Commissioned by The Crossing, Donald Nally, conductor
made possible by the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award presented by Chorus America and funded by the American Composers Forum
[Animated Perusal Score here: http://issuu.com/joelpuckettmusic/docs/i_enter_the_earth_perusal_v.1.1]
I enter the earth was premiered by The Crossing on June 14, 2015 as part of their Month of Moderns Festival.
All text for I enter the earth was spoken by Kxao =Oah of northwestern Botswana in 1971, interpreted and translated by Marguerite Anne Biesele and then edited by Joel Puckett.

It is excerpted from "Folklore and ritual of !Kung hunter gatherers,” Ph.D. Dissertation Dept. of Anthropology, Harvard University©1975 Marguerite Anne Biesele (current pen name Megan Biesele) and used with permission.
Grateful acknowledgement is made to Dr. Biesele who has granted permission to set and reprint these words. She asks that anyone moved by them consider making a donation to:

The Kalahari Peoples Fund
PO Box 7855
University Station
Austin, TX 78713-7855
(512) 771-4097
When people sing ... I enter the earth. I go in at a place like a place where people drink water. I travel a long way, very far. When I emerge, I am already climbing. I climb threads. I climb one and leave it.
...
When you arrive at God's place, you make yourself small. ...
You do what you have to do there.
...
Then you return to where everyone is, and you hide your face. You hide your face so you won't see. ... And then you come and come and come and finally you enter your body again. All ... who have stayed behind are waiting for you. They fear you.
...
You enter, enter the earth, and you return to enter the skin of your body ... Then you ... sing.

I Enter The Earth [The Crossing, LIVE]

Live recording - 12.03.15
Lousiana State University Wind Ensemble
Damon Talley, Director
Baton Rouge, LA

For program notes and perusal score, please visit: https://alexandragardner.net/music/perseids/

Perseids — wind ensemble (LSU World Premiere)

Klas Torstensson's "Solo for Bass Saxophone."

Live At Wiedemann Hall - 2/18/14

Klas Torstensson - Solo for Bass Saxophone (1988)

You can learn to play this piece. FREE scores and parts, among other materials, are available online: kronosquartet.org/fifty-for-the-future

Composed by Raven Chacon
© 2016 Kronos Arts Publishing
℗ 2016 Kronos Performing Arts Association
Commissioned for Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire

Produced by Kronos Quartet
Recorded October 2016 at Studio Trilogy, San Francisco, CA 
Engineered and mixed by Laura Dean
Assistant Engineer: Alex Spencer
Production Assistant: Reshena Liao
Mixed at Women’s Audio Mission, San Francisco, CA
Assistant Mixing Engineers: Pamela Arriera, Madalyn Merkey, EA Allen

The Journey of the Horizontal People

Raven Chacon - The Journey of the Horizontal People

A solo marimba piece performed by Griffin Harvey

Student Composers Concert - Feb 7 2015

Wonderful Beautiful University Sexuality (Stetson Live)

perf. Alterity Wind Quintet
15 Oct 2017 
at the Timucua Arts Foundation

Carrie Wiesinger, flute
Beatriz Ramirez-Belt, oboe
Natalie Grata, clarinet
Kat Sleeper, bassoon
Kathy Thomas, horn

A stumpery is a type of garden which features the upturned roots of dead trees. The roots of a tree are very beautiful and intricate, sometimes even more than the rest of the tree; but, this is completely invisible for most living trees. In this piece, players tangle around one another like the roots of a tree. The space left by the tendrils is emphasized by reverberations, similar to the sustain pedal of a piano. Independent lines branch out from one another and grow back together. The outer shape of the root persists while the individual strands weave into and around one another. 

davidmacdonaldmusic.com
alterityco.org
timucua.com
cfcomposers.org

Stumpery (2017)

This is an excerpt featuring the first three movements of "Moments", my set of seven miniatures, which was premiered in April 2015. 

This recording is from the second performance in Kalamazoo, MI on January 31, 2016, and features violinist Paula Su, violist Ryan McDonald, and cellist Joshua DeVries.

The movement titles are:

I. (Concatenation)
II. (Contrast)
III. (Transformation)

Moments (Excerpt)

Now featuring a recording of live musicians! Performed by the UCF Symphonic Band under the direction of Dr. Tremon Kizer, this new work of mine was premiered on November 9, 2017.

Program notes:
This piece for wind ensemble is partially inspired by my home town of Sebastian, specifically its location on the east coast of the state of Florida. My childhood included many quick trips to both the nearby Indian River and the beaches on the coast, so swimming and the water were integral parts of my experience growing up. This work is my musical expression of diving underwater and getting swept up by a fast current, all the while discovering treasures and structures beneath the surface.

Dive! has two central components: a constant, driving eighth-note pulse, and a main theme which is fragmented and split up at first but then presented completely by the low reeds around a minute and a half in to the piece. The steady eighth-note pulse reflects the swift current that a diver might follow, while the main theme represents all the wonders that might be hidden under the water.

Dive! (World Premiere)

Henry Breneman Stewart, composer
Performed by Alarm Will Sound

Live at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 29, 2017

Momma!
I can't sing.
In the church of my heart, the choir's in flames.

Wreck

Composition for wind ensemble with string bass solo; a type of string bass concerto.

20190426 - University Wind Ensemble

Incino Arvum Ed2M0

David's music has been performed at venues around the world, including Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall. He is from St. Louis, Missouri and received a B.M. in composition and trumpet performance from the University of Missouri - Columbia and a M.M. and D.M.A. in composition from Michigan State University. He has studied composition with Ricardo Lorenz, W. Thomas McKenney, and Stefan Freund. 

David has been honored by the BMI Student Composer Awards, the Sinquefield Family Foundation, and Michigan State University Honors Competition. He has been commissioned by the Hastings College Symphonic Band, h2 Quartet, and others.

David is one of the founders of [SoundNotionTV](http://soundnotion.tv), a podcast network featuring audio and video shows about music and the arts. He serves on the board of directors of [Null-state](https://www.nullstate.org/), a non-profit organization promoting research and education in computer music. Previously, he served as president of the [Central Florida Composers Forum](http://cfcomposers.org/), Director of Digital Media for the [Timucua Arts Foundation](https://timucua.com/), and founder and co-Artistic Director of SCENE&heard, a new music concert series at the [(SCENE) Metrospace](http://scenemetrospace.com/) gallery in East Lansing, Michigan.

He teaches composition, theory, and technology at Wichita State University. He has previously taught at the University of Central Florida, Grand Valley State University, and Michigan State University.

email: davidjohnmacdonald@gmail.com

Stumpery (2017)

davemacdo

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