The word Janani is traditionally used to address the Goddess figure and means life-giver, or mother. This piece is lovingly dedicated to my mother and uses two Indian ragas, or modes, that are indirectly related to her; the first is called Lalitha, her name, and the second is called Ahiri, her favorite raga. The piano opens with a drone-like gesture and the alto sax begins a quiet exploration of the first mode in the alaap-style of Indian music. As the piece progresses, new pitches enter and there is a gradual shift to the second mode with a new tonic. After a pregnant pause, the alto sax begins an exploration of the second mode, though this time with an intense rhythmic energy that is subsequently sustained by the ensemble. Soaring above the rhythmic layers, the soprano sax sings freely while continuously heightening the intensity until all instruments join together for a rousing finale.

Janani, for saxophone quartet and piano

Performed by Sarah Puckett, piano

On the Will of Tones is based on Schenkerian analysis, the analytical technique created by Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935), which seeks to break musical works down to their fundamental structures. Through this analysis, Schenker found that many of the works of the musical Common Practice have similar fundamental structures, therefore similar constructions, and predictable outcomes, despite how radically different each piece and composer may seem.

For generations, music theorists have been distilling musical works into comprehensible analyses. On the Will of Tones reverses the process, using Schenker's first major work, Der Tonwille (The Will of the Tones) as its template. The harmonic and motivic material of the piece is derived from the analyzed works by Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, and others.

On the Will of Tones was written for my friend Sarah Puckett.

On the Will of Tones

The title word "Alu" is a somewhat gnomic term found on a variety of runestones. While a clear definition of the term is not agreed upon, it is used in the context of benediction in the closing of rune texts and perhaps derives from "ale." In this composition, some inspiration was taken from the encryption techniques used to hide deeper meanings within the poetic, ceremonial inscriptions on runestones. In addition to the association of runes with the practice of encoding, there remains an association of runes with the crudeness of the technology of antiquity. This association, combined with the notion of monoliths as unwieldy objects, led to a musical vision of the chamber orchestra as a fairly uniform body articulating swarming, mass textures. The music takes a step back from many of the modern advances in experimental or virtuosic performing technique, preferring a crude and jagged approach to both form and material.

Alu was premiered on Sunday April 20, 2025 by the University of Iowa Center for New Music

Alu (2024) for sinfonietta

John 3:16

Microvariations for large ensemble was composed in 2016 for Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne. I revised the piece in 2017 and this is the revised version performed by the ensemble of the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec and conducted by Walter Boudreau.

In 1825, British conductor George Thomas Smart traveled across Europe and compared his A = 423.5hz tuning fork to the tuning of every musical group he could find. Some ensembles were perfectly in tune with his tuning fork, but others, especially around Vienna, were quite a bit higher and closer to today’s standard A = 440hz. Microvariations is a fast-forward and transcontinental sonic truncation and fantasy on Smart’s journey. Pieces that he probably heard, entire symphonies and sonatas of the common practice period, are distilled to their most skeletal, structural chord progressions and played at hyper speeds. Microvatiations begins with material similar to that in my string quartet Many Many Cadences: predictable tonal chord progressions recontextualized into fast cells that are constantly changing key. Microvariations situates the cadences in two different groups (“towns”) playing a quarter tone apart from one another, at first distinct and eventually congealing and blurring.

Microvariations (revised)

In This Paradise by Evan Wiliams

Performed by Kayleigh Butcher and Christopher Narloch at Constellation Chicago on Sunday, November 19th, 2017 for the Schönberg Project.

In this Paradise by Evan Williams

Luce Cantabile: Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Shadow, Second Movement

'reaching sap-slow towards sky.' 
- Danez Smith, 'summer, somewhere'

Conducted by Mark Powell 
Performed by Boston Conservatory Composer's Wind Ensemble

Placemaking [2018]

Squarepushers (for vocal quintet)

A live recording a of modular synth performance centered around a sample of Ursula K. Le Guin saying "like making compost in the garden."
A plant provided bio-feedback which modulated many aspects of the sounds.

Performed under the stage name "Stupid Lepton" at Lamplighter Lounge, Memphis, TN on September 30, 2019.

On the Will of Tones

Evan Williams (composer)