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

Live recording @ Coaxial, Los Angeles on May 5th, 2023

to new forest for bass flute - Erik Ulman

Written for and premiered by the Empyrean Ensemble 
Pitzer Hall, UC Davis, May 2023

Been a rough couple days (mixed ensemble)

When I was little, around five or six years old, I had a habit where I would immediately—half consciously—repeat whatever it was I had just said, but I’d repeat it in a kind of strangled half-whisper. I have clear memories of doing this, and I don’t remember why, exactly, I did it, but I think it was to try to hear what I was saying. I think that I wanted a chance to check over what I had said, to see if it felt right, if I actually believed it, and if it had been worth saying. This habit of mine, my constant mumbling and muttering, my messed-up echoes, drove my older siblings crazy. "Mumble Chords" uses a few ordinary, everyday musical materials to try to evoke a similar effect. As the piece continues, the broken-down echoes start to drift apart from the “regular” music. 

This piece is dedicated, with mad respect, to Davy Rakowski. He’s been unfailingly patient with me and his other students, past and present, no matter how much trouble we have spitting it out. 

This is a live recording, featuring Jan Müller-Szeraws, performing at the October 1 2023 concert at Brandeis University, in honor of David Rakowski's 65th birthday.

Mumble Chords for solo cello

Bachstro Plutaños Saarigeti was written for Michelle Gott and Emily Levin for the 2023 PRISMS Contemporary Music Festival at Arizona State University. The title of this piece is a portmanteau of the five composers whose music directly influenced this piece: JS Bach, Chris Castro, Sam Pluta, György Ligeti and Kaija Saariaho.

This piece is warmly dedicated to Chris Castro, who showed me some fascinating new discoveries in Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, which eventually led to this piece. Thanks Chris!

Recording by Kylar Gardner. 

The electronics are entirely controlled and generated by the harps: the max patch detects the pitch, dynamics (amplitude) and brightness (spectral centroid) of the harps' incoming signals, and the electronics react independently in various ways to these parameters.

This work is part of an ongoing research-creation project that explores various approaches to technologically-mediated performance practice.

Bachstro Plutaños Saarigeti

Exeter College, Oxford University
Michael Koenig, organist

Levavi oculos meos in montes

Missa Brevis is an abstract mass for bass clarinet and double bass. Each movement of the mass takes structural cues from the repertory of the early Renaissance. While strict, the organic nature of my timbral, rhythmic, and modal writing develop throughout the five movements. The Credo is modeled after Ockeghem’s Missa Prolationum. The Agnus Dei is a deeply personal counterpoint that I have written for my late double bass teacher, the great Homer Mensch.

Performed by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble

I. Kyrie

Quiet & Immense
Performance Recording from 11-9-24 at Boston Court, Pasadena CA
Double Bass: Chris Castro
---
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

〈星辰的十一個迴響〉- 為預置二十一弦箏與互動式電聲 - 完成於2023年7月，但最初的創作構想起始於2019-20年，時值我留學初返台灣之際，當時初識之音樂學者暨古箏演奏家楊宜樺，在多次討論後決定嘗試寫作一首有創造性與研究性質的古箏作品。創作靈感源自於George Crumb室內樂作品 Eleven Echoes of the Autumn 開場的鋼琴內部泛音聲響，我在George Crumb逝世的2022年開始著手寫作這首作品，以作為對於這位作曲家的紀念。

本曲名為十一個星辰的共鳴（光暈的折射、回聲的共振）對應Crumb作品中對於秋天的十一個回聲。對我而言，Crumb作品中的回聲（echoes）塑造了他音樂的空間感，但我卻希望能夠以聲響（包含回聲）散盡且逐漸融入環境中的迴響（resonances）作為全曲的焦點。換言之，Crumb著重的是聲音的姿態（timbral gestures）在空間中的延展，而我希望以聲音散開後的織度（textures）與氛圍（atmosphere），作為本作品實質的主題。


Eleven Resonances of Galaxies〈星辰的十一個迴響〉: for prepared zheng and electronics (2022-23)

O Lord, Support Us

Text: John Henry Newman
Composer: William David Cooper

Performed at Wellesley Hills Congregational Church's "Bach Vespers" on June 1, 2025


O Lord, Support Us

The following 4 movements are excerpted:
1 - you have to start slow before you can go fast 
(3 accordion mirror canons in pairs)  
00:00 - 04:06
2 - Are you aware? What are you aware of? 
(distorted canons are distributed across the ensemble) 
04:08 - 09:00
4 - Thought is the History of Language 
(unison playing becomes twisted and torqued antiphonal "chorusing") 
09:01 - 12:55
5 - don't worry; you can always begin again 
(a warped version of The Sacred Harp song "When I am Gone" by John Ellis emerges at the end of the piece) 
12:56 - 15:03
--
What I do when the world stops: 

Permission to really consider what was in front of me, in my future, but not too much in the future. That is too chaotic, too out of sight - over my horizon.

The way I see my future is an analogue for the way I know my past. The past is fixed, clear in some places, opaque in others, altogether invisible for much of the rest, and (like the future) totally beyond my control. My past is a metaphor for my vision of my future. In all honesty, it is not a 
metaphor at all. Both directions are finite.

The things that I am constantly consumed with when I make work return to me over and over and over, no matter how hard I try to rid myself of their infectious nature; they feel like a contagion to me, they are my epidemic, and I am pretty sure that at this point I will not fully recover from them. There is no vaccine or relief. These things are: how I remember my memories (what Toni Morrison calls "rememory"); the mechanisms of failure that inhabits the most mundane of tasks is filled with a potential for collapse; how little agency I think I have about my future (alla Agnes Callard); the only thing that I can be present for is the present; hope is an act of beauty to create empathy and connect with others (alla Elaine Scarry).

I like to think about how I make things, to think about how others make things, especially things made by those who are not musicians - to think about how others do what they do (which is not what I do) with the hope it might provide me with new ways for making work. It is important for 
me to understand as much as I can and allow it to inform/guide a lot of my creative acts...and then to say "fuck it - just fuck it all!" and do it. Failure is closeby, in every step, at every turn.

In many ways, my creative work is a metaphor for my lived life; trying really hard, preparing very intensively, allowing much to come to bear, and hoping. The score to "the future is finite" is adorned with the following two epigrams from books I was reading at the time of I was composing this piece:

"In the morning, 
as her consciousness streamed in with the sun, 
a vision came to her, 
unbidden but not unwelcome: 
of the ends of things, 
the time between now and then, 
the world without her."

from "Wayward" by Dana Spiotta
--
"The problem with sweetness is death.
The problem with everything is death."

from "frank: sonnets" by Diane Seuss
--
Commissioned by the Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East for its 75th Anniversary season, with the generous support of Trish Maxson and Linda Rappaport. The piece is dedicated, with gratitude, to Donald Crockett. The performers were:

Conor Nelson, flute
Jacqueline Leclair, oboe
Garrick Zoeter, clarinet
Gilbert Dejean, bassoon
Leander Star, horn
Jessica Powell Eig, double bass

excerpts from "the future is finite" for wind quintet and double bass (2021-22)

Chris Castro is a composer, double bassist, theorist, and educator residing in Southern California. He is a recipient of the 2023 Fromm Music Foundation Commission from Harvard University and Chamber Music America's 2021 Classical Commissioning Award. His music has been described as "on par with Varèse" (anonymous CMA juror) and “at once celebratory and solemn” (San Francisco Classical Voice). His music draws from the rich tradition of Western Art Music, from Johannes Ockeghem's Missa Prolationum to John Coltrane's Ascension. As a new music advocate, Chris serves on the artistic advisory board for the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, New Mexico Contemporary Ensemble, and will be premiering two solo double bass works written for him by Phil Acimovic and Linda Catlin Smith in the fall of 2024. Chris holds degrees from the Juilliard School (double bass and composition) and a PhD from the University of California, Davis in composition and music theory. He lectures for the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Upbeat Live series. He is an Assistant Professor of Composition at Chapman University. 

Website: https://www.chriscastrocomposer.com

Contact: crcastro36@gmail.com

Selected list of works:
Dispositio for alto flute, English horn, piano, electric guitar, viola, and double bass (2025)
Four Partsongs from Babel for SSAATTBB Chorus (2025)
Lines II - Missa Sine Nomine for Trombone, Electric Guitar, Accordion, Violin, and Contrabass (2025)
Missa Brevis for Bass Clarinet and Double Bass (2024)
Tumba for Alto Flute, Cello, and Well-Tempered Clavier (2024)
Lines for Flute(s), Percussion, Harp, Viola, & Cello (2024)
Forms & Doubles for Flute(s) and Viola (2024)
Two Partsongs for Treble Voices (2024)
Canções dos Desassossego (Songs of Disquiet) for Soprano and String Quartet (2023)
Á la tienne! for Speaking Pianist (2023)
Eight Pops & A Center Pop for Contralto, Viola, Cello, and Organ (2023)
Snow White & Rose Red for Storyteller and Orchestra (2023)
Two Songs & Two Doubles for Voice and Well-Tempered Clavier (2023)
Miroirs Obscurcis for Well-Tempered Clavier (2023)
1722 for Open Instrumentation (2022)
Fauxbourdon After Ellington for Open Instrumentation (2022)
Two Songs for the OPP (from Brooklyn Narcissus) for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble (2022)
Clock-a-clay for Piano Trio (2021)
Beethausenstro - Castockhoven for Two Pianos (2020)
La for Alto Flute, Bass Clarinet, and Viola (2019)
Brooklyn Narcissus II for Soprano and Chamber Orchestra (2019)
Coyote Goes To The Sky & Birds Of Fortune: Two Stories for Storyteller, Flute, Cello, and Percussion (2019)
Sing High for Violin and Orchestra (2018)
Easy & Sad for Seven players (2018)
Choruses IV for String Quartet (2017)
IV - I for Two Pianos (2017)
Choruses III for Chamber Orchestra (2017)
Music for the short-film 'Postmodern Love' (2017)
A Drinking Song for SATB Choir (2017)
Brooklyn Narcissus I for Solo Soprano (2017)
Sing Low for Trombone and Ensemble (2017)
Choruses II for Violin and Piano (2016)
Ruines for Flute and Chamber Ensemble (2016)
Cavatine for Orchestra (2016)
Nocturne for Flute, Clarinet, Cello (2015)
Scherzo for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet (2015)
Cavatine for Solo Cello (2015)
Variations on an Original Theme for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano (2015)
Choruses I for String Quartet (2015)
Storm Fear for Mezzo-soprano and Piano (2014)
Poseidon's Steeds for Women's Choir and Organ (2014)
Movement for Piano (2014)
Etude for Percussion and Electronics (2013)
Fantasy on a Theme of James Bassi (backwards) for Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Viola, and Cello (2013)
Maw for String Quartet (2012)
Brooklyn Hymn-Variations for Saxophone Ensemble (2012)
Song of Quietness for SATB Chorus (2012)
Hymn and Fuguin' Tune for Cello Duo (2011)
When Jesus Wept (After Billings) for Brass Quintet (2011)
Monolith (A Symphonic Sketch) for Orchestra (2010)
Kyrie for SATB Chorus (2010)
Burn Like Roman Candles for Big Band (2009)
Suite for Double Bass (2008)
Nothing for String Quartet (2008)
Essay for Orchestra (2007)

I. Kyrie

Chris Castro

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