A new setting of Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore's playful poem "Paper Boats" for a cappella mixed choir, written for the Oregon Bach Festival Composer's Symposium. This is the first of four settings in a cycle of Tagore's poetry. 

This particular recording features the OBF American Creators Chorus under the direction of Craig Hella Johnson.

Paper Boats (2013)

Pastiche-ios! (I. Vertigo + II. Reverie)

Ah Sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done;

Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sunflower wishes to go!

—William Blake

Ah Sunflower

Sharp Edges for solo clarinet (2015)
Commissioned by Christopher Grymes. Premiered at East Carolina University on January 23, 2015. 

Sharp Edges for solo clarinet (2015)

Completed October 2015.
Awaiting premiere.
Unfortunately the midi realization leaves much to be desired...

Written as the capstone project for my MA in music composition from the University of Bristol.  

I have always been troubled by the lack of understanding, perspective, and empathy that people have regarding the biblical narrative of the global flood.  Many people choose to focus on the positive aspects of the story (an old man and his family taking an extended cruise with a mating pair of every animal) and disregard the rest of the story (the utter destruction of every other living thing).  This never sat well with me as the most prominent motif in the Genesis account is not how Noah's family managed on the ark but how those less fortunate fared amidst the waves.  As a result, I was compelled to write a programmatic piece not from the perspective of Noah but of one of the millions, possibly billions, of people who were not saved.  Regardless if you believe in the validity of the story, it is one which describes the single most cataclysmic event in the history of our planet; much more deadly than any war, genocide, plague, meteor, or natural disaster.  Genesis states that the contemporaries of our ancestors offended their god to such a degree that he was compelled to say this of them and us in chapter 6, verse 7: 

"I will wipe man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth; both man and beast, and creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for I regret having made them."

And thus, the piece was given its title: Paenitet enim me fecisse eos.

Text taken from the Latin Vulgate translation of Genesis.

PAENITET ENIM ME FECISSE EOS for orchestra and symphonic choir (midi realization)

Ensemble Modern&HR  Frankfurt/M.

Solistin : Nina Janßen-Deinzer

Edition Peters Frankfurt/M. 
https://www.edition-peters.de/cms/deutsch/general/komponist.html?composer_id=3425

iv 7 für Kontrabassklarinette

Paired with the poem by <a href="http://plthomaspoetry.blogspot.com/" target="_paulhm">P. L. Thomas:</a>

<a href="http://plthomaspoetry.blogspot.com/2011/07/no-other-snowflakes-and-ashes-pt-1.html" target="_blank">no other (snowflakes and ashes) pt. 1</a>



Visit:  <a title="“snowflakes &amp; ashes”" href="http://www.peterbkay.com/music/snowflakes-and-ashes/" target="_blank">http://peterbkay.com/snowflakes-and-ashes</a>

snowflakes & ashes (Live)

" ...simultaneously innovative, intellectually stimulating, but most of all emotionally moving." - Maria Choban, Oregon ArtsWatch

PAENITET ENIM ME FECISSE EOS for orchestra and symphonic choir (midi realization)

Brandon Stewart