Orchestral Music by Frank Felice

A yearning slow movement for 'cello and chamber music, commissioned by Andrea Lee DiGregorio (Reynolds)

Nocturne for Violoncello and Chamber Orchestra

A short, fun piece composed for homemade instruments such as bleach bottle bugles, hose french horns, various stringed instruments, and found percussion.  Commissioned by the Symphony of Southeast Texas

Concerto Grosso for Homemade Instruments and Orchestra

A wild roller coaster ride for younger orchestra - commissioned by the Indianapolis Youth Orchestra

Crack the Whip!

Three dances from some incidental music for Romeo and Juliet, composed for Dianne Timmerman and the Butler University Department of Theatre - this music is sly, slightly sarcastic, and a bit jaded

Tango from Romeo and Juliet

Spinning Waltz from Romeo and Juliet

Meeting Dance from Romeo and Juliet

One of the movements from "The Pre-Sleep Mental Dances," an song cycle for soprano and orchestra, on a text by Tara Ericksen Smith.  A whirling, oddly loopy scherzo of a piece --

Spin to Sleep from "The Pre-Sleep Mental Dances"

A suite of music from the ballet "The Willow Maiden," on a story by Ellen Denham, commissioned by the Butler University Ballet. This music was a chance to write orchestral pieces like the ones written by the French and Russian orchestral composers of the early 20th century.

Third Suite from "The Willow Maiden"

I had wanted to write a new work for orchestra for a few years now, trying to accomplish what I wanted to say using a more conservative musical language (for me), and using less percussion than I normally like in larger ensemble pieces.  When beginning my preproduction part of the work on this piece, I was listening to Rush’s Test for Echo album, and the title of the song Time and Motion jumped out at me.

This spurred a notion in me of “Time” as a spacious, large, full, space that somehow transcends the idea of time in music (metered, pulse driven, defined, always evincing movement) weighed down in its immensity.  “Motion” of course is more literal, a counterpoint to the static nature of time as I’d envisioned it for this piece.  Still, there is a connection between the two, as well as a pairing of opposites: static vs. motion (even as both carry aspects of the other).  As I worked, I had a visual of holding a glass of liquid that had some kind of dark, colorful sediment in the bottom - in the beginning, the liquid is clear, and there is little apparent movement in the glass.  However, if you swirl the liquid, all of a sudden the sediment is brought up into the liquid, and the colorful sediment moves, becoming suspended within the fluid, and making it more opaque and less transparent until the glass’s movement is stopped. Eventually, over time, the sediment gradually falls back to the bottom of the glass, with a few bits remaining suspended.  This piece basically follows that same action: stasis to motion, transparency to opaque, and then back to time as a weighty constant, always there, then again set into motion, returning to stasis.  Almost as if entropy is a product of time, eventually dampening motion.


Time & Motion

I am an eclectic composer who writes with a postmodern mischievousness: my pieces can be comedic/ironic, simple/complex, or humble/reverent. My recent projects have taken a turn toward turn towards the sweeter side, exploring a consonant adiatonicism.

Orchestral Music by Frank Felice

FRANK FELICE, composer