Made in Bristol

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

I wrote this piece in response to a particularly hard event which took place during 2013.  My confidence was shattered and my depression flared.  Well-intentioned people instructed me to do things like "smile more" and "cheer up".  It was then that I realized that hiding my misery behind a facade of happiness was not only impossible but to attempt it would be detrimental to my health.  Would their opinion of the facade change if they knew how painful it is to maintain it? My goal was to imbue this piece with that idea.

©2013

Performed May 22, 2015 at the University of Bristol by George Owen (cello) and Lydia Ward (piano).

Facades for cello and piano

This is the first movement in The Infantryman Cycle.  This poem and Suicide in the Trenches by Siegfried Sassoon bookend the cycle in such a way that it accomplishes my goal of showing the seemingly endless cycle of enlisting men and women to the military and sending them home broken.  They both describe a veteran attending a military parade.  Both show disgust and anger at the idea that war should be celebrated.  Both say that these parades should be more solemn to the point of reverence.  I agree with them. 

Text by Robert W. Service.
Performed by Brandon Stewart (tenor) and Felix Arifin (piano).

"Don't Cheer"

As the title would suggest, the piece explores various musical spectra.  The piano and percussion are perpetually suspended which allows for the development of a "sound cloud" as pitches continue to resonate.  Interesting things happen as new pitches enter the cloud such as pitch fluctuations, sympathetic vibrations and harmonics from neighboring resonating bodies, and the natural thinning of the cloud over time.  Rather than focus on the timbral possibilities of each instrument, I sought to change the timbre of the cloud as a unit by varying how pitches enter into it.  This became its own spectrum spanning from individual pitches, through small, rolled pitch sets, to multi-octave chromatic clusters.  This concept determines the formal structure of the piece starting with sections of sparse entrances which become very dense at the climaxes and thinning out again as the piece comes to a close.

Using this very abstract concept, I tried to describe to the audience what the world might feel like to a person on the autistic spectrum.  Sensory overload is a common cause of autistic behaviors and my aim was to amplify these sensations to the point where it would similarly affect someone not on the spectrum.  One reviewer describes the piece as a "sonic temper tantrum".  I think that assessment is rather apropos.

A workshop reading by the Bristol Ensemble.  Roger Huckle (violin), Paul Israel (piano), and David Insua-cao (percussion).

SPECTRA for violin, piano, and percussion

THE BREAK ON FOREIGN SHORES was written during my time at the University of Bristol and reflects on the first five months of my residency in the UK.  Not unlike many who move to distant places without the blessing of a network in residence, my wife and I struggled to settle, adapt, and ultimately flourish in this new landscape.  Our mental and emotional states rose and fell in unpredictable waves as great triumphs were often preceded or followed by utter failures.  Ultimately, I see my time there as a success in and of itself since it has given me the new perspective I had hoped I would receive having made the journey; that I have the fortitude to suffer the crash of the waves without letting them wear me down.

Performed on March 25, 2015 by CoMA Bristol.

The Break on Foreign Shores for variable SATB, percussion, and piano

1.6 HOURS is a piece which literally follows a composer’s hand for 1.6 hours as he works to meet a deadline.  It should be mentioned that this is not the piece intended for said deadline and yet was born of the same movements.  In a way, it is not unlike an unanticipated, yet well-received, twin.  But, unlike a twin, 1.6 HOURS is in no way similar to its brother… a piece whose identity I have since forgotten.

Performed on March 25, 2015 by CoMA Bristol.

1.6 HOURS for variable instruments

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)

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

The Break on Foreign Shores for variable SATB, percussion, and piano

Brandon Stewart

Related tracks