Sarah Off - Violin and Edward Rothmel - Piano perform Dylan Fixmer's Sonata no. 2 for Violin and Piano live at Campus Commons Performance Hall.

Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano - Mvt. 1 (Live Performance)

"Overture" to The Burroughs live with the Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra by Dylan Fixmer. Commissioned by The Burroughs and The Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra. Premiered October 23, 2021 at the Union Colony Civic Center, Greeley, CO.

"Overture" - The Burroughs + GPO Live

Performed by Drew Quiring

Depuis l'aube de l'humanité, nous avons contemplé les cieux et médité sur les merveilles de l'univers. Avec chaque avancée scientifique et technologique, nous avons pu scruter plus profondément et avec plus de clarté nos origines. "Nocturne" est une méditation sur les sentiments que l'on ressent en regardant le ciel nocturne et en imaginant l’inimaginable.

Nocturne for Piano

A teaser for the three movements of String Quartet no. 1 performed by "Fingernoise"

From String Quartet no. 1 - Three portraits of clouds for Viola Quintet (2,2,1). Premiered August 2022, by “Fingernoise” at the Crested Butte Music Festival.

To purchase the sheet music, visit Dylan Fixmer's Online Store here - https://www.dylanfixmermusic.com/store/p/string-quintet-no-1

Teaser - String Quintet No. 1

Trio for Trumpet, Violin and Piano (2021)
The transition from autumn to winter in Colorado is a dynamic one. The temperamental weather causes temperatures to fluctuate so dramatically that one day’s low may be the next day’s high; snow one minute and sun the next. This trio presents three different feelings that one might experience during this time of year. The first movement invites the listener to imagine the beauty of the changing landscapes as the fall colors give in to the restful white of snow. The second brings the feeling of frostbite and cold, the kind that cuts through coats and gloves. The third invites the listener to enjoy a moment with their inner child and go back to time spent playing in the snow with friends and family.

Premiered November 29, 2022 by Steve Siegel - Trumpet, Sarah Off - Violin and Ivana Munćan - Piano

Score Available at www.dylanfixmermusic.com/store/

Trio For Trumpet, Violin And Piano 2021 (Premiere 11-29-2022)

Sarah Off premieres Dylan Fixmer's "Maps no. 1 for Solo Instrument" at the University of Wisconsin Superior Faculty Concert Series. This graphic score is written on a topo map of Telluride, Colorado and is the first of a trilogy of topo map graphic scores.

Maps No. 1 - Premiere UWS

A Poem Without Words by Dylan Fixmer
for Two Violins, Cello and Piano
Premiered May 2, 2023 by the Front Range Chamber Players
Violin 1 - Erik Peterson
Violin 2 - Leena Waite
Cello - Chloe Hong
Piano - William David

This short chamber work was inspired by the words of Mary Oliver in her poem "The Eskimos Have No Word for War."

A Poem Without Words (Premiere - Live)

Described as a "poignant and moving piece" that "everyone should hear." by conductor Lowell Graham, Dylan Fixmer’s Concerto for Violin, written in memory of violinist Terri Sternberg, is a meditation on the trials of homelessness and a call to action to end housing insecurity. With its lush harmonies, haunting melodies and captivating textures, Fixmer’s Concerto for Violin brings the audience on a journey to find empathy for those experiencing homelessness and to destigmatize the mental illness associated with housing insecurity. 

Sarah Off - Violin
Lowell Graham and the Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra
Recorded September 24, 2022

Concerto for Violin - III Allegro

Concerto for Violin - II. Largo

Concerto for Violin - I. Andante Con Moto

I began to write the work with this overarching goal in mind: When we dream of utopia, what do we find in ourselves and in others? What binds us  together? What blinds us to our shortcomings? We may dream of Utopia, yet as a society we fall away from grace. Our indifference, greed, distrust and self-righteousness forging inevitable demise. Struggling to stay afloat through hard times we somehow persist in a constant state of flux. Generations later still dream the same vision of the future: a better place for the next generation. We’re all here together; what do we need to learn to realize our utopia? At the end of the day, we may only have to examine the people who came here before us, champion their triumphs and learn from their mistakes. 
So, we begin the journey through the seven portraits with “Dreaming: Visions of Utopia.” In this historical portrait, we consider how people sought a better world, a more righteous world, a more just world, and a place to call their own. This was the land of the Arapahoe and later the Union Colony who sought to establish a utopian society. Yet as well intentioned as they were, they were too proud, ambitious, greedy and untrusting to realize their utopia.  
But not all was a failure. The shared experience of many people from the earliest settlers to the children who are growing up here today is the topic of the second movement, entitled “Yearning: Searches for Knowledge”.  Here we consider how ideas like opportunity, seeking wisdom, “a better place for my kids” and the very buildings themselves, schools, are representations of the search for knowledge. Among the several themes in this movement you’ll hear a melody sung by one of the oldest groups in Greeley, The Want-to-know Club, which was an all women’s gathering dedicated to the study and sharing of knowledge. 
The third movement deals with the shared experience of change. Entitled “Changing: Cycles of Renewal” this movement uses bird songs and cyclical chromatic chord progressions to imitate the ever changing nature of time, and our relationship to it in each new season, each new building, or each new generation. 
Some of that change can feel refreshing and uplifting, but some change can be challenging and on many levels. Movement four, entitled “Enduring: Hard Times'' deals with the struggles we face together. From droughts to wars to poverty to illness, we endure hardship and loss yet we find the strength somewhere to keep on going. 
And worse yet, some of our greatest struggles are not external, but internal. In the fifth movement entitled, “Judging: Divisions Between Us” I will ask you to grapple with the divisive elements of our nature; indifference, discrimination, assimilation, cultural misunderstanding, othering and hate. This movement, containing a fugue in C minor, a fanfare in C major and a percussion feature clash in a battle for tonality that mirrors our inability to see the consequences of our unwillingness to find common ground.
But when we do find common ground we find community. And in the sixth movement, entitled “Celebrating: Moments of Unity,” I invite you to cradle those loved ones around you and join in a contradance to celebrate those times that show a community’s strength. 
And then where do we find ourselves? Back to our search for utopia. Not the same search perhaps, but one renamed, re-realized, reinvigorated. The seventh and final movement, “Imagining: Utopia Re-Envisioned,” asks us to examine our own lives and answer the question “what do I envision when I think of making my community a better place?”. “What do we need to learn to realize our utopia? At the end of the day, we may only have to examine the people who came here before us, champion their triumphs and learn from their mistakes.”

Seven Symphonic Portraits: A Weld County Reflection

Old Machines - The Loom, The Plow, The Timepiece

Concerto for Electric Cello was commissioned by cellist Becky Kutz Osterberg to bring awareness to and help destigmatize depression and create hope, solidarity and community for those struggling with depression. The piece in three movements, portrays Becky’s experience with life-long depression from her struggles with feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, guilt, shame, confusion, debilitation and despair to finding hope, purpose, and self-worth. 
The performance of this piece is meant to also facilitate a dialogue around the spectrum of experiences associated with depression. By presenting Becky’s personal experiences with depression and her journey through the healing process and utilizing the medium of solo electric cello and symphony orchestra, we hope to offer this piece as a show of solidarity to those struggling with mental illness and as a call to our communities to reconsider preconceived notions about the nature of mental health. 
First Movement
The first movement, entitled “No Light at the End of the Tunnel,” is framed within a highly modified sonata form with swirling and repetitive motifs and disjunct open melodies which serve to portray the numbness, lack of joy and the emptiness of depression. Electronic effects such as distortion, phaser and reverb and extended cello techniques like excessive bow pressure, playing with the stick side of the bow and uncontrolled vibrato are used to portray feelings of frustration, confusion and debilitation. 

Second Movement
The second movement, entitled “It’s just me... but who am I,” is an adagio-andante-adagio movement that deals with repression, self hurt, confusion/debilitation and disconnectedness. Again, synthetic modes are employed to create a lush extended harmonic landscape beneath sweeping soloist melodies. The electronic effects used throughout this movement focus on creating a sense of the vastness of feeling insignificant through the use of echo, distortion and flanger effects.This movement also features the English horn and harp as soloist voices, representing figures in Becky’s life who have helped her in times of need.

Third Movement
The third movement, entitled “Hope, Out of Darkness,” generously funded by North Range Behavioral Health, focuses on the ongoing healing process. This movement utilizes modal expansion in two harmonic areas in a palindromic-rondo form (intro-A-B-A’-C-B’-A-coda). This form is meant to mimic therapy techniques used in behavioral health medicine and the Tai Chi philosophy of Yin and Yang by portraying the cyclical nature of depression and mental illness and working from Becky’s description of the healing process coming in like “waves on ocean tides.” The A sections of the work portrays Becky’s everyday experience of a “mental health diet” working to stay mentally healthy while experiencing the waves of emotion depression can bring. Each A then moves to another section representing a type therapy used to treat depression. In the B sections, long sweeping dynamic fluctuations are performed by the orchestra which are meant to represent the nature of the balancing practice of Tai Chi and allude to the therapy practice of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). 

Movement 3 - Out of the Darkness

Movement 2 - Its Just Me... But Who Am I?

Movement 1 - No Light at the End of the Tunnel

Inspired by nature and the human spirit, Colorado based composer Dylan Fixmer writes concert, theatre, chamber and solo art music in an amalgamation of genres and styles ranging from classical to rock, jazz to Irish trad, hip-hop to children’s music and so much more.

Dylan Fixmer

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