Name: Homestead by Cole Reyes
Duration: 9 min 34 s
Description: This piece was written for pianist Yuxuan Chen as part of the 2020 NYU Ring in the New Concert.

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commissioned & premiered by the JACK Quartet during TIME:SPANS 2021

note| mayu: the great river is inspired by Andean (South American Indigenous) cosmology & iconography through the lens of queerness, diaspora, and separation. The score works as an ecosystem for connecting living constellations, musical materials, and the individual/collective experience of time. The piece is a reflection on the multiple temporalities experienced and harnessed by displaced, erased, and structurally excluded peoples. These layers of time, the material and immaterial, are sources of joy | resilience | survival, and perhaps, future.

mayu: the great river [2021] | JACK Quartet

a world for each moment
for saxophone, electric guitar, piano, percussion, and fixed media

Performed by Hypercube
Erin Rogers, saxophone
Jay Sorce, electric guitar
Chris Graham, percussion
Andrea Lodge, piano

a world for each moment (for sax., e. guitar, perc., piano, and fixed media)

dances and prayers in isolation (2020)
for various instrumentations
i. dance no. 1 for flute and marimba "fidget"

Paul Novak, flute
John Corkill, marimba

dances and prayers in isolation is a set of short pieces written for and performed remotely from quarantine by friends and colleagues during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Each miniature is scored for a different solo or duo instrumentation, and the work is structured with fast, rhythmic movements alternating with somber, reflective ones.

Image: Treatise on the Veil, Cy Twombly

dances and prayers in isolation (2020): i. dance no. 1 for flute and marimba "fidget"

Completed September 11, 2023
Premiered by JACK Quartet in Taplin Auditorium, November 29, 2023

Written for JACK Quartet

The grisaille technique has always interested me for the challenges posed to its practitioners: the technique limits painters to monochromatic palettes. Beginning as underpainting for stained glass, grisaille eventually flourished as an entire form of its own in the 16th century. Today, art historians depict it as a singularly rigorous exercise that forced artists to more carefully consider their brushstrokes and composition in the absence of color. 

Many of my teachers spoke similarly about writing for string quartet: a practice that forced artists to write with economy and intention within a limited color palette. This piece, Panes of Grisaille, is a study in timbre, seeking to pull as much depth and energy from its homogeneous instrumentation as possible. The music leans heavily into sounds and tunings that are only possible on strings, ricocheting through as many techniques as possible while barreling forward with incessant momentum. 

I owe much thanks to the astounding musicians of JACK Quartet, to whom this piece is dedicated. I only dared write something so frankly demanding knowing it would be in their hands.

Panes of Grisaille, for string quartet

MIDDLEGROUND: the space grounded, the between, the center. The Heartland. The prairie, the grasslands, Konza, Flint Hills, Manhattan, Emporia, Salina. Where we gathered.

Home of the heart, heart of the home.

The years spent in cars, daydreaming, scooping handfuls of wheat, racing out into amber fields, cycling together, water wheel ice cream, fireworks and apples. The stories shared, books read sprawled in the yard, family prayers over anything, late evening walks, quiet nights. Open arms, open hearts, humble and extraordinary. 

Together, with our wonder, our joy, we created an incredible painting with abounding colors. The kinds of colors that linger in the minds eye long after they are out of sight and cradle you long after goodbyes are spoken and car doors closed. The kinds that find you counting the days until the next birthday, the next holiday, the next bike ride, the next Camp, the next anything just so you can see them again. When you close your eyes you feel their warmth. They stay.

The middle ground: my refuge born from the land living in my heart. Where my home is, living and breathing outside of my body, thousands of miles apart. This hallowed ground.




World premiere by the JACK Quartet in New York City, 2016.  

MIDDLEGROUND

Performers: Dionysis Grammenos and the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra

Mosaic is the art of crafting an image using a collection of small, diverse materials. In this piece, that concept is realized sonically using the orchestra as source material. Each instrument contributes only fragments to the larger musical world. In the beginning of the piece, these fragments are small and fleeting, creating a highly percussive texture, akin to viewing mosaic art up close. But as the piece continues, these fragments begin to overlap and expand, creating a sustained texture, akin to stepping back and observing the image in its entirety.

Mosaic for orchestra

Performers: Civic Orchestra of Chicago (Christy Kim – flute, Gordon Daole-Wellman – bass clarinet, Wai Chi Tang – Percussion, Pei-yeh Tsai – piano, Maria Arrua – violin, and Nicky Swett – cello)

Program Notes:
Kindling is a reflection on the spontaneous, yet repetitive motion of fire. From the outset of the piece, the ricochet bowing of the cello and the steady pulse of the kick drum stoke the flame, while the violin flickers and flares in response. As the piece builds, a flurry of tremolos and natural harmonics are used to express motion that is both active and static. Eventually, the ensemble, led by the piano and strings, conjures a steady orange glow with a series of phrases that quickly appear and dissipate. The rapid alternations between these distinct phrases coalesce to form a continuous, burning texture.

Kindling for pierrot plus percussion

AMEN! (2017) was commissioned by the University of Michigan Symphony Band and is a homage to my family's four generational affiliation with the Pentecostal church. My intent is to re-create the musical experience of an African American Pentecostal church service that I enjoyed being apart of while growing up in this denomination.
Pentecostal denominations, such as: Church of God in Christ (C.O.G.IC.), Pentecostal Assemblies of God, Apostolic, Holiness Church, among many others, are known for their exuberant outward expressions of worship.
The worship services in these churches will often have joyous dancing, spontaneous shouting, and soulful singing. The music in these worship services is a vital vehicle in fostering a genuine spiritual experience for the congregation.
The three movements in AMEN! are performed without break to depict how the different parts of a worship services flows into the next. In the first movement, I’ve imagined the sound of an exuberant choir and congregation singing harmoniously together in a call and response fashion. The soulful second movement quotes a gospel song, "I'll Take Jesus For Mine” that I frequently heard in many services. The title, AMEN!, refers to the plagal cadence or “Amen" cadence (IV-I), which is the focal point of the climax in the final movement. Along with heavily syncopated rhythms and interjecting contrapuntal lines, this cadence modulates up by half step until we reach a frenzied state, emulating a spiritually heighten state of worship.
CSJr. Music © 2017
www.coliversimon.com

Amen! (2017) University of Michigan Symphony Band

Commissioned by the Detroit Composers' Project.
Performed by Ben Rogers and Kellen Degnan at St. Matthew's & St. Joseph's Episcopal Church, Detroit, MI
December 19, 2018.

Currents (2018)

Completed August 30, 2020
Premiered May 6, 2022 by Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra as part of the 2022 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute

Remember to Have Fun began its life as a mixed quintet written for conductor Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz. Started in the midst of an existential funk early 2020, the piece was intended to remind myself that I should, in all things musical, have fun. After all, the reason I had taken to music in the first place was because I had discovered in composing a wholly unique kind of fun that I could not find anywhere else. 

Cast in three continuous movements, Remember to Have Fun is best understood as a triptych recontextualizing a handful of simple motifs into three different kinds of fun: I. ‘Master of None’ is overly excitable, interrupting and tripping over itself as it tries to decide where to go with its cellular, half-step dominated main idea. II. ‘Think About What You’ve Done’ picks up the pieces after its exhausted predecessor, initially introspective but growing, with a twinkle in its eye, increasingly quirky and mischievous. III. ‘Remember to Have Fun,’ spurred on by the music’s increased confidence, takes the first movement’s main idea and sprints at breakneck tempo toward a rip-roaring, frenetic finish. 

The majority of the work on this piece was completed during a particularly dour and sedentary year. With all the loneliness, anxiety, and pessimism floating about, I wanted to create a piece that would be characterized by the exact opposite of all those emotions. The piece’s prosaic title ends up being many things: a title, yes, but also a word of advice to the conductor, an expression marking for musicians, a reminder to myself as an artist, a small instruction for listeners, and maybe even a bit of hopeful inspiration for you, the reader.

Random Stuff

Remember to Have Fun, for symphony orchestra

This piece was written for pianist Yuxuan Chen as part of the 2020 NYU Ring in the New Concert.

Homestead

I am a composer currently based in Ann Arbor pursuing my doctoral studies in composition at the University of Michigan.

For more information: colereyesmusic.com

Homestead

Cole Reyes

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