Circular Reasoning for String Quartet
Performed by the Bergamot Quartet at the DiMenna Center on April 21st. 
Recorded and mixed Tyler Neidermayer.

Circular Reasoning (for string quartet)

Completed September 14, 2022
Premiered June 3, 2023 at Current Space by Danielle Williams (cond.), Mind on Fire, and recorded live by Jason Charney

Supported by New Music USA’s Creator Development Fund for 2022-23
Commissioned by Mind on Fire
Winner of a 2024 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award

Original text:

Movement I - The apparition of these faces in the crowd...

worn-down, faded bench 
companion to weary travelers 
catching their breath between stations
we sat together
laughing into each other’s shoulders
as we ducked beneath neon-singed clouds 
of rush hour smoke
rolling, tumbling down
old-town alleys turned glass walkways 
noodle bars turned Apple Stores

Taoist temples turned shopping malls 
teeming 
thrumming
into the night
our hands nearly touched 
amidst the rhythms of the crowd 
as indefinite and fleeting
as the skyline around us 
my train arrives
I rise to leave
looking back through tinted plastic, I wonder 
in this city of forgetting
will you remember me?

Movement II - ...petals on a wet, black bough.

when I returned
the bench was no longer there 
they turned it into 
a Starbucks
the largest in the world 
I went in
a ghost among the rows of emptied Gravitas blends 
silhouetted against the Roastery Bar’s harshly gilded tones 
floating up the escalator past smoky mocha updrafts 
and glimmering Tom Dixon fixtures
when through a tinted mezzanine glass panel -

I see us
          past coffee-stained mugs and soft curls of wispy steam 
     together, sitting
undisturbed by the surrounding rush 
of raindrops and unfilled orders
the moment suspended
     a gentle warmth about us
unconcerned, content
as we laugh, sip, and remember -
hazily I saw their outlines rise
the pair evaporating with the last of the moisture 
into the crowd, out the doors
as a gust of smog blew in 
and filled their void

they built a bigger Starbucks in Chicago.

Large Ensemble

Nanjing West Road, for soprano, mixed ensemble, and fixed media

the eye above the mask

Performed by Hub New Music
Composition and light art by Amelia Horney (2022)
ameliahorneymusic.com

Ultraviolet

i don't see stars where i'm from for piano trio. Workshopped and premiered by Longleash

i don't see stars where i'm from

inner palpability for string orchestra. Premiered by the 2023 Next Festival of Emerging Artist Fellows and Peter Askim on June 3rd, 2023.

inner palpability

Completed July 27, 2023
Premiered in Taplin Hall, Princeton University on September 12, 2023

Written for F Plus

I began this piece in what was perhaps the quietest period of my life in some time. The years prior had been filled with tumult and a sense of encroaching loss, and in that time, I had begun to crave isolation. Rather suddenly, I found it - I spent the start of 2023 tucked away in a wintry cabin in the woods. 

This was a different kind of seclusion than the recent, anxious years of quarantine. Where the uncertainty of that time had made me fill my days with chores and activities, this new kind of stillness made every act feel like a radical disturbance. I noticed how much sound I produced in my day to day, whether I was making my bed, taking a walk, or preparing a meal. 

The abrupt drop to nothingness also meant that I had a wealth of time to spend with my thoughts, and over time, every act started to take on a meditative patina. I discovered a ritualistic beauty in the tasks I normally found tedious, giving me ample space to reflect on the events that had led me there. 

Found in Stillness is a piece born from that reflection. The trio’s parts alternate between textural, fragmentary meditations and exact, piercing arrivals, much as my thoughts went into and out of focus in the cabin. Initially, the trio largely ignores the electronics, treating them as a simple backdrop. Toward the end, the musicians begin to respond more precisely to the environment conjured up by the track, as they progress toward a thoughtful, gentle conclusion. 

This piece was begun while in residence at Copland House, Cortlandt Manor, NY, as a recipient of the Copland House Residency Award.

Found In Stillness, for violin, clarinet, percussion, and fixed media

city psalms.

Instrumentation: low voice, bass clarinet, trumpet, trombone, and electronics
 
Premiered on January 28th, 2024 at St. Paul St Andrew’s church in New York, NY by Loadbang

city psalms

Beauty is brief and violent for sinfonietta

Premiered at Lucerne Music Festival on August 31st, 2024. Performed by International Ensemble Modern Academy 2024

Beauty is brief and violent

Solo electric guitar with effects and live looping. Written for and performed by Giacomo Baldelli.

ugly god pretty lights

Che Buford (he, they) is an NYC-based artist whose work explores creating new narratives within the world of music while engaging in themes of memory and place.

Beauty is brief and violent

Che Buford

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