Calmly Borne By Celestial Waters

Soy Bosque (Intro)

Echo Flute was written for the Empyrean Ensemble with Tod Brody on flute. This recording is from the premiere at UC Davis on February 12, 2023.

Echo Flute is an instruction: echo the flute! That simple directive encapsulates the ensemble’s role, realized in various styles, textures, and moods. There is no meter, no beat, and no conductor. Each musician plays in free rhythm, subtly adjusting their timing to stay just behind, and sometimes ahead of, the solo flute. The idea of staying loosely tethered to a leader was influenced by the unmetered textures of pathetan in traditional Javanese gamelan. The beautiful resonance of the UC Davis Pitzer Center concert hall was the inspiration for the initial concept of quiet echoes.

Echo Flute is composed for solo flute with open instrumentation. Musicians make decisions regarding register, timbre, and timing. Echo Flute was composed on request from the Empyrean Ensemble. Thanks to Sam Nichols and the musicians for making this project possible.

Echo Flute

Arbor

Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México
Scott Yoo, director titular

Primer lugar en el Primer Concurso de Composición Orquestal de Morelia 2022
Michoacán, México.

Arbor

“Are you there?” for Flute and Live Electronics. 
Performed by Claudia Aizaga at Festival Internacional de Flautistas en el Centro Del Mundo.

Are you there? for Flute and Live, Interactive Electronics

El vuelo de las Mariposas Monarca

Instinctual (2023)
An encounter in two parts.

I composed this fixed media piece for our collaboration project "Instinctual" with Choreographer Dani Bogle.

Composer: Shahrzad Talebi
Choreographer: Dani Bogle
Dancers: Dani Bogle, Kylah Holt

Performed at The Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater at the University of North Texas, Denton, November 2023.

Instinctual (2023)

El beso de Tiamat

Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México
Scott Yoo, director titular

El Beso De Tiamat

Quiet & Immense
Performance Recording from 11-9-24 at Boston Court, Pasadena CA
Double Bass: Chris Castro
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Quiet & Immense is inspired by the artist Mark Rothko and written for my dear pal Chris Castro. My impressions of his work center around my memories of being next to it, the vast canvases against the intensely quiet space, the startlingly unknown against the fearfully familiar. The paintings exude a sadness that seems to me older, more hushed, and spread thinner and broader than the sadness of a single person. The same emotional space drives Quiet & Immense, softly shifting between different shades of melancholy.

Mozart and Feldman were always in my ear while writing Q&I. Mozart was Rothko's favorite composer and Rothko was one of Feldman's favorite painters. Both composers explored an austerity similar to Rothko's, which I value as well. Equally important for me is La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano, which inspired the use of the just-tuned harmonic seventh, an interval that for me elicits the same quiet and immense feelings of collective sadness and muted calm as Rothko's paintings.

Quiet & Immense

String Trio: Violin, Viola, Bass
Luminous Harmony (2019) is a world of soft sounds and suspended chords. I wanted to create a musical world that forever stays soft and slow but always changes size, shape, and color.

I wrote this piece for my wife Emily. It was played during our wedding ceremony by three good friends, Chris Castro, Kurt Rohde, and Elliot Cless.

Luminous Harmony

Belambul

https://www.charlesphilipdanielstorres.com/

Calmly Borne By Celestial Waters

Charles Daniels Composer