Morceau pour Sill is a concerto for solo bassoon and septet: clarinet, horn, trumpet, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. It takes its name from its first soloist, Brendon Sill—fantastic musician and friend. Through countless meetings scattered across months I sought Brendon’s guidance for how to best write for the bassoon. We tested out contrasting musical ideas, experimented with playing techniques, and determined together where improvements were necessary. A few times I wrote something nearly impossible, but Brendon could always play it! I am forever grateful for his willingness to try new things and fearlessness of challenge.

The opening movement, Zigzags in Watercolor Harmonies, is based on a lyrical melody that first appears in the bassoon. It is long and winding with large leaps and inward spirals that create a sense of yearning. Alongside the bassoon melody is an ethereal sustain by the septet, an ever-changing chord of blurred harmonies. From the septet, instruments emerge with their own variations on the melody, engaging with the bassoon as secondary soloists. Everything builds towards an expansive climax, but then collapses into agitation. Like a rogue snake charmer, the bassoon twists and tangles the melody, distorting it into unpredictable, theatrical gestures. The septet joins with biting interjections that grow into fiery counterpoint. At its peak, the music transforms into the earlier anticipated climax, complete with soaring melodic lines and rich harmonies. As things settle and relax, the melody is last played in its entirety by a solo horn, the rest of the ensemble gradually disappearing into air and silence.  

The shortest of the three movements, ROAR! is an extensive cadenza for the bassoon. The music is rough and visceral, the bassoon snarling in its lowest register and performing wild acrobatics. With ominous drones and dissonant outbursts, the septet responds to the bassoon, marking an ensemble dialogue of conflict: bassoon versus septet. The heated dynamic between the two sides takes its inspiration from a mafia-type board game of secret identities. Eventually, the conflict turns to an aggressive sprint that leads directly to the finale of the work. 

Fireworks, Fanfares, and Shenanigans could be described as a certified smorgasbord, incorporating jazz, Mario Kart, Stravinsky, and more! It begins bright and explosive with virtuosic solos for the clarinet, trumpet, and cello. Not to be outdone, the bassoon enters and begins a conversational duo with the double bass. In this movement, all the instruments become equal protagonists, playing together in a variety of duets, trios, and quartets. In these groupings, the bassoon functions like the host of a party, checking in and conversing with each guest. At this musical gathering there are rambunctious dances, groovy musings, celebratory flourishes, and cameo appearances of earlier melodies and motifs. Jam-packed with nearly everything but the kitchen sink, Fireworks, Fanfares, and Shenanigans provides a rousing, kaleidoscopic close to Morceau pour Sill.

Morceau Pour Sill (2020) II. ROAR! & III. Fireworks, Fanfares, and Shenanigans

Morceau Pour Sill (2020) I. Zigzags in Watercolor Harmonies

www.chrisneiner.com

Program Note:
Big Ideas! is a work which has taken its time to mature—ten years of intermittent revisions across three states and two degree programs by one very persistent composer! It began as a single movement, Brevity is the Soul of Wit, composed for the Copper Street Brass Quintet as part of their 2012 residency with the Schubert Club’s Composition Mentorship Program, an invaluable opportunity for high school composers living near St. Paul, Minnesota. Inspired by the experience, I composed two additional movements to precede the original piece. However, I was an overly ambitious young composer. The music was very challenging and not a good fit for the high school that planned to premiere the work; Big Ideas! was dormant. Over the next several years, I occasionally revised the whole composition. Through all the edits and tweaking, my goal was to enhance the original, youthful spirit of the work. Eventually, my efforts succeeded! I am forever grateful to Dr. Brian Kilp and the Indiana State University Faculty Brass Quintet for premiering Big Ideas!

Opening Big Ideas! is a fast-paced, thrilling overture. A Stream of Consciousness intertwines dynamic melodies, sharp punctuations, and agitated motifs with a Shostakovich-like snark. Free in form, the music passes quickly through ideas, offering surprises that are mischievous and aggressive. At its peak, an impassioned tuba solo is set against fanfare rhythms by trumpets, the whole ensemble propelling to the close. Both virtuosic and raucous, A Stream of Consciousness showcases the amazing pyrotechnics possible in a brass quintet.

Lyricism is the focus of the middle movement, Woe in Beauty. A soulful melody colored by jazz-tinged harmonies is introduced by the flugelhorn and trumpet. Through variations, this melody appears in various guises and moods: mysterious, lively, and solemn. Each iteration features a member of the quintet as a soloist, passing the spotlight around the ensemble. The writing in Woe in Beauty was inspired by jazz standards I learned as a high school student and the theme and variations movement of Stravinsky’s Octet.

​“Brevity is the soul of wit,” is a phrase taken from a speech by the character Polonius in Act II of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In his speech, Polonius claims that conciseness, not verbosity, is a sign of wisdom. Similarly, humor often appears more clever when it can be expressed in a brief moment and not a drawn-out jest. The final movement utilizes this idea by creating a flow of events based on quick, witty remarks that are passed around the ensemble. When this instrumental banter reaches a boiling point, it subsides to lush legato brass passages, then returns with more vigor and drive.

Big Ideas! II. Woe In Beauty. ISU Faculty Brass Quintet

Big Ideas! I. A Stream Of Consciousness. ISU Faculty Brass Quintet

www.chrisneiner.com

Program Note:
Time Machine Hyperboles is a long title for a short piece, but it captures the underpinning duality of the music and its non sequitur behavior. The work jumps between two very distinct kinds of music that utilize exaggeration. I liken this juxtaposition to two scenes of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Astronaut David Bowman is pulled into an intense, disorienting whirlwind of bright light. Flashes of line and color fly by at a breakneck speed and collapse into alien forms and landscapes. Immediately following, David finds himself in an ornate, white bedroom with eighteenth century French furnishing and a clean floor of glowing square panels. Certainly, two very different visual environments! But what might have happened if David could travel back and forth between these places? With wormholes of its own, Time Machine Hyperboles explores expedited travel by soundscape.

Time Machine Hyperboles (2023): NO EXIT New Music Ensemble

NEW ARRANGEMENT!

Nicole Martin, clarinet
Maria Beyens, violin
Chris Neiner, piano

Program Note:
In just under six minutes, "Serenade for the Ghosts" fuses together three contrasting sources of inspiration that span across three centuries. First, mysterious chord progressions used by nineteenth-century composer Richard Wagner to depict magic, sorcery, and the supernatural in his music dramas, particularly "Lohengrin" and "Der Ring des Nibelungen". Second, the film scores of Bernard Herman whose captivating music was an integral part to the success of movies by director Alfred Hitchcock such as "Psycho" and "Vertigo." Lastly, the final inspiration is contemporary, twenty-first century orchestration with its penchant for exploring eerie and unusual sounds. Though "Serenade for the Ghosts" does not follow an explicit narrative, it’s clear the ghosts are here for a phantasmatic fancy, then vanish into thin air. This work was commissioned and premiered in Fall 2019 by Musical Upcoming Stars in the Classics. This arrangement for piano trio was commissioned by them in Fall 2022.

Serenade for the Ghosts (2018, arr. 2022): Stars in the Classics

Adrian Gonzalez, oboe
Marquise Bradley, clarinet
Maude Cloutier, violin
Mingyao Zhao, cello
Henry Samuels, double bass
Chris Neiner, piano

Program Note:
Red Riding Pictures Proudly Presents is a retelling of the Red Riding Hood fairy tale in the style of music composed for silent films, a genre known as photoplay music that flourished from 1913 to 1929. My composition is based on a variety of historical sources, namely the Sam Fox Moving Picture Music composed by John Stephan Zamecnik. Zamecnik was a Cleveland-born composer who traveled to Prague to study with Antonín Dvořák. When he returned to America, he served as the music director for the Hippodrome Theater in Cleveland, composing music for screenings of silent films. His film compositions were published in the 1910s by the Sam Fox Publishing Company, the first company in the United States to publish original music for films.
 
Red Riding Pictures Proudly Presents is further based on the 1920s orchestral film music, Kinothek, by Giuseppe Becce—an Italian-born composer of German cinema music—and Ernö Rapée’s Motion Picture Moods for Pianists and Organists, an anthology of pre-existing classical music (Chopin, Grieg, Beethoven, etc.) categorized to fit more than 50 possible moods and settings on screen.

Beyond silent film music, there are inspirations and motivic snippets from Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, and Bernard Herman, composers who were integral to that classic, American movie sound during the golden age of Hollywood (1930s to 1960s). Writing a piece about movie music, I had to include a small nod to the most recent master of film music, John Williams.
 
In writing Red Riding Pictures Proudly Presents, all these film score influences are synthesized into my own compositional style. After a brief fanfare for the opening credits (a must!) the music follows the Red Riding Hood story as told by the Brothers Grimm: one morning, she learns of her ill grandmother and journeys to the woods; she encounters a devious wolf who eventually eats her; and lastly, Red Riding Hood is rescued by a heroic, passerby huntsman.

Red Riding Pictures Proudly Presents (2022): Stars in the Classics

Program Note:
The Hinz Waltz was composed as a musical response to a photograph by my friend Jack Hinz. I was mesmerized by the way Hinz captured the photograph's subject, an orange flower. The more I looked at this photograph, the clearer I could hear a bright and upbeat waltz dancing through my mind. As the dance developed, a sweet melody emerged to portray the easy sawing of the flower and the rustling of its pedals in a soft breeze. Listening closely, one can hear that fragments, or petals, of this melodic idea are scattered throughout the work. I consider The Hinz Waltz to be one of my happiest, colorful, and humorous creations!

The Hinz Waltz was completed in April 2012 and first performed on December 10 and 13, 2012 by the Edina High School concert band—director, Paul Kile—at the Fick Auditorium in Edina, Minnesota. A revised version was completed in February 2022.

Neiner Compositions

The Hinz Waltz (2012, rev. 2022) Edina High School Concert Band

Jazmin Pascual, clarinet
Maria Beyens, violin
Annamarie Wellems, cello
Chris Neiner, piano

Program Note:
“Tales of Euclid Beach Park” is my third work for the stupendous musicians of Stars in the Classics. This latest collaboration continues in the spirit of my earlier works by drawing on history for inspiration. Euclid Beach Park was an amusement park in Cleveland, Ohio that operated from 1895 to 1969, a total of 74 seasons. Under the direction of the entrepreneurial, popcorn-making Humphrey family, the park rose to fame as an exemplary amusement park complete with a massive dance pavilion, beach and pier, campgrounds, many rides, thrilling roller coasters, and legendary confections.

In “The Arch and Grand Carousel” the opening depicts the anticipation and excitement of walking into the park under the entry arch—which is still standing! The arch greeted millions of visitors to Euclid Beach Park and was a sign of the good times and family fun to follow once guests arrived. The music then turns to the grand carrousel, the heart of the park. Manufactured in 1910 by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, the carousel now operates at the Cleveland History Center thanks to the preservation efforts of The Trust For Public Land, Cleveland Tomorrow, Western Reserve Historical Society, and Euclid Beach Park Now. The carousel housed a masterful band organ that filled the ride with lighthearted tunes and happy melodies. In the clarinet, a Strauss-like waltz comes to life and floats along as the carrousel begins to spin. We take several trips around the carousel and spy some nearby attractions: the silly Surprise House (with Laughing Sal) and the speedy Racing Derby.

The Arch and Grand Carousel (2023): Stars in the Classics

Jazmin Pascual, clarinet
Maria Beyens, violin
Annamarie Wellems, cello
Chris Neiner, piano

Program Note:
“Tales of Euclid Beach Park” is my third work for the stupendous musicians of Stars in the Classics. This latest collaboration continues in the spirit of my earlier works by drawing on history for inspiration. Euclid Beach Park was an amusement park in Cleveland, Ohio that operated from 1895 to 1969, a total of 74 seasons. Under the direction of the entrepreneurial, popcorn-making Humphrey family, the park rose to fame as an exemplary amusement park complete with a massive dance pavilion, beach and pier, campgrounds, many rides, thrilling roller coasters, and legendary confections.

In the first half of the twentieth century, dance pavilions were a staple of Ohio amusement parks. They were large, impressive, glamourous buildings that could accommodate hundreds of dancers. The Euclid Beach Park dance pavilion boasted an 18,000 square feet floor and was used additionally for many events ranging from company picnics to beauty pageants. Though it underwent various modifications, the dance pavilion was an 1895 opening-day attraction that lasted for the entirety of Euclid Beach Park. Sadly, it was destroyed by a fire in 1972. During its life, the dance pavilion witnessed a varied array of dances including the foxtrot and two-step of the 1910s-1920s, the big band era of swing in the 1930s-1940s, and the twist of early rock and roll in the 1950s. The spirit of these dances come together to depict the energetic livelihood of the pavilion in “Swing and a Twist at the Dance Pavilion.”

Swing and a Twist at the Dance Pavilion (2023) Stars in the Classics

Jazmin Pascual, clarinet
Maria Beyens, violin
Annamarie Wellems, cello
Chris Neiner, piano

Program Note:
“Tales of Euclid Beach Park” is my third work for the stupendous musicians of Stars in the Classics. This latest collaboration continues in the spirit of my earlier works by drawing on history for inspiration. Euclid Beach Park was an amusement park in Cleveland, Ohio that operated from 1895 to 1969, a total of 74 seasons. Under the direction of the entrepreneurial, popcorn-making Humphrey family, the park rose to fame as an exemplary amusement park complete with a massive dance pavilion, beach and pier, campgrounds, many rides, thrilling roller coasters, and legendary confections.

Euclid Beach Park saw the construction of seven different roller coasters in its lifetime. The early coasters were designed by LaMarcus A. Thompson, an Ohio-born inventor and “Father of the American Roller Coaster.” His original patents were inspired by the Mauch Chunk Railway, a sloping railroad where gravity (a free and abundant resource) brought mine carts downhill to transport coal. Over time, the roller coasters of Euclid Beach Park became faster, taller, and more elaborate.
 
The most important roller coasters were the Racing Coaster (1913), Thriller (1924), and Flying Turns (1930). The Racing Coaster featured a set of two adjacent tracks where trains raced alongside each other. More ambitious, the Thriller was the fastest, tallest, and most popular roller coaster, carrying over 400,000 passengers in some seasons. However, the most innovative roller coaster was the Flying Turns. Created by World War I Canadian fighter pilot John Bartlett and engineer John Miller, its toboggan-style track made for an exciting ride that felt like a bobsled flying through the air. Since the Flying Turns used two-seater cars, it became especially popular with couples and was mentioned in the lyrics of the 1965 Beach Boys song Amusement Parks U.S.A. In Hills, Thrills, and Flying Turns, I translate the excitement of these famous coasters through fast, animated up-and-down passages, a counterpoint of racing ideas, and melodies that sway to-and-fro. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!

Hills, Thrills, And Flying Turns (2024): Stars in the Classics

Written for Juliette Kang during the 2025 Gabriela Ortiz Composing Studio by OAcademy.

"A Test of Pride" explores the complexity of pride—its strength, its fragility, and its role in shaping identity. The music unfolds through two contrasting ideas: a bold, persistent fanfare that suggests resilience, and an anxious, spiraling perpetual motion. Their interaction reflects an internal tension between confidence and self-doubt, especially in moments when pride feels difficult to sustain. While not overtly programmatic, the piece leans toward the experience of queer pride—how it can be both empowering and vulnerable. At its core, the work is a reflection on self-acceptance and the courage it takes to be one’s self.

A Test of Pride

Composed for the Vine Orchestra in December 2013.

www.chrisneiner.com

Smirk(2013)

Program Note:
        My intention in writing Loneliness and Imaginations was to create a piece unlike anything I had written to date. From the outset, I knew it needed to be for guitar and chamber orchestra, in several movements, and more than twenty minutes in duration: new instruments, new genre, and new form. Naturally, treading through unfamiliar territory presented many challenges to be addressed. How would I balance the soloist and ensemble? How would I keep the music engaging for so long? How would I create a cohesive piece with so many movements?

        The most pressing dilemma for me was to create strikingly dissimilar movements that belonged together. Part of the solution was to find what I felt was the right emotional trajectory for the work, the balance of emotive ups and downs that could act like a narrative. The order and character of the movements was always up in the air, constantly being remapped as I composed. It was first in 15 movements, then 6, 13, 5, 10, and only finalized in 8 at the last minute. For months I planned on an exciting, bombastic ending, but it ultimately didn’t fit the piece and was dropped. 

        Contrast between the movements was designed by using the guitar and chamber orchestra in a variety of ways. For the guitar, each movement focuses on a different technique of playing. (e.g. scales, glissandi, chords, and polyphony). Similarly the chamber orchestra shifts between various roles: an ambient environment of sound around the soloist (II. Filigree and VII. Constellation), a rhythmic accompaniment sharing musical material (IV. Dance and VIII. Loss), a shifting reverberation of the guitar’s sound (V. Proclamation and VI. Interlude), or as a smaller ensemble with soloists (III. Song). The chamber orchestra is absent in the first movement, Meditation.

        What ultimately binds the movements together is not shared motifs or melodies, but a trilingual harmonic scheme. Movements rotate through three harmonic languages: noise, atonality, and free tonality. The noise based harmony relies on extreme registers where pitch becomes unrecognizable, and instrumental techniques like blowing unpitched air or bowing various parts of an instrument. In the atonal and tonal languages, pitch cells weave together to connect vertical harmony shared by the movements. The two languages simply differ in how they progress horizontally.

​        My most sincere thanks and gratitude goes to guitarist Eli Schille-Hudson who premiered this piece and collaborated with me over several months and hundreds of sketches.

www.chrisneiner.com

Loneliness and Imaginations, I. Meditation (2017)

Loneliness and Imaginations, II. Filigree (2007)

Loneliness and Imaginations, III. Song (2017)

When asked to describe my music, I typically discuss a dichotomy that has gradually emerged in my composing. There are pieces which are introspective, nostalgic, or delicate, and then there are pieces which are the exact opposite: animated, kinetic, extroverted. "Infinite Spinning" is an example of the latter category. At the beginning of the piece’s writing process, I was determined to create something euphoric, a joyful burst of sound. As I jotted down a number of sketches and arranged them in various collages on the living room wall, it wasn’t until the twentieth sketch that I found something I felt exciting enough to pursue. The piece developed around this new material, retaining elements of the jubilant character initially decided upon, but began to focus more on its quality of continuous, self‐propelling motion.  

        The working title, Absolute Joy, was scrapped for Infinite Spinning when the work ultimately grew into a perpetuum mobile. Taking its name from the Latin phrase for “perpetual motion,” a perpetuum mobile is a type of piece, or section of a larger musical work, that consists of consecutive short notes, equal in length, performed at a fast speed. The classic example of this is Nikolai Rimsky‐Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee, but other well‐known examples are the finales of Samuel Barber’s violin concerto and Frédéric Chopin’s second piano sonata. With the exception of a few moments in Infinite Spinning, the piece adheres to the perpetuum mobile nature, sprinting along through a patchwork of contrasting instrumental colors.

www.chrisneiner.com

Infinite Spinning (2018): American Modern Ensemble

Chris Neiner (b. 1994) is a Cleveland-based composer of contemporary classical music with colorful harmony, diverse influences, and engaging energy. Neiner’s style derives from his passion to foster collaborative works with instrumentalists. His recent collaborations include Playtime, a new work for horn, violin, and piano, commissioned by a consortium of collegiate horn professors across the United States; and Serenade for the Ghosts, a phantasmic fantasy for clarinet and string quartet, commissioned by Musical Upcoming Stars in the Classics. His work has been praised by Cleveland Classical for "incorporating the zazzy colors of the current new music dialect," and "pleasant shocks and melting cadences." Currently, Neiner serves as a composition faculty and composer-in-residence at the Aurora School of Music in Aurora, Ohio.
       
The music of Chris Neiner has appeared on programs by the Grammy award-winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Sinfonia, American Modern Ensemble, Boston New Music Initiative, Cochran Chamber Commissioning Project, Copper Street Brass Quintet, Red Hedgehog Trio, loadbang, Minnesota Symphonic Winds, Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies, Rocky Ridge Music Center, Sewanee Summer Music Festival, faculty of the MacPhail Center for Music, and more.
       
Beyond his collaborative work as a composer, Neiner is a producer and coordinator for several music events. In 2019, he served as the associate director, composer-in-residence, and conductor for Music in the Circle, a summer concert series facilitating collaboration between international artists and students, faculty, and alumni of the Cleveland Institute of Music. Other projects include Leora’s Reverie, a concert to benefit the One Voice Foundation by American-Israeli songwriter Katia Bolotin, and New Music for Horn, a multidisciplinary project that facilitated music making between hornists, composers, conductors, and recording artists studying at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
       
Neiner has also gained a reputation as a highly sought-out arranger and copyist, working with organizations such as Reimagining Opera for Kids, the Vietnamese American Society for Creative Arts and Music (VASCAM), the Cleveland Institute of Music, and internationally recognized composer and trumpeter Anthony Plog.
       
Neiner completed a master's degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with Keith Fitch. Previously, he studied composition and horn performance at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music with composers Claude Baker, Aaron Travers, P. Q. Phan, Don Freund, and hornist Richard Seraphinoff. He is an alumnus of the Mostly Modern Festival, New Music on the Point Festival, RED NOTE New Music Festival, and the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium.

Chris Neiner

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