composed for Mivos Quartet
premiered on April 9 2023 at Tenri Cultural Institute, New York

pour

Kory Reeder Walls of Brocade Fields

Commissioned by Dr. Henry Dorn and the St. Olaf Band

Completed 1/31/2024
Premiered 4/21/2024 by the commissioning ensemble

Music has an uncanny ability to suggest motion, be it through rhythmic motives, melodic contour, harmonic shifts, timbral affects, or any combination thereof and beyond. Nonetheless, helicopter string quartets notwithstanding, much instrumental music tends to be created while (mostly) stationary. The idea of ‘dance music’ - that is, music that so strongly suggests movement through its sound alone that it actually inspires people to move - is a remarkable illusion, yet one that seems strikingly ubiquitous.

As its title would suggest, Dancing On Air is a piece about motion, and as many different kinds as possible. The music flits from key area to key area in its bouncy triple time, scattering its themes and motifs deftly across sections and back. As I began writing it, I knew I wanted to return to a simpler kind of music than my recent output, and the piece's soaring melodies, repetitious figures, and exuberant orchestration seek to explore a world colored by innocence, youth, and good humor. 

Many thanks to my friend, Henry, and to his incredible band. It was a true honor to get to write this piece for them.

Dancing on Air, for wind band

Performance by Julius Akira Mauldin and The Westside Chamber Players in the Church of the Holy Apostles, New York, NY.


Program Notes:

Back in 2020, after I finished my first commission from the Albany Symphony, they sent me a wonderful book of collected poems. One of the poems included in this book, Of Rain and Air by Wayne Dodd, immediately resonated with me with its beautiful, evocative imagery and its striking relevance to both the sounds I was exploring in my new piece for Albany Symphony and what I was experiencing at the time. My piece is not a musical setting of the poem, but I feel it shares much of the same feeling as that of the text, as if they were part of the same world.


Wayne Dodd - Of Rain and Air
from Sometimes Music Rises

All day I have been closed up
inside rooms, speaking of trivial
matters. Now at last I have come out
into the night, myself a center

of darkness.
Beneath the clouds the low sky glows
with scattered lights. I can hardly think
this is happening. Here in this bright absence

of day, I feel myself opening out
with contentment.
All around me the soft rain is whispering
of thousands of feet of air

invisible above us.

Of Rain and Air (2021, rev. 2023) for chamber orchestra

For ATTBB choir. Performed by Gallicantus

I am You are Who?

"Interwoven Interstices", for improvising sextet
Premiered at Princeton Sound Kitchen, 2/6/2024

tenor saxophone: Travis Laplante
trumpet: Nate Wooley
percussion: Russell Greenberg
violin: Yuniya Edi Kwon
cello: Lester St. Louis
electric guitar: Wendy Eisenberg

Interwoven Interstices

Studio version of the first movement of Following and Flocking and interactive audio-visual piece co-composed and performed by Charlotte Mundy.

Interactive visuals, and live electronics by me
Vocal part - Charlotte Mundy

Full performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4dbT443MwE

Following And Flocking (2023) I.

Blackout -  for amplified chamber ensemble, motion sensors, live lights, visuals, and electronics

Written for TAK Ensemble 

Perusal score on my website!

Blackout (2024)

I wish for the rain

the being/the world (2024)
for Juliet Fraser and Ensemble Musikfabrik

extract recording: 
scene 10: the atmospheric agent, 
scene 11: aria (happiness) [from 4:28], 
and part of scene 12: ensemble (love) [from 10:00]

premiere recording extract from WDR, Köln on 3 March 2024

total piece duration: 1 hour

in loving memory of Amelia Cuni

commissioned by Ensemble Musikfabrik and Kunststiftung NRW
photograph: Janet Sinica

the being/the world (2024) scenes 10, 11, 12 (extract)

Created for An Taobh Tuathail 25th Anniversary

Dancing on Air, for wind band

Bobby Ge

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