download "happykid" for free:
https://mynameisromo.bandcamp.com/album/happykid

happykidッ - luv'n you

An electronic piece I wrote April-May 2015 for my electronic class final. Listen with high quality headphones for best quality. Enjoy! Thanks to kvgarlic on Freesound.org for the nature sounds!


Fluorite

Tree Giant (2016) for flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, and piano

Performed July 23, 2016
Colby College | Waterville, ME
Atlantic Music Festival

Rachel Beetz - flute/piccolo
Ford Fourqurean - clarinet/bass clarinet
Hannah Ji - violin
Jennifer Bewerse - cello
Chris Herman - percussion
Sung-Soo Cho - piano

Tree Giant

Tree Giant - for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, and piano

The title of millennial poet Elese Daniel’s f u r c u l a references the scientific name for the wishbone of a bird. The  poem zigzags frenetically and paints a vivid, sensuous picture of her generation, aimless and wandering, yet living and loving intensely. The scope of the poem seems to exist in two states simultaneously: it follows with equal intensity a group of “20-somethings” and the intimacy of a heartbroken relationship. In the end, it is revealed that the narrator is the wishbone who was broken to grant her lover’s wishes.

The music reflects and deepens this sensuality, at times evoking a smoky room or lamplit street corner. The asymmetrical, often angular vocal line wanders between the quiet machinations of a moment’s love and the larger-than-life hedonism of youth. The rich, jazzy harmonies blur and blend between simple and complex states of mind, dancing and cascading to the precious points of rest, only to be roused again by the narrator’s restless heart.

Lyrics (by Elese Daniel):
in the foggy shine of sweat glazed bodies, glowing in the dark, we made music with our hips: i felt bass in your lips, your tongue tasted like dusk, like bubblegum skylines, dripping gold as the sun says good night and I swear, I swear I heard my name in the whispers of your footsteps while they wandered towards the packed cab of a truck, downhilling the drunk to their get-away rides; i wonder of goodbye, that goodnight-see-you-later when you’re nothing but a sway, a kiss, a pipe-dream plane ride of small talk on a corner when the concerts end and the dancing begins. i know now; tomorrow’s yesterday – our last night of truck-hood high-fives and high jinks has sunk, like caved-roof rafters – crawling with 20-somethings, dangling destinies in their rainy missteps; their pockets full of baggies, chests full of smoke – inflated, on the roof counting church steeples and spitting to hear the sound; we watched elastic bodies swirl their bones loose in the brittle-brick warehouse that sang out hallelujahs each times the bass-line bounced; you called me young and brave and broke me into infinite wishes.

Performers: Esteli Gomez, Soprano. Grant Mack, Piano

f u r c u l a

The Three Friends of Winter is my second collaboration with the wonderful TaiHei Ensemble of Oregon. This trio for flute, viola, and bass clarinet is part of a project hosted by TaiHei in which 10 composers visted Portland's Lan Su Garden and composed pieces based upon their experiences. My piece is inspired by the poetic Chinese notion of "The Three Friends of Winter." The piece was premiered at Eugene, Oregon on February 12th.    

Nearly a millennium ago, Chinese artists and poets took notice that bamboo, plum, and pine trees remain in full strength through the winter months, and thus titled the three impressive plants the “Three Friends of Winter.” I was introduced to this concept for the first time on a tour of Portland’s Lan Su Chinese Gardens. As I composed my trio in the Winter months of December and January, I became increasingly struck and compelled by the mental image of plum, bamboo and pine trees thriving in an otherwise frozen garden covered by snow. In The Three Friends of Winter I respectively represent the bamboo, plum, and pine with the flute, viola, and bass clarinet.
 
	Regarding both pitch material and texture, The Three Friends of Winter is deeply influenced by my field recordings of a lovely concert of outdoor Guzheng music on the day of my visit to the Lan Su Gardens. Like the Guzheng, each instrument in my piece is limited to a pentatonic collection which is closely related to the other two collections (only the viola can leave its pentatonic collection through sliding on the string, similar to how the Guzheng achieves non-pentatonic notes). The piece is arranged into five sections, which alternate between increasingly fast sections of growth and slow sections of cold winter nights, musically painting a picture of these three fine flora thriving during the most difficult season of the year.

Members of the TaiHei Ensemble on this recording:

Tao Li - Conductor
Sarah Jordan - Flute
Rubi Yan - Viola
Calvin Yue - Bass Clarinet

We Are Petals on a River

Daniel DeLay

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