Pink Zephyr Continuum (extract)

Written for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Memex (2014), for symphonic orchestra

distortion 1

distortion 2

distortion 3

dissonance 1

dissonance 2

【Alchemy】for snare drum with crotales, ride, splash & live electronics
The medieval forerunner of chemistry, concerned with the transmutation of matter, in particular with attempts to convert base metals into gold or find a universal elixir. -from Oxford.
The piece turns the multiple-timbre of snare drum into the unique sound by processing though the Max/msp, corresponding to the concept of Alchemy.

< Alchemy > for snare drum with crotales, ride, splash & live electronics

Video: https://youtu.be/obO7uqMYGLs

Performed by the Azure Quartet: Kj McDonald, Brenden Zak, Hannah Geisinger and Yifei Li

Spiral Sequences is a string quartet performed in two movements. The first, the shorter of the two, is frantic and pulse-driven, carried by momentum generated by spiraling 16th note patterns and repeated ostinatos. It presents fragments of a sequence-like pattern, one which is played in its complete form at the beginning of a longer, introspective second movement. The first movement presents an inward spiral, constantly tightening. The second works to unravel it.

Spiral Sequences - string quartet

A musical cocktail of sorts with notes of sea glass, driftwood, copper ore, dark and smokey rooms, rust, incense, absinthe, and Art Nouveau arabesques.

In special rare moments when just the right elements are combined into an imaginary mental potion, they bubble and react, sparking a vision of something new, in this case, the character Kinthrel, a lonely sea sprite who strums his handmade harp in craggy tidal caves. This piece is one of several recent works that I consider Neo-Symbolist in nature, in which I have aimed to lean more heavily into synesthesia and my subconscious to draw out the mysterious, intuitive connections between things and to musically bottle the essences that live behind these connections.

This work was composed for CULTIVATE 2019, Copland House’s emerging composers’ institute, and was premiered by the Music from Copland House ensemble at the Merestead estate in Mount Kisco, NY on June 9, 2019.

Kinthrel's Limpet Harp (2019) for violin, clarinet, and piano

Composer, Ph.D. student of Jean Lesage at McGill University, alum of the Curtis Institute (AD) and CU Boulder College of Music (MM)

Kinthrel's Limpet Harp (2019) for violin, clarinet, and piano

Chelsea Komschlies

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