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

Steam takes the listener into a whimsical fantasy world in which an eccentric inventor is creating a flying machine. The melodies and rhythms found throughout the piece are designed to feel awkward and uncanny, yet at the same time fun and endearing. The first movement takes listeners inside the inventor's workshop where they can find all of the unusual tools and contraptions that live there. The second movement paints a picture of the inventor as a well-to-do gentleman who is a bit eccentric by taking a tonal melody and distorting it to fit inside an octatonic framework. The third movement portrays a complex yet slightly clunky contraption through rhythmic intricacies and the use of such gestures as clarinet squeaks, extreme jumps in register, and breathy flute harmonics. The fourth movement evokes the inventor's feelings as he takes his new flying machine out for a spin.

Steam: I. The Inventor's Workshop

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

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

Steam: I. The Inventor's Workshop

Chelsea Komschlies

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