“Twice Told Tale” is the name of a series of paintings by American artist David Shapiro (1944-2014). This piece of music is based on the 18th painting in the series, which I spent a lot of time looking at while working at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in my 20’s. In Shapiro’s painting, the top half is occupied by dark concentric circles on a dark background, with a lighter, tightly wound spiral in the center of the smallest circle. The bottom half of the rectangular piece is an 11x11 field of squares painted in muted colors. Some of the squares are the same color, and some are of a similar enough color that they are hard to distinguish from a distance.

While I do not believe a 1:1 translation of visual art to music is interesting, or even possible, I have used this painting, and the atmosphere it creates in a gallery space as a point of reflection for this piece of music. The first movement “Spirals,” consists of the two instruments playing unsynchronized musical spirals; one getting longer while the other gets shorter. The second movement “Cells,” is a series of subdued, isolated musical events, some being identical or very nearly so to others.

"Twice Told Tale" was written for Tsun-Hui Hung and Yi-Chieh Jay Lai. It was premiered at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Orvis auditorium on March 4, 2022.

"Twice Told Tale" for erhu and guzhēng

eye dream 24bit 44.1k.mp3

Yu Kuwabara｜Spiral Mandala -Wind Chant and Night Chant- (2015)(excerpt)
for Shomyo (Japanese Buddhist chant), on traditional poetry of Native Americans
commissioned by and premiered by Shomyo no Kai - Voice of a Thousand Years
recorded live at Spiral Garden, Tokyo, Japan, on January 9 and 10, 2016
I recommend listening to this recording with headphones, earbuds, or earphones!!
The whole recording+score video is available on the Score Follower channel: https://youtu.be/TiN8E2f7J5s
The whole movie of the Spiral Mandala Ceremony: https://youtu.be/pV6SBxcS4D8

桑原ゆう｜螺旋曼荼羅 ー風の歌・夜の歌ー (2015)より抜粋
ネイティヴアメリカン、ナヴァホ族の創生神話より「風の歌」「夜の歌」のテキストによる
スパイラル聲明コンサートシリーズ vol.24「千年の聲」螺旋曼荼羅海会
2016年1月9、10日 @スパイラルガーデン (スパイラルビル1F)
委嘱・出演｜声明の会・千年の聲 (迦陵頻伽聲明研究会と七聲会による)
◆迦陵頻伽聲明研究会 (真言宗豊山派)
新井弘順、平井和成、大平稔雄、川城孝道、斎藤説成、小路耕徳、塚越秀成、塚田康憲、田中康寛、沼尻憲尚、戸部憲海、孤島泰凡、多田康雄、青木亮敬、新井弘賢、中山宥義、堀内明大
◆七聲会 (天台宗) 
末廣正栄、室生述成、玉田法信、杉山幸雄、鈴木亮仁、豊田良栄、宇佐見孝昭、髙栁亮伯、小野常寛 
構成・演出｜田村博巳
録音｜エーアールアイ (ARI)
ぜひヘッドフォンやイヤフォンでお聴きください。

Yu Kuwabara Works

Spiral Mandara

Spiral Mandala (2015, excerpt) for Shomyo (Japanese Buddhist chant)

Zosia Jagodzinska- Cello
Sophie Cameron- Violin
Mixed and Mastered by Rupert Gillett @ the Cabin
Composed by Sophie Cameron

The Mesmerist

completed concept for lyrics I wrote in high school, sat in the vault for years and came to life as a recording project during my undergrad music degree!
Luke arranged piano for the formerly a capella piece, the raw recording of wic is still live on my track list.

Eye Of The Storm (Full)- Ft. Luke Maxon

3/28/2020 - I am sharing a musical oddity born out of “Shelter-at-Home” and the urgent need to create. This is the first “dan” of the Japanese koto classic “Rokudan” recorded on seven differently pitched shakuhachi. You are hearing one single melody that I overdubbed with instruments tuned to E, Eb, D, Db, C, B, and A. If I had more flutes in different keys I would have included those to add to the general cacophony.  So here goes – listen up – and if you make it to the end, please let me know.
 
Why did I really do this?
 
New York City is in the midst of a Covid-19 crisis. Our hospitals and health care workers are struggling to keep people alive under horrific circumstances. There is a massive shortage of hospital gear and health care workers, who are terribly at risk, need everything - masks, gloves, sanitizer, gowns, etc. If you enjoyed my musical curiosity, or if you hated it, either way please consider a donation of $10 or more directly to this “gofundme” project. https://www.gofundme.com/f/x43rkz-critical-protective-gear-for-healthcare-workers
 
Thank you, James

Rokudan!!!

five images
for Ensemble Dal Niente
World Premiere, 7.11.2020, DePaul University

i. 0:00
ii. 1:15
iii. 2:38
iv. 3:38
v. 7:57

Ensemble Dal Niente
Katie Schoepflin Jimoh - clarinets
Ben Melsky - harp
Kyle Flens - percussion
Theo Ramsey - violin, viola
Hannah A Barnes - conductor

five images (2020) is a set of compact canonic miniatures. Double, crab, prolation, and inversion canons are employed across the work to create a large-scale arch form that engages the quartet in a variety of different ways. While the canons are rigorous in their execution, they are not all intended to be heard as such, with variance in the timbre, register, and temporality of the material affecting the perceptibility and autonomy of the canonic voices. The odd-numbered movements (i, iii, v) use the full ensemble, with iii acting as the axis and breaking point in the large-scale structure. Movements ii and iv, both crab canons, employ duos different than those used in the double canons of the outer movements, and occupy a noisier and more distant landscape. Each pair of movement across this axis (v with i, and iv with ii) are created as derivations from their counterparts, as if an image is reflected through a broken mirror to create a simulacrum of its pair. However, it is impossible to determine which way the axis imposes its changes, and thus which image is the original and which is the reflection.
This work was created as a canonic sketchbook for my large ensemble work, Triskelion, for DePaul University’s Ensemble 20+, and directly confronts the issues presented by working both with miniature forms and composing with canons in the hopes of using an old technique to make something new.
five images was composed for Ensemble Dal Niente and premiered to an empty hall on July 11, 2020.
— HAB

five images (2020, world premiere)

Creative Traditional Orchestra, National Gugak Center of Korea, conducted by Chung Chi-Yong. Pacific Rim Music Festival 2017 University of California, Santa Cruz

Dreams of the Traveller (2016-17)

Performed by the Departure Duo: Nina Guo (soprano) Eddie Kass (Double Bass)live at the Scholes Street Studio

"Evil's Peak" is a 4-movement song cycle for soprano and double bass, in the language of Jamaican Patois.

The piece takes inspiration from a 13th century frieze that graced the walls of the St. Mary's Church in Lübeck, Gemany in 1463 before it was destroyed in WWII; The Dance of Death in which 24 figures symbolizing people from all statuses and ranks of life (from the Pope to the baby) are led into a dance by emaciated corpses draped in a shroud and playing the flute; a pronouncement that death is no respecter of persons and this is the one dance we all must dance.

In this narrative, death is a woman. Unlike the texts in the frieze where there is dialogue between death and the figures in question, death here, pronounces judgement without defense. Primarily, these judgments stem from the composer's personal experiences living in Jamaica in which the figures (specifically those representing the church and the state) have been engaging in various forms of injustice toward humanity and consequently deserving of death. Although death in the beginning seems to be doing good serving justice to those who have been wronged, it eventually becomes a heart breaking cycle as nature begins to override choice; taking the innocent with it.

Evil's Peak (excerpt) Movements III-IV

Composed by James Nyoraku Schlefer. Masayo Ishigure on koto, the composer on shakuhachi.

Duo - Schlefer

Duo No. 1

PhD student at UH Mānoa. Composition and East Asian instruments. Currently based in northern Japan.

https://dalenwuest.com/
https://linktr.ee/dalenwuest

"Twice Told Tale" for erhu and guzhēng

DalenWuest

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