Written for Ensemble Dal Niente. For Bb Clarinet, French Horn, Harp, and Viola.

Conductor - Michael Lewanski
Clarinet - Katie Schoepflin
Horn - Matthew Oliphant
Harp - Ben Melsky
Viola - Ammie Brod

Written for Summer Residency for New Music at Depaul University with Ensemble Dal Niente.

our systems were built to fail - Ensemble Dal Niente

Conference of the Birds Amsterdam
for reed quintet
(2019)

performed by Calefax Reed Quintet:
Oliver Boekhoorn - Oboe
Richard Haynes - Clarinet
Raaf Hekkema - Saxophone
Jelte Althuis - Bass Clarinet
Alban Wesly - Bassoon

Recorded in Amsterdam, January 2021
Audio by Oliver Boekhoorn

Conference Of The Birds Amsterdam

Commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra September 2021. This recording is of the University of Louisville Symphony Orchestra from February 2022.

This piece is a reaction to the text “American Dream” by Tytianna Wells. In her poem, Wells addresses many inequities and injustices black people face in America, the perpetuation of these ideas, and the necessary action to confront them. The text carries emotions ranging from frustration, disappointment, jaded exhaustion, to cautious optimism. My piece does not try to recreate Tytianna’s text line for line but instead creates spaces in which this array of emotion can be expressed, experienced, and reflected upon. 

The piece begins with a melancholic line played by the violas and various winds. As the piece progresses, other voices begin to join and overwhelm the opening line. This culminates in a great release of energy and a brief moment of repose before the piece lurches forward into an aggressive finale. The line from the opening of the piece is presented in full force and with renewed vigor by the horn section against a scathing snare drum solo. 

As a person of mixed-race (my father is black and my mother is white) this subject is particularly important to me and manifests in various ways at the core of my other work. Many thanks to Tytianna for her powerful work and to the Louisville Orchestra for this opportunity.

UofL Symphony Orchestra

"...do you really wanna know?..." (2021)

Program Notes:
Listen for the subtle,  short, interrupted sine waves within electronics that cause the speakers themselves to emit ‘pops’ and
crackles, interrupting the acoustic instruments and tape playback. We’re not hearing the sine wave but rather the effect of the sine wave on the speaker’s mechanics turning the speaker itself into an acoustic element; thus giving these objects an active role rather than accepting them as a passive (playback) tool. Usually this treatment is avoided and seen as a mistake but in this piece it functions to address the physical mechanics of the speaker, of its own body, and demanding it to become more. To add to this, the percussionists are playing custom made “speaker-instruments:” subwoofer speaker cones transformed into an open air (and in a sense, large contact) microphone. This configuration allows the percussionist to physically perform low resonant tones and high washes of live filtered noise not possible outside this setup, with the hope to merge electronic and acoustic instruments into one composite organism, dependent on this merging to become more than just an extension of itself. The live processing portion of the work is that of rapid panning of the live acoustic instruments between two stereo speakers. This panning reaches audio rates and thus from this rapid oscillation causes its own square wave-like tone: the electronics sounds blooming from the acoustic in a symbiotic, intertwined creature like lichen.
This piece engulfs two prior pieces of mine that I’ve been working on for the past few years, “Harbinger” and “Speaker Spit.”

Instrumentation: Amplified vln, vc, piccolo, trumpet, e. gtr, midikeys, b-flat clarinet and live processing

Premiered and Performed by Nadar Ensemble
Mastered by Murat Colak
Mixed by Kelley Sheehan

Creature Like Lichen (2022)for chamber ensemble

BREAD [2021], from "interbeing"

score: www.wubbelsmusic.com/bread_score.html

written for and performed by TAK:
Marina Kifferstein, violin
Laura Cocks, flutes, wine bottle
Madison Greenstone, clarinet
Charlotte Mundy, voice, wine glasses, beer bottles, autoharp
Ellery Trafford, mixing bowls, beer bottles, wine glasses, autoharp

BREAD [2021], from "interbeing"  (w/ score)

The inspiration for this composition project is to explore the electromagnetic signals that surround us but are not audible in everyday life. Humans emit electromagnetic radiation when making decisions or engaging in activities like driving or choosing what to wear. These brainwave activities alter the electromagnetic field (EMF) signals. I find it fascinating that these physical EMF signals can be transformed and amplified into audio signals, allowing us to hear the sonic differences between devices like laptops and iPhones.To prepare for this project, I used electromagnetic sensors to detect various gadgets that emit EMF. These sensors convert the magnetic signals into audio signals. I am fascinated by the diverse musical qualities present in these recordings. Some have strong rhythmic grooves, while others have distinct and persistent frequency content. However, these signals are fragile and unstable, depending on the position of the sensors. Even a slight movement of the sensor can significantly weaken the audio signal or completely change the sound. Sometimes, moving the sensors closer to the source can trigger a dangerously loud boom, followed by a signal break. In "Rupturing Signals," the ensemble and electronics collaborate to recreate different rhythmic and frequency patterns of the EMF. This composition aims to highlight the unstable, ever-changing, and instantly breaking characteristics of the recorded audio signals.

Special thanks to the SPLICE Ensemble for commissioning this piece.

Rupturing Signals [trumpet, drumset, piano, elec]

NOTE:
This piece represents two things for me: 
1. A metaphorical and literal depiction of friction as both a sonic and mental concept.
2. An aesthetic and technical experiment aiming to seamlessly blend hyper-gestural acoustic sounds with electronic ones using an amplified chamber ensemble and laptop.

The piece gets its title from the idea that despite having a gut feeling or the education to know that something might be right or wrong, internal and external forces might cause one to ruminate tirelessly and doubt their own judgment. A cycle that might result in the warping or erosion of confidence in one’s self.

The piece attempts to depict intense shifts between confusion and confidence, clarity and uncertainty, and chaotic tension and release. In an attempt to convey this both poetically and sonically, much of the individual parts of ensemble’s material comes from a smattering of transcriptions generated from improvising with, and digitally processing a number of differently inflated balloons. An object that can be blown up, stretched, and squeezed, but when too much friction is applied can also burst when its structural integrity reaches a breaking point. The pacing, orchestration, electronic sounds, and sudden bursts of sound throughout are reflections, abstractions, and distortions of these “transcriptions”. 

Finally, the piece also uses a number of digitally manipulated orchestral recordings (most of which bring me a calming sense of nostalgia and comfort in their original forms) to represent the shift between self clarity and uncertainty, give directionality to the work, and to provide the listener with some semblance of “stability”/familiarity between moments of chaos. Although, like the balloons and the rest of the ensemble, they too can be stretched and manipulated past the point of recognizability.

Performed and recorded on 10/20/23 at Galvin Recital Hall at Binen School of Music

Conductor - Jason Gluck 
Cinematography - Dan Nichols and Aphorism Studios 

Ensemble - Northwestern Contemporary Music Ensemble - Fall 2023
Violin - Shijie Li
Cello - Noam Ginsparg
Double Bass - Lance Gaupp
Alto Flute - Mara Goree
Oboe - Ezekiel-Alain Navarro
Bass Clarinet - Elynn Chang
Horn - Isaac Sepulveda
Trombone - Tim George
Percussion - Cameron Marquez and Christian Santos 

Special Thanks to: Ben Bolter, Bill Milgram, Austin Williams, Rachel Frazier, and Henry Stewart 
Mastering and Additional Mixing: Douglas McCausland

I think my legs might be broken (2023, amplified chamber ensemble and electronics)

Puya Meridiana

premier mouvement de Cinco combates del hombre sonriente
pour deux accordéons micro-tonals 

Composée pour Fanny Vicens et Jean-Etienne Sotty - duo XAMP
commande de Radio France pour l'émission  Création Mondiale

Ce premier mouvement est dédié à Eblis Alvarez

Les cinq mouvements et l'émission complète:

https://www.francemusique.fr/emissions/creation-mondiale-l-integrale/cinco-combates-del-hombre-sonriente-de-marco-suarez-cifuentes-diffusion-integrale-et-portrait-du-compositeur-60311

Puya Meridiana (2017-2018)

No. 50 (The Garden) Complete

«Ruido, ceniza» (2020) [studio recording]
morphisms for one or more amplified string instruments

Viola: Estéban Hernández-Parra

Written for and commissioned by Estéban Hernández-Parra

Audio editing, mixing and mastering: Felipe Tovar-Henao

February 17, 2020.
@ CECM, Jacobs School of Music
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN - USA

Official website: www.felipe-tovar-henao.com
Soundcloud: @felipetovarhenao
Facebook page: www.facebook.com/felipe.tovar.henao/

«Ruido, ceniza» (2020) morphisms for one or more amplified string instruments [solo viola]

'Latin MIDI Kits Vol 1' from Equinox Sounds features five amazing Construction Kits in MIDI format for creating a wide variety of Latin music such as Salsa, Merengue, Afro Cuban and Mambo. This pack features a nice selection of piano montunos, bass loops, drums, percussion and fills all based on the son montuno, clave, rhythm and concept.

Click Here For More Info: http://www.equinoxsounds.com/dlg/cart/index.php?action=desc&pn=238&c=35&page=9

Latin MIDI Kits Vol 1 Demo (MIDI Loops)

Felipe Tovar-Henao is a Colombian composer, software developer, and researcher, who specializes in computer-assisted creativity, procedural art, and music information retrieval. His creative work is deeply rooted in aesthetic experiences with technology, philosophy, and cinema, and often focuses on exploring sound perception, memory, and recognition.

Recent highlights include being a resident composer at the 2022 Mizzou International Composers Festival, being a finalist of the 2019 SEAMUS/ASCAP Award, as well as receiving the 2018 SCI/ASCAP Student Commission Award and the 2018 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award.

His music has been performed by international artists and ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Grossman Ensemble, Quatuor Diotima, Sound Icon, IU New Music Ensemble, AURA Contemporary Ensemble, Hear no Evil, Sociedad de Música de Cámara de Bogotá, Ensamble Periscopio, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Orquesta Sinfónica EAFIT, among many others.

He has been a featured composer at a variety of international festivals such as WOCMAT (Taiwan, 2019), Electroacoustic Barn Dance (US, 2019), SCI National Conference (US, 2019), SEAMUS National Conference (US, 2019, '18), Seoul International Computer Music Festival (South Korea, 2017), IRCAM's CIEE Summer Contemporary Music Creation + Critique Program and ManiFeste Academy (France, 2016), Electroacoustic Music Midwest (US, 2016), and the Midwest Composer Symposium (US, 2019, '16).

He has held research and teaching positions at different institutions, including the 2021/22 CCCC Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Chicago, Associate Instructor and Coordinator of the IU JSoM Composition Department, as well as Adjunct Professor in Music Theory and Composition at Universidad EAFIT. 

He currently serves as the 2023/25 Charles H. Turner Postdoctoral Fellow in Music Composition at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music.

«Ruido, ceniza» (2020) morphisms for one or more amplified string instruments [solo viola]

Felipe Tovar-Henao

Related tracks