Recorded Live
Hill Auditorium, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
University Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Elliot Moore
Soloists: Timothy Steeves, Davis Weist, Rachel Samson and James Perreta

Incertidumbres (Excerpts) For String Quartet, String Orchestra, Piano and Percussion (2013)

Ius In Bello (2014) For Clarinet in Bb and String Quartet

Stamps Auditorium, October 24th
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Contralto: Rehanna Thelwell
Conductor: Jerry Blackstone
University of Michigan Chamber Choir




Virginia is based on Virginia Woolf´s suicide letter to her husband, dated in May 1941. The idea for this work began when I found this letter four years ago while looking for information about Virginia. I was impressed and intrigued by her writing and artistic personality after reading Mrs Dalloway and The Waves. The letter shocked me and I immediately decided I wanted to write this piece, but this project had to stay in my mind for years until I decided to score it for choir and soloist. 
I couldn’t help but feel compassion for such a talented and thoughtful artist whose suffering would eventually lead her to this final, fatal decision. I felt emotionally compelled by how her art acts as a reflection of these intense emotions. As empathy through art can be a strong mechanism to develop our understanding of one another, I wanted to explore this letter through musical means. 
The contralto, with her dark, low registered vocalizations, is then echoed in the choir through the repetition of the text and direct musical repetition. The use of repeated pitches, glissandis and dense textures serve to create rising and falling tensions through masses of sound. At times, the text is repeated incessantly, eventually losing meaning and coherence amidst the texture of the sound. 
The full letter is below. 

Dearest,

I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would 
have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. 
I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.

Virginia (2015) for Alto and SATB Choir

This work takes its artistic impetus from the last writings of three South American female poets who took their own lives: Violeta Parra (1917-1967) from Chile, Alfonsina Storni (1892-1938) from Argentina and Ana Cristina Cesar (1952-1983) from Brazil. 
I have become increasingly interested in exploring my culture as the root of my artistic personality and the source of my inspiration. I felt inspired by the poetry of fellow South American women and especially compassionate by the last writings of those who committed suicide. I began exploring this poetry in my pieces Alejandra (2011) and Dejate Caer (2012), both inspired by Argentinean poet Alejandra Pizarnik. 
Virginia Woolf’s suicide letter to her husband sparked my interest in the suicides of female artists. I couldn’t help but feel compassion for somebody suffering so much that it would lead to this final, fatal decision. I feel emotionally compelled to explore the cultural and gender attachments of these figures, and examine how their art acts as a reflection of these intense emotions. Empathy through art can be a strong mechanism to develop our understanding of one another, I aimed to explore these writings as an attempt to remember and embrace these artists in their suffering, to honor their cultures, lives, and art; and to raise awareness about these powerful internal struggles.
I begin my research in May 2015, traveling to Santiago de Chile, Mar del Plata in Argentina and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil where I conducted interviews with relevant figures and scholars that illuminated my understanding of these poets’ lives, ouvre and moral identities. I most importantly, gathered audio material that served as a primary source for the electronic elements involved in the piece. Among others, you will hear Violeta Parra’s own Quatro Venezolano (small guitar with four strings) in the first movement, the sound of the sea and the wind from Mar del Plata, home city of Alfonsina Storni in the second movement, and an archival recording of Ana Cristina Cesar reciting one of her poems in the third movement.

Performers: JACK Quartet

Recorded live at Stamps Auditorium, the University of Michigan on March 8, 2016.  

Electronics Tech: Daphna Raz
Recording: Leith Campbell
Cover Photo: Natali Herrero Pacheco

This piece was made possible by a grant from the Fromm Music Foundation

III. Ana C.

II. Alfonsina

I. Violeta

Añoranzas (2015) - Excerpt -

Cello: Horacio Contreras
Khemia Ensemble "Voyages" album

Añoranzas (2016) For Cello and Electronics

Incertidumbres - excerpts II

Premiere live performance at the Sheldon Foundation Hall.

April 2018

Hannah Ji, violin
Byunghee Yoo, piano

This work was made possible thanks to a a grant from the Sheldon Music Foundation in collaboration with the Sinquiefield Charitable Foundation and the Mizzou New Music Iniciative.

Etudes (2018) for violin and piano

Esencia, for Sinfonietta (2018) Alarm Will Sound

Live performance at Oberlin 2.26.19
Oberlin New Music Ensemble
Conducted by Tim Weiss at the Oberlin Conservatory Warner Hall

Lyric Rivera, fulte/alto flute/piccolo
T. Colton Potter, oboe/English horn
Caleb Rose, clarinet I
Alex Abreu, clarinet II
Brian Geise, bassoon/contrabassoon
Nicholas Ginsburg, horn
Sam Friedman, trumpet
Evelyn Proffit, trombone
Carson Fratus, percussion I
Eli Geruschat, percussion  II
Amanda Lubin, piano
Esther Roestan, violin I
Simone Hammet-Lynch, violin II
Corley Friesen-Johnson, viola
Luka Stefanovic, cello
Matthew Frerck, contrabass

About the work:

In Spanish there are two verbs for the English verb “to be”, one is ser (to be) and the other one is estar (to be). The difference between the two is the quality of permanence: estar is a transitory state, an accidental element of being, while ser is permanent, ex. I am (ser) a human being, I am (estar) tired. The Spanish word esencia (essence) is descriptive of the ser verb form, the true nature of anything, not accidental or illusory (Merrian-Webster).

I find myself thinking about this a lot in times of change. Living in another country demands an immense effort for adaptation, in which one of the dangers -and almost unavoidable stage- is the feeling of losing oneself. Being at a distance with all the elements that made me myself: my culture, my family, my mother language, made me value all the small-things, those moments, places, persons that have now became lucid memories that I jealously treasure. And, aren’t we all just memories? Those instants that we chose to keep at the surface, and even the ones that remain deep inside, hidden, they shape our being, our feelings, our responses, they become our essence.

Esencia - Oberlin New Music Ensemble, conducted by Tim Weiss

Fireworks (2012)Fixed Media

Premiered in February by the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra in Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, MI. Conducted by Elliott Moore.

Certainty is, in the strictest sense, an absolute, and therefore impractical, but it doesn’t restrain us from having convictions or forming opinions based on our everyday experiences. This piece explores the state of mind of prolonged incertitude, a feeling of instability that only rises and doesn’t resolve but instead explodes in a verbose gesture, to start over again. The different forces juxtapose and overlap, eventually arriving at their limitations, in which it urges to take a determination.

Incertidumbres

Incertidumbres (2012)for String Orchestra, Piano, and Percussion

Dejate Caer For Violin and Fixed Media (2012)

Argentinian composer and multimedia artist based in L.A.

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