Watch the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6lgO_kWGzo

I composed "Parting" for Baroque lutenist Will Tocaben in the summer of 2013. At that time it seemed that everywhere I turned I saw relationships falling apart and close and distant friends going through breakups. I wanted to write a reflective piece expressing the sense of being pulled back and forth, the feeling of loss and uncertainty, with the final release and acceptance.

You can purchase a score for Baroque Lute in D-minor, notated in treble clef, as well as an arrangement for classical guitar here: http://dosiamckay.com/music-scores/parting/
©2013 Dosia McKay / Gavia Music (ASCAP), all rights reserved.

Parting for Baroque Lute

A preview track from my new album "Glossolalia - NeoQuartet plays music of Dosia McKay" http://dosiamckay.com/music/recording-glossolalia/

"First In Flight" is a slogan found on all North Carolina car license plates, commemorating the achievement of the Wright brothers. The composition is my nod toward the state of North Carolina, which has recently become my new home. This fast paced and energetic piece is full of colorful harmonic progressions, vibrant melodic lines, playful jazzy riffs, and dreamy soundscapes depicting the thrill of a take off and flying.

Karolina Piątkowska-Nowicka - 1st violin
Paweł Kapica - 2nd violin
Michał Markiewicz - viola
Krzysztof Pawłowski - cello
Guest soloist: Paweł Nowicki - vibraphone

©Ⓟ2014 Dosia McKay / Gavia Music (ASCAP), all rights reserved
www.dosiamckay.com
www.neoquartet.pl

First In Flight (preview)

A preview track from my new album "Glossolalia - NeoQuartet plays music of Dosia McKay" http://dosiamckay.com/music/recording-glossolalia/

Glossolalia, meaning speaking or praying in tongues, is a spiritual practice or a worship expression found in certain streams of the Christian church as well as in some non-Christian religions. An interesting phenomenon is singing in tongues during public worship when members of a congregation improvise short melodies, instinctively embellishing the notes of a common major chord. This group expression can lead to a spiritual trance and ecstasy and the improvised music is quite mesmerizing and beautiful. I sometimes think about all of the music being presently created in various styles and genres, merging into a single essence, expressing the sum total of our humanity. 

Karolina Piątkowska-Nowicka - 1st violin
Paweł Kapica - 2nd violin
Michał Markiewicz - viola
Krzysztof Pawłowski - cello

©Ⓟ2014 Dosia McKay / Gavia Music (ASCAP), all rights reserved
www.dosiamckay.com
www.neoquartet.pl

Glossolalia (preview)

A preview track from my new album "Glossolalia - NeoQuartet plays music of Dosia McKay" http://dosiamckay.com/music/recording-glossolalia/

About Three Monologues: I have always been fascinated by the ability of many actors to portray contrasting emotions at the drop of a hat. Those with many years of experience and a full control of their bodies, are able to switch seamlessly between tearful sobbing and stupefying laughter. Often, when called to audition, they are required to recite short monologues showcasing their abilities. Surge, Cantabile, and Expletivo portray a wide range of human emotions, from conflicting, dissonant, and aggressive, through delicate, fragile, and innocent. 

About Expletivo: This is high-brow art music, and so it is proper to hide behind a made-up Italian word like Expletivo, but the essence of this movement might be better expressed through the Polish idiom for swearing, which is "to throw meat". Expletivo is vulgar. It should be bleeped out and cleaned up. Listener discretion is advised. 

Karolina Piątkowska-Nowicka - 1st violin
Paweł Kapica - 2nd violin
Michał Markiewicz - viola
Krzysztof Pawłowski - cello

©Ⓟ2014 Dosia McKay / Gavia Music (ASCAP), all rights reserved
www.dosiamckay.com
www.neoquartet.pl

Three Monologues - III Expletivo (preview)

A preview track from my new album "Glossolalia - NeoQuartet plays music of Dosia McKay" http://dosiamckay.com/music/recording-glossolalia/

About Three Monologues: I have always been fascinated by the ability of many actors to portray contrasting emotions at the drop of a hat. Those with many years of experience and a full control of their bodies, are able to switch seamlessly between tearful sobbing and stupefying laughter. Often, when called to audition, they are required to recite short monologues showcasing their abilities. Surge, Cantabile, and Expletivo portray a wide range of human emotions, from conflicting, dissonant, and aggressive, through delicate, fragile, and innocent.

About Cantabile: Cantabile (in Italian "singable", or "song-like") should unfold through long and eloquent phrases, but it does not have enough courage to immediately convey what hides in its heart. It is full of hesitation and uncertainty. How do we express fragile, undefinable emotions in a loud and cynical world? The secret of strength sometimes lies in tenderness. As the movement progresses, individual phrases gain shape and begin to form a bold message through a colorful harmonic progression of jazzy quartal sonorities. 

Karolina Piątkowska-Nowicka - 1st violin
Paweł Kapica - 2nd violin
Michał Markiewicz - viola
Krzysztof Pawłowski - cello

©Ⓟ2014 Dosia McKay / Gavia Music (ASCAP), all rights reserved
www.dosiamckay.com
www.neoquartet.pl

Three Monologues - II Cantabile (preview)

Buy album: "Glossolalia - NeoQuartet plays music of Dosia McKay" http://dosiamckay.com/music/recording-glossolalia/

About "Is Now Not Enough?": The opening piece explores the restlessness and insatiability of the human spirit. The same invisible force that propels migrating birds and fish, seems to stir the imagination in search of the ideal and the transcendent, but can it ever be truly found? The music echoes the themes I have explored earlier in my poem entitled "Unfurling":

Be still my soul 
What is your unfurling? 
Your trembling? 
Your flutter? 
What is your ache? 
A void that's ever empty 
What is your shape 
That I may fill it? 
Chords unstrummed? 
Songs unsung? 
Words unspoken? 
Colors unseen? 
A flock of geese 
Captured in perpetual takeoff 
You have startled 
The stillness of the pond 
Marred it with ripples 
Your wings 
Water shedding 
Gasping for air 
Hungrily 
Ecstatically 
Forcefully 
What is your haste? 
Is now not enough? 
Is here not plenty? 
Run, soul, run 
For stillness be the death of you 
Chase the sun 
Fly

Karolina Piątkowska-Nowicka - 1st violin
Paweł Kapica - 2nd violin
Michał Markiewicz - viola
Krzysztof Pawłowski - cello

©Ⓟ2014 Dosia McKay / Gavia Music (ASCAP), all rights reserved
www.dosiamckay.com
www.neoquartet.pl

For private use only. If you would like to use the track in your creative project, whether for profit or without profit, please contact me about licensing.

Buy Album

Is Now Not Enough?

The Espionage concerto was partially inspired by a poem by the same title I wrote in 2008 (see below) and, in a wider sense, by my fascination with the spy thriller genre. I loved the Jason Bourne films with Matt Damon and Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise. Whenever there is a chase across Europe involving trains, old Volvos, period hotels with tall ceilings, crowded subway stations, and miniature coffee shops, I am completely sold. The concept of espionage, to me, from the romanticized and artistic standpoint, has little to do with the actual spying or betrayal. It’s all abut a state of mind; escapism, hiding the true self under a disguise, adapting to quickly-changing circumstances, improvisation, alienation, uncertainty, and overcoming fear. In a word, a wealth of emotional material for personal contemplation and art making. 

The first two movements of the concerto, “Anywhere But Here” and “One Regret”, feature quickly shifting harmonies, lots of internal tension and emotional brooding. The third movement entitled “Three Moves Ahead” is a fast-paced chase with a healthy dose of flute virtuosity involving fast staccato passages, quick runs, and flutter tongue articulation. Once again, as in several of my previous compositions, I return to jazz and pop allusions which are scattered across various harmonic progressions and rhythmic patterns.

This excerpt from a performance by Shelley Binder, flute, and Judith Bible, piano, at the University of Tennesse, Knoxville, on March 29, 2009 (premiere)

Learn more about this composition here: http://dosiamckay.com/music-scores/flute-concerto/

Flute Concerto - The Espionage: I - Anywhere But Here

Uplifting trance meets symphonic strings.

Download track: http://tinyurl.com/n8jgqjb
More info: http://tinyurl.com/nn4ltmw

Composition, MIDI programming and sequencing by Dosia McKay, mastered by Julian Dreyer at the Echo Mountain Recording Studios in Asheville, NC.

For private use only. If you would like to use the track in your creative project, whether for profit or without profit, please contact me about licensing.
©Ⓟ2014 Dosia McKay / Gavia Music (ASCAP), all rights reserved
www.dosiamckay.com

Download

TrancePhonica

A preview of "Parting" recorded by Sergio Puccini, an Argentine guitar virtuoso, for his upcoming album release (early 2015). I am thrilled that my composition will be featured alongside the music of Paul McCartney, David Kahne, and others.

"Parting" expresses a sense of loss and inevitability. At times, everywhere we turn, we see relationships falling apart and close and distant friends going through breakups. "Parting" is a reflection on the feeling of being pulled back and forth, the struggle of uncertainty, and the final release and acceptance.

http://dosiamckay.com/music-scores/parting/

Parting for Classical Guitar

http://dosiamckay.com/music/endless-immersion/

I want to challenge the traditional way we listen to music. Does a composition have to have a beginning and an end? Does it have to be shorter than ten minutes? Shorter than four minutes? I want to obliterate the boundaries of time, rhythm, measures, and form, and create an environment that could be entered and re-entered at any moment. 

Endless Immersion is like an ever changing mist that fills the air enveloping the listener. It pulsates, vibrates, tingles, changes colors, and sweeps in waves and layers that come and go, morph, merge, dissolve, and drift away. 

Originally I composed Endless Immersion for a quadraphonic environment in partnership with an Asheville's visual artist Lynda Sondles who built a three-dimensional installation to "contain" the music. In this setting, two independent stereophonic music loops of different lengths are aligned in such a way that the sonic environment unfolds endlessly with the listener experiencing always fresh combinations of sounds. 

The album version of Endless Immersion contains two variants of the loop alignment for a total of 120 minutes of music on two CDs for a traditional stereophonic environment (CD player, iPod, etc). 

Although, in the quadraphonic environment, the loops can align at any point on their individual timelines, the music is composed in such a way that, as in a kaleidoscope, the resulting "image" is harmonically anchored and whole. If there are seemingly accidental sounds on either loop, they fit and align with their counterparts to create a soundscape that fosters calm, meditation, and emotional centering (dare I say healing?), but also an intellectually engaging experience. Endless Immersion is not merely a passive ambient musical landscape. It claims the listener's attention and offers him or her passage to another dimension where time does not exist. 

The ambience of Endless Immersion is composed of an electro-acoustic mixture of natural sounds, live voice and instruments, samples of acoustic and electronic instruments, and synthesis of all of the above. 

2-CD set, 120 minutes of music. Each CD contains a single track of a seamless 60-minute immersive experience.

All music composed by Dosia McKay. Voice, flute, cello, sound design, MIDI programming, and sequencing by Dosia McKay. Mixed and mastered by Julian Dreyer at the Echo Mountain Recording Studios in Asheville, NC. Graphic design by Dosia McKay. ©(P)2015 Dosia McKay / Gavia Music (ASCAP), All rights reserved.

Endless Immersion 2 - Preview

Endless Immersion 1 - Preview

It is odd to imagine that a quick stroll through a casino would become an inspiration for a new composition for a chamber group, yet the surround-sound cacophony of blips, clicks, and pings unlocked the desire to play with sound in a carefree and joyful way. Jackpot is a rush of excitement developing into an adrenaline high. Stylistically centered in minimalism, it alludes to jazz, but discerning listeners might detect elements of 1970s disco era.

Jackpot is scored for Violin, Cello, Bass Clarinet, Tenor Saxophone, Piano, and Marimba. Find out more about the music here: http://dosiamckay.com/music-scores/jackpot/

Jackpot

I composed "Impression" in 2007 when I was studying composition at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. At that time I was intrigued with Johann Sebastian Bach's secret spelling of words through notes. I tried the same idea with spelling a friend's name - Asher (for whom I have composed the piece).  This way I came up with a four-note motive A-B-E-D which is spelled in many different configurations throughout the piece. You can get the score from my website at http://dosiamckay.com/music-scores/impression/

A = A
S = si = ti = B 
H = B
E = E
R = re = D

Watch the score here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDqOLS3jOG8

Get Score

Impression for Piano Solo

"Seven" for piano solo is filled with colorful harmonies and cascading arpeggios. For advanced and virtuoso pianists. Get the score at http://dosiamckay.com/music-scores/seven/
Watch the score: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzfjp0PMW7U

Seven for Piano Solo

When I take a break from music, I turn to painting. My favorite media are watercolors, acrylics, and ink. When the paint is introduced to a wet canvas, it takes a life of its own with unpredictable results; colors seep and melt into one another, accidental splashes become joyful bursts of energy, and new textures and patterns emerge. The creative process, both for painting and music composition, is full of such colorful surprises and lucky accidents. "Watercolors" for symphony orchestra is a playful sonic canvas expressing the joy of creativity. 

"Watercolors" - new music for symphony orchestra. Woodwinds in pairs, brass, timpani, 2 percussionists, harp, and strings. The present recording is a MIDI demo. This piece is seeking a premiere by an orchestra. 
http://dosiamckay.com/music-scores/watercolors/

Watercolors for Symphony Orchestra

One of the first pieces I have composed (2005). We, eastern Europeans, love a good heart-felt melody. This one embodies my memories of Poland and is full of longing, tenderness, and hope. Originally written for piano and string orchestra, also available in solo piano version. 
http://www.dosiamckay.com/music/farfromhome.shtml

Far From Home

See the film clip with the music here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0jRXczQnWQ

War And Peace

A track from my debut album Lacrimosa. Now available on iTunes, Amazon, Bandcamp, Google Play, and CD Baby. Please share with friends. http://dosiamckay.com/music/lacrimosa/

©Ⓟ2012 Dosia McKay / Gavia Music (ASCAP), all rights reserved
www.dosiamckay.com

For private use only. If you would like to use the track in your creative project, whether for profit or without profit, please contact me about licensing.

This track is an arrangement of the opening stanza of a madrigal by Luca Marenzio (1553?–1599), an Italian Renaissance composer, Solo e Pensoso.  I hope Luca doesn't mind a touch of drums.

Solo e pensoso i più deserti campi
vo misurando a passi tardi e lenti...

Alone and pensive through the most deserted fields 
I go with measured steps, dragging and slow...

Solo e Pensoso (Marenzio) (preview)

Dosia McKay is an American composer of music for concert stage, film, modern dance, and multimedia. Her portfolio includes works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, choir, symphony orchestra, as well as synthesized sound. A versatile writer, Dosia fluently weaves elements of classical harmony, jazz, pop, avant-garde, ambient soundscapes, and the lyricism of folk melodies of her native Poland.

Dosia McKay

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