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The title “a leaf falls” is taken from the e.e. cummings poem with the first line “l(a leaf falls)oneliness.” Though I’ve never really lived in a place with an autumn, I nevertheless feel a sense of nostalgia for the coming of autumn, the leaves turning bright oranges and reds, and is it a sense of emptiness when the leaves fall? Eugene Carchesio captured something like this sense beautifully in his “Dead leaves of Tokyo” series. I enjoy raking the leaves in my backyard, it’s a kind of meditation. And who doesn’t love jumping into a pile of leaves? (Erik Griswold 31 August 2011)

Performers: 
John Addison - Cello
Soundstream Collective - Percussion Quartet

Performed 30 September 2011 in Elder Hall, University of Adelaide.

For more information about this work, or to view/purchase scores and recordings, visit:  www.erikgriswold.org


a leaf falls, part 1 (2011)

From the album "From Small Things Grow"
Summer of Wisteria was composed for Topology and Clocked Out, and premiered on the “Seven Headed Music Machine” show in Brisbane Powerhouse.  Both of those ensembles thrive on rhythm, and the three movements of Wisteria abound with intricate cross-rhythms and syncopations.  When I came up with the opening motif, a line from William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! popped into my head – “It was a summer of wisteria…”  This seemed to capture something about the relaxed feeling and the dreamy textures which wend their way in and out of the music.  Mint juleps on the veranda, anyone?

Performers:
Soprano Sax - John Babbage
Violin - Christa Powell
Viola - Bernard Hoey
Bass - Robert Davidson
Piano - Erik Griswold
Recorded at Brisbane Powerhouse
copyright 2007 Erik Griswold all rights reserved

Premiered at Brisbane Powerhouse, 11 November 2007.

For more information about this work, or to view/purchase scores and recordings, visit:
www.erikgriswold.org

Summer Of Wisteria - from From Small Things Grow (2007)

A road trip through the deserts of California and Arizona was the inspiration for Drifting Cowboys in a Mist.  The passing scenery from Route 66 and Interstate 40 through the western badlands and cactus strewn landscapes rekindled my secret love of country and western.  Loading up Hank Williams’ (and the Drifting Cowboys) Greatest Hits on my laptop, I began to absorb the Hawaiian tinged steel guitar of Don Helms and the poignant fiddle solos of Jerry Rivers.  As I studied and analyzed their music I somehow began to draw a connections with impressionism (Debussy), early jazz (Bix Beiderbecke - “In a mist”), and Bartok (String Quartet No.3).  All these influences merged together in a wide ranging homage.  I was delighted to have the opportunity to compose this, my first string quartet, for Kurilpa String Quartet, who bring immense talent, dedication, and inspiration to Queensland Conservatorium.

Performers:
Graeme Jennings - Violin
Brendan Joyce - violin
Yoko Okayasu - viola 
Katherine Philp - cello

 Composed for and premiered by Kurilpa String Quartet at Crossbows Festival, Brisbane, 13 May 2012.

For more information about this work, or to view/purchase scores and recordings, visit:  www.erikgriswold.org

Drifting Cowboys in a Mist (2012)

These Sichuan folk song arrangements were shaped by Erik Griswold's experiences in Chengdu during the winter of 2001-02. "Bitter Vegetables, Bitter Yinyin" is reminiscent of the Afro-American spiritual, "Motherless Child." The character, Yinyin, is abandoned in the asbestos mining town of Shimian in Sichuan Province and the song tells of herloneliness and despair. The prepared piano, invented by John Cage in 1940, uses mutes of various materials wedged between the strings of a grand piano completely transforming its sound characteristics and endowing each note with a unique timbre. In preparing the piano with rubber, bolts and screws, Griswold has literally coaxed a Chinese orchestral ensemble out of the instrument, the high notes suggesting the pipa (lute), the middle and lower registers, the qin (7-stringed zither) and gu zheng (17-stringed zither) respectively. - Margaret Leng Tan

Bitter Vegetables, Bitter Yinyin - from Two Sichuan Folksongs (2002)

Toy instruments have been part of my musical language since 2000 when Vanessa Tomlinson and I (Clocked Out Duo) created “Felaminikuti,” a light-hearted homage to Afrobeat master Fela Kuti.  Since then I’ve created several pieces and done many improvised performances using toy piano, melodica, miniature music boxes, ukuleles, lots of toy percussion, and any number of noisemakers.  “Three Secret Gardens” was my first piece that used toy piano with chamber ensemble.  In each ‘garden’  I’ve tried to create a very intimate and immediate mood.  Perhaps dreamy, wistful, or whimsical, I envision three magical, private places.  I created “Three Secret Gardens” for an inspiring collaboration with Continuum Sax, who really brought it to life!


Three Secret Gardens (2011)

Performed by Janet McKay (flute), Rianne Wilschut (clarinet), Liam Viney (piano), Vanessa Tomlinson (percussion), Graeme Jennings (violin), John Addison (cello). 
Queensland Conservatorium, 6 October 2010

 I've often come back to the poetry of T.S. Eliot over the years, especially his mystical ruminations on time in The Four Quartets, pondering evocative phrases such as “the music from a farther room,” or “you are the music while the music lasts.”  Without drawing conscious connections, I sometimes recognize phenomena in his poetry that I strive to create in my own works.  When I was composing, lines or images from the poetry sometimes popped into my head, which inspired me to explore a variety of moods, depths, and time relationships among the performers.  In some sections, such as parts 1 & 3, the performers play independently of each other, following their own fluctuating tempos and dynamic swells.  In others, such as part 4 and 5, they perform with very precisely interlocking rhythms.  The piece ends and begins with the same movement, mirroring Eliot’s line from “East Coker”:  “In my beginning is my end.” 

After the kingfisher's wing, part 1 (2010)

Performed by Janet McKay (flute), Rianne Wilschut (clarinet), Graeme Jennings (violin), and John Addison (cello).

I've often come back to the poetry of T.S. Eliot over the years, especially his mystical ruminations on time in The Four Quartets, pondering evocative phrases such as “the music from a farther room,” or “you are the music while the music lasts.”  Without drawing conscious connections, I sometimes recognize phenomena in his poetry which I strive to create in my own works.  When I began composing the sound textures of The Yellow Fog, some lines from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” popped into my head:  "The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes / The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes." The Yellow Fog was composed for Either/Or Ensemble.

The yellow fog - part 1 (2010)

Performed by Anna Grinberg.

FOUR PLACES explores four unique Queensland landscapes, taking as its inspiration the sounds of the natural environments of Mt. Nebo, Cunningham’s Gap, Girraween, and Condamine.  Griswold is joined by three of Queensland’s most celebrated pianists – Stephen Emmerson , Anna Grinberg, and Liam Viney, to reflect on the natural wonders of Queensland.

"Erik Griswold's Cunningham's Gap for solo piano was a largely reflective meditation on the natural wonder west of Brisbane, featuring a sublime, extended passage for right hand only and an ending of profound beauty." - Martin Buzacott, The Australian, 1 June 2012

Bell Birds - from Four Places in Queensland (2009)

Prepared & processed music box, based on the Lutheran Hymn "From heaven above to earth I come."  I used an antique Thorens music box, inherited from my great aunt, as the starting point for this piece.  The slightly bent disk give the playback an off-kilter, stop & start quality.  I recorded this, and then treated the sounds using Ableton Live.  This was one of several music box pieces created for the "Dream Percussion" event at National Film & Sound Archive in Canberra.  The music box recordings were played through the speakers of a "Mr. Whippy" (antique ice cream) van.

From heaven above (2009)

Clocked Out 
Erik Griswold and Vanessa Tomlinson
Prepared Piano and Found Objects
from the album "Foreign Objects"
Clocked Out | 2009

Foreign Objects (2009)

Performed by Margaret Leng Tan

Old MacDonald's Yellow Submarine is an exploration of sounds with which I've been fascinated since childhood.  Its varied sections range from nostalgic and wistful to playful and cheeky, drawing on influences as diverse as John Cage and John Lee Hooker.

Old Mac comprises six movements - On that farm, e-i-e-i-o, Pink Memories, Chooks! (Australian for "chickens"), Bicycle Lee Hooker, and Old MacDonald's Yellow Submarine - each using a different combination of instruments, including prepared piano, toy piano, wood blocks, and miniature music boxes.  Knowing the skill and dedication of Margaret Leng Tan, I pushed the limits of toy instrumental virtuosity by asking her to coordinate a bicycle bell, bicycle horn, train whistle, and toy piano in Bicycle Lee Hooker, a right brain-left brain extravaganza.

I arrived at the title of the suite, a conjunction of Old MacDonald had a farm and Yellow Submarine, when I took the tines (or melody) of one music box and crossed them with the barrel (or rhythm) of another to produce the surprising hybrids heard in the sixth movement. (The third movement similarly combines the pitches of The Pink Panther with the rhythm of Memories).

Old Mac is dedicated to Margaret Leng Tan, and was created with generous support from the Australia Council for the Arts.


"On that farm" - from Old MacDonald's Yellow Submarine (2004)

"Every night the same dream" is the title track of Clocked Out Duo's first album.  It set the benchmark for subsequent exploration of warped grooves and atmospheric soundscapes.  The album is an eclectic collection which includes compositions by Vanessa Tomlinson, Graeme Leak, and Warren Burt, as well as improvisatory pieces.

Recorded by Wayne Baker at ABC Studio 520 in Adelaide.

Every Night The Same Dream (2000)

Prepared Piano Solo
from the album "Pain Avoidance Machine" 
Room40 | 2015

Pale Yellow Frontier - from Pain Avoidance Machine (2015)

Solo Prepared Piano
Composition by Thelonious Monk
Self release

Brilliant Corners (2008)

Clocked Out
Erik Griswold and Vanessa Tomlinson
Prepared Piano and Vibraphone
from the album "Time Crystals" 
Innova | 2015

Time Crystals (2015)

Rainbows In The Dark - from Foreign Objects (2009)

Written for solo prepared piano, this is my version of the Cuban guaguanco rhythm, from the piece "Three Latin Rhythms". It was recorded for my album "More than my old piano" as well as Gabriella Smart's album "Chinese Whispers". It was the theme music for ABC Classic FM's coverage of the ICSM World Music Days in Sydney 2010. Gabriella Smart also recorded this for Move Records.

For more information about this work, or to view/purchase scores and recordings, visit:  www.erikgriswold.org

Guaguanco - from Three Latin Rhythms (2002)

Ghostly aural illusions, "alchemical" transformations of sound.

"The tall, lean pianist-composer hovered over narrow stretches of his keyboard and picked and pounded out "Other Planes"...the alchemical transformation of furious, minimal clusters into eerie harmonics and distant half-heard melodies, sudden evocations of gamelan and marimba." - Keith Gallasch, Realtime Arts

Recorded by Kim Chalmers at EMU in Adelaide.