Performed by the Atlantic Music Festival Contemporary Ensemble
Lorimer Chapel, Colby College - Waterville, Maine
AMF Composer Concert I. July 15th, 2013

"Lyric Trio" is made up of of three different settings of a single melody, each featuring one member of the trio as a soloist. This cadenza-like theme came about as a result of intuitive improvisation. 

The first setting, featuring the clarinet soloist, is spare and clear. The second features the cello and is significantly denser. The third is anchored around the piano and stands as a middle ground between the first and second settings. A coda finds the ensemble working as one and traversing a kaleidoscope of harmonic color.

Lyric Trio - for clarinet, cello, and piano

Score: http://issuu.com/craigdavispinson/docs/musicoutoffocus_score_craig_davispi

Performed by The Boston Conservatory Composers' Orchestra

Interaction between two unrelated layers of musical material is at the core of Music Out of Focus. The first is a simple four-voice chorale, the second consists of rock and funk-like grooves derived from drum-set playing. Both are stretched and contracted, at different rates, throughout the entirety of the piece.

Each section of the work emphasizes particular aspects of what happens when one layer of music takes place on top of the other. This is expressed through contrasts in density of sound, instrumental color, and texture. The work takes its name from the effect of its scope being constantly shifted.

Music Out of Focus - for orchestra

Eric Hollander, Viola

Shattering Monolith is a piece for solo viola. The idea that drives it is the exploration of relationships between sounds of clear and indeterminate pitch on this particular instrument. The viola’s characteristic open strings anchor the pitches used. Extremes of register and shadings of tone color are exploited, using a variety of bowing techniques. The music is comprised of blocks of static material paired with sections characterized by motion and energy.

Shattering Monolith - for solo viola

Featured in the collaborative arts and improvisation website "the Cosmic Net'': http://c0smic.net/cell-phone-shields-woman-from-flying-orange-craig-davis-pinson/
 
Performed by Members of The Boston Conservatory Composers’ Ensemble & Friends: Gretchen Herdrich, bass flute; Zach Beever, alto recorder; Andrew van der Paart, oboe; Ethan T. Parcell, clarinet; Jordan Kabat, trumpet; Cameron Perry, trombone; Hoang Pho, piano; Hannah Bureau, violin; Clifton Ingram, electric guitar; Andrew Harlan, double bass; Chris Scott, voice; Craig Davis Pinson, conductor.

Composed in April 2014. Cell Phone Shields Woman from Flying Orange is a piece for a flexible group of improvising instrumentalists. The players are given different ‘modules’ of musical material, the order of which is predetermined in the conductor’s score only. The conductor uses their spontaneous intuition to decide on how long the duration of each block of music will be, and signals the beginning of each new section. The pitch material and precise textural details are partially indeterminate, yet the players are instructed to attempt different degrees of harmonic stability or tension with regard to their peers. The name is an actual headline from Allston online news sources.

Cell Phone Shields Woman From Flying Orange - for conducted ensemble

Charlotte Roth, Ayla Goktan - Flutes
Recording of the premiere at Alice Millar Chapel

Again Prefigured Then - for two flutes

Percussionists: Brant Roberts and Stephen Downing
Recording of the first performance, at Nief-Norf Summer Festival 2016

Figures and Grids - for two modified hi-hats

A Meditation on Woodwork - for string quartet

Andante Atmosférico - for two pianos

Co-composed with Emily Beisel and Luis Fernando Amaya as Fat Pigeon. Based on a notated score by Craig Davis Pinson, modified and expanded on by Fat Pigeon.

NO FATE PIG
Ghostly melodies are produced 
by a group of performers. 
As three rabid animals, 
they enact brute force upon the frail sounds. 
Traces of the music remain on display, encrusted in the mud.

Emily Beisel - amplified bass clarinet
Luis Fernando Amaya - cajón and objects
Craig Davis Pinson - bowed electric guitar

Photo by Noah Jenkins

"No Fate Pig (no. 1)" - for trio (Fat Pigeon)

Written with great appreciation for the ~Nois saxophone quartet. Live recording from the premiere at Constellation Chicago in November 26, 2017, studio version forthcoming!

Dismantle - for saxophone quartet (Live recording)

Poem by Kay Ryan

Imagine a sea
of ultramarine
suspending a
million jellyfish
as soft as moons.
Imagine the
interlocking uninsistent
tunes of drifting things.
This is the deep machine
that powers the lamps
of dreams and accounts
for their bluish tint.
How can something
so grand and serene
vanish again and again
without a hint?

Performed by Jordyn Keller and Yukiko Oba at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee

Tune - for mezzo-soprano and piano

Composer, improviser, and musicologist born and raised in Mexico City, Mexico 🇲🇽 Doctorate in composition. I play guitar in the experimental group Fat Pigeon and lead the large ensemble project Pinson Chamber Band.

Craig Davis Pinson

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