A first glimpse of one of the tracks from Earthblade, the next game from the creators of Celeste.

www.earthbladegame.com

lyrics:
tona sonea
indena niona indena
seta nian
tonea nian indena
seta nian
nian awena

Earthblade - Music Teaser

concerto for piano and chamber orchestra
New York Philharmonic / Alan Gilbert, conductor / Eric Huebner, piano
(live performance, December 2010, 14'04)

commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for the CONTACT! series

FP: 17, 18 December 2010, New York NY
New York Philharmonic / Alan Gilbert, conductor / Eric Huebner, piano
dedicated to Marlena


A lot of my output has been motivated by underlying concepts as much as by purely sonic materials, aiming to integrate the content in each work so that it permeates the entire structure. Many of these pieces have incorporated social relations as a core element. For this commission, I wanted to create something that takes as its model a collaborative spirit, rather than a confrontational one. The piano and orchestra are cast as 21st century partners in a shared enterprise, instead of dramatically opposed adversaries.

As in several works that precede neverthesamerivertwice, I’ve approached the keyboard as a strictly monodic instrument. This tactic puts the piano on a more equal basis with the linearity of other orchestral instruments, and evokes correspondences with the tradition of toccatas and the continuo in Baroque concerti. Although I usually compose directly into a fully-orchestrated score, this time the entire piano part came first. It has a vertebral role: structurally it functions like the backbone of the work. It’s the source of all figuration, the primus inter pares, around which all other constellations coalesce briefly and then dissolve.

This grew out of the concept that the piano is the collaborator-in-chief (what Malcolm Gladwell refers to as a ‘connector’) in the community of the other players. From beginning to end, there is only one bar where the piano is unaccompanied. On the other hand, the orchestra is treated as relentlessly kaleidoscopic, with a different orchestration in each of nearly 300 measures.

The title refers to Heraclitus’ well-known aphorism about the paradoxical impossibility of stepping into the same river twice. Early on, I had an image of a pianistic stream flowing through varied orchestral terrain. The work isn’t a depiction of any single watercourse, but more of a hydrogeological archetype traced in reverse, from braided delta, through forest, canyon, and cascading waterfall, to glacial source.

neverthesamerivertwice (2010)

Synthwave - Shallow Grave

Version for percussion sextet. Live performance in March 1993 at the UNM Composers Symposium. Keller Hall, Albuquerque, NM.

Radiant Shadows (1991) University of New Mexico Percussion Ensemble

A live performance of my Sanctus (written in 2013). Performed by Pro Coro Canada, Michael Zaugg - conductor.

Sanctus - live recording

A piece I wrote a few years ago.  I pulled it out again the other day, and was more than a little surprised by it.  Written for SATB (but realized here by strings).  Hope you like it!

Ave Maria

In Search Lost Time - for Violin, Violoncello, and Piano. Written by Colin McMahon, preformed by Anna Grigg, Debora da Silva, and Matthew Tam. Written and preformed as part of the Western Chamber Music Collaborative 2015. 

The title for the work, “In Search of Lost Time”, is the English translation of the title of Marcel Proust’s seminal novel, À la recherche du temps perdu (also known as Remembrance of
Things Past). The central theme of this novel is ‘involuntary memory’, a sudden unintentional recollection often triggered by something trivial in the present. When these involuntary memories are of someone we love who is no longer with us these memories may be exceedingly painful, or astonishingly beautiful. 

In this work you will hear two simple themes, the first is based on sequenced descending thirds, the second on a descending chromatic line. These themes are related, however they represent very different sound worlds within the piece and are framed in juxtaposition. For me, these represent two separate memories, one sorrowful, and the other playful. In the end these themes come together in simple counterpoint; these memories are about the same person, and so are at once both pained and beautiful.

This work is dedicated to my family, both missing and present. 

In Search Of Lost Time

The last song from my cycle "Epitaphs."  Who says you can't have a little fun in classical music?

Epitaphs: 5.Here Lie The Bones

phantasia quae sequitur Lemma-Icon-Epigram in memoriam James Avery.
Live performance 4 May 2014, Chicago, IL, Amy Briggs, piano

Shanti (2010)

Tanglewood Festival Ensemble, Ronald Feldman, conductor.

(1983-84, rev 86) for flute/alto flute, clarinet, harp, percussion, piano/celesta, violin, violoncello 12 min. 
FP: 18 May 1984, Cambridge, MA, Harvard New Music Ensemble/Alan Yamamoto

Moments of Rising Mist (1986)

Demo'ing the unique sound and character of all 6 bodhrans included in our Bodhrans & Bones library, part of our Traveler Series of Kontakt virtual instruments. Available now at www.redroomaudio.com !

Bodhrans 1-6 Tech Demo

I am a Canadian Composer currently studying at the University of Toronto. Please enjoy these recordings of my works and feel free to contact for more information.

cmcmahon33@gmail.com

In Search Of Lost Time

Colin McMahon

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