, Andrew May, as well as Sungji Hong. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Composition and Music Theory from the University of North Texas as well as a master of Arts in Composition from the University of Chicago where he studied under Augusta Read Thomas.

Austin D. Simonds

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