Reconfigurations was composed for the inaugural Space City New Music Festival, and was performed by Kate Dreyfuss at MATCH in Houston, TX in 2019.

Reconfigurations

In the summer of 2020, I visited Bailey’s Harbor in Door County, Wisconsin to attend the sesquicentennial celebration of the Cana Island Lighthouse. I am a descendant of Jesse Brown, who was a lighthouse keeper there from 1891-1913, and whose son was a lighthouse keeper, as well. Jesse’s history is built into my family’s mythology and has served as the origin story for many of our traits: a love of water, a need for solitude, a yearning to revisit quiet landscapes over and over again. The island is being turned into an official tourist attraction and will soon have a visitor’s center and an accessible causeway, but as a child, my parents and siblings and I would drive or canoe to the lighthouse on unsanctioned visits. I wanted to capture the beauty and the brutality of the island in this past visit—the overgrown greenery that choked the perimeter, the ceaseless, unbroken waves in Lake Michigan, the endless view from the keeper’s house, the heavy downpour that started as we left. I have kept that feeling with me still. I feel a need to return to the lighthouse, but to return to it as it was some 200 years ago—in its loneliness and resoluteness and beauty.

Peabody Recordings

Keepers

My first piece for prepared piano; written in fall 2013 and revised in spring 2014. Premiered at the 2014 Fresh Ink concert in April.

Ballet Buried Underground

Performed at my senior recital on April 3, 2016. Featuring, Anna Wolle on violin, Sophia Spiegel on cello, and myself on piano. From the program notes: 

"Piano Trio" can best be defined by the first seven notes, a pervasive and chromatic motif that I first used in Morbus, a standalone piece for strings and woodwinds, two years ago. Hoping to expand on the motif, I cut the instrumentation down and began to envision the trio as a multi-movement work. Each movement was based on a traditional form but does not necessarily adhere to the form’s rules. Movement I, glitch, has the general characteristics of a rondo but features more transitions and some solo passages. Movement II is a direct contrast; it is largely atonal with suggestions of a fugue throughout. Movement III is mostly diatonic and adagio, although the trills from the piano and violin hint at conflict beneath the surface. The fourth movement begins as a minimalist piece but abruptly becomes more chromatic, recalling Movement I. It eventually devolves into a piano cadenza, where new themes are dismissed as quickly as they are introduced.   


Senior Comp Recital

Piano Trio No. 1: III. Intermezzo

Piano Trio No. 1: II. Romanze

Piano Trio No. 1: I. Glitch

Performed for my senior recital on April 3, 2016 by Luke Simonson. Program notes:  

This piece was originally written for Musika Nova’s 24-Hour competition January 2016 and revised a few months later. I wrote it for and with the input of oboist Luke Simonson, as I wanted to showcase his ability to play graphic notation and multiphonics alongside more traditional techniques. The music retains an ebb-and-flow quality as it transitions from slower, meditative passages to more lively patterns. The piece’s title comes from a lyric in the song “Province” by TV On the Radio and David Bowie: And all your memories, are as precious as gold/And all the honey, and the fire which you've stole/Have you running through all your red-cheeked days/Shaking loose these souls, from their sacred hiding space. The song refers to moving forward while being shaped by one’s memories and changing perspective. In a similar fashion, the themes in the piece shift but ultimately return to a transformed iteration of the opening section; the ending differs slightly from the opening, but melodic similarities still remain.

The Fire You Stole

Performed at my senior recital on April 3, 2016. Performed by myself (Soprano), Emily Nyberg (Soprano II), Tim O'Grady (Linnstrument), Luke Simonson (fixed media), and Sophia Tzougros (fixed media recitation). Text by Anna Chotlos. Program notes: 

Constellations is an expansion of a CURI project I participated in this summer. In helping to create a laptop orchestra or all-electronic ensemble within the music department, I wrote In Silver, which centers around a fixed media drone created in Logic Pro X. Striving to add a more natural element to the ensemble, I added vocals that are altered in real-time with reverberation and echo through a Logic-connected microphone. The final (and, arguably, the most intriguing) electronic element is a LinnStrument, an alternative to a standard MIDI controller. Like a controller, the LinnStrument sends messages over MIDI or USB jacks instead of generating sound. Unlike a controller, however, the instrument is touch-sensitive, capable of varying loudness, pitch and timbre. This results in a sound that is surprisingly human as well as electronic.     

Although In Silver was originally meant as a standalone piece, I found that I wanted it to be part of a larger story. To find additional text to complement the prose, I had the pleasure of working with English major and poet Anna Chotlos ‘16. The poet describes the collection’s theme as a “continuous conversation between ‘I’ and ‘You.’” I highlighted this theme by adding a second vocalist to the ensemble and working with the interplay between the two voices. The song cycle is not a linear storyline so much as a compilation contemplating love, loss, and the connection (or disconnection) between two people. 

Many of the movements feature improvisation, either from the vocalists or from the Linnstrument. To balance the freer form of singing, many of the fixed media elements are grounded in found sounds such as static (created in Logic Pro X and chucK), rain, and pre-recorded voices. Movement III is the most prominent example of this--it features a reading by Theatre Performance Major Sophia Tzougros. The piece ends as it begins, fading into static, suggesting that this collection of thoughts and voices is a transmission that will remain suspended in the composer’s (and listener’s) subconscious. 


"Interstate"

No snow yet
but Christmas lights
make halos around dark houses.

Driving home here is like
finding your way downstairs
at night, for a glass of water

without turning on 
the lights, or the way you
cup a hand behind a candle

as you blow it out.

"Constellations"

I am constellations and you are the shortcut through the cemetery.
I am red oak leaves and you are smiling with your eyes.
I am deer bones and you are pale pink peonies pinched with dew.
I am vast and you are sailing a ship in a thimble.
I am a cup of tea and you are a princely ransom.
I am onion tears and you are an uninhibited laugh.
I am inclement weather and you are constellations.

-Anna Chotlos

"In Silver"

And through the trees, and through the leaves, two figures walked side by side. In the silver light, in the distant night, they did not look at each other. Far-off birdsong, the moon shining bright, the air electric now, she knew he was leaving. And they walked. Suddenly, she turned back, and he was gone. I woke that night to light streaming through the floor.

-Haley Olson

"The Kraken"

At this depth, everything is the same color black
Rain’s sawing hole through our roof made of water
and I still don’t want to talk to anyone but you

We are too big for little things but too big for anything to be little

In cities of houses of ships filled with sand
I’m listening behind the closed lips of doors
Are you dreaming? Now the aphelion, only closer remains

We are too big for little things but too big for anything to be little

Time is not a love story.
Love is not a time machine.

We are too big for little things but too big for anything to be little. 

-Anna Chotlos


constellations: iii. constellations

constellations: ii. interstate

constellations: i. introduction

Performed at my senior recital on April 3, 2016. From the program notes: 

Early in the first semester of my senior year, I sustained an injury that affected my hands and arms. As I returned to the piano, I was struck by the lack of repertoire written for players with similar injuries. The resulting pieces are part of an ongoing series of etudes meant for pianists of various skill levels who are at different points in the recovery process. Techniques meant for return-to-play exercises--such as pentascales, two-note patterns, and pianissimo chords--are transformed into gestures and and themes that operate on a larger scale. Etude I is comprised of chord clusters and relies on heavy pedaling, while Etude II is short, sparing and pointillistic. Etude III, which features a slowly developing motive, is of indeterminate length so that the musician may tailor the performance to their ability. 

Ghost Etudes: III.

Ghost Etudes: II.

Ghost Etudes: I.

This song is second in an ongoing series of seven songs focused on Caliban, the antagonist of Shakespeare's “The Tempest.” Marginalized throughout the story, the island’s original inhabitant and true heir is left alone at the play’s conclusion. What then? Whether he reclaims his world with zeal or flees in fear is up to the director--and the audience. The songs seek to explore how Caliban grapples with a new identity, the remnants of cosmopolitan life, and the deafening solitude that follows.

Performed at the Peabody Institute Composition Department Recital on May 11, 2017 by Haley Olson (piano) and Cameron Falby (baritone).

Caliban - At This Time I Could Not Breathe Like The Others

This piece was written for and performed by violist Phoebe Hu in December 2017. Written with the request to use extended techniques, the piece features the extremes of pianissimo and overpressure, and also incorporates singing. Premiered on February 9, 2018 at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.

A Storm Passing Quickly

I wrote this piece when reflecting on my experiences with cleaning out my late grandfather's house after he passed away in 2016. Walking through the rooms and hallways lined with belongings, I was often confronted by waves of nostalgia and unease, sometimes simultaneously. Throughout the process, it's a delicate process to find a balance between cleaning out a space in a straightforward way and acknowledging the life that these objects symbolized--and the implications of parting with them. I hoped to convey this feeling through the flute's fast paced rhythmic gestures, and through the washes of sound from the marimba and vibraphone that threaten to overtake the melodic line.

This piece was written in collaboration with the Peabody Flute Department. It was premiered by Katie Althen, Matthew Overbay, and Russell Fisher on April 12 in Baltimore, Maryland.

In A Cluttered Room

"The Visit" was written to accompany a scene from the 1926 Japanese silent horror film "A Page of Madness." The film, lost and rediscovered 45 years after its creation, follows a janitor at an asylum who slowly loses touch with reality. I was drawn in particular to an early scene where the janitor's daughter visits the asylum to visit her mother, a patient. The scene features striking images of patients and long, dark hallways, and in six minutes, a subtle undercurrent of tension shifts the mood and unsettles the viewer. 

Throughout the course of the piece, I attempt to juxtapose the scene's feelings of sadness and fear. The result is a tone poem with short agitated phrases, punctuated with the interjections of a soprano voice. The text is comprised of lines from two fragmented poems of Christina Rossetti. "The Visit" was premiered on October 31, 2018 by the Occasional Symphony and soprano Kerry Holahan in Baltimore, MD.

Haley Olson

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