written for the Lawson Piano Trio

premiered by the Lawson Piano Trio, 07.05.2009, Harty Room, Queen's University Belfast

This work is the first in a series of single movement works for duos, trios, and quartets. My formal approach focused on creating a fluid, through composed, work that develops a single idea throughout. This idea, or subject, is presented in the piano at the beginning of the work and I explored the use of canon to develop this musical idea throughout the work.

Movement For Piano Trio - 2008

premiered by Madeleine Staunton (Concorde), 24.01.2011, Kevin Barry Room, National Concert Hall, Dublin

This piece belongs to a series of miniatures written for various solo instruments. In each of these works I have aimed to juxtapose short contrasting movements/ideas/sections. I gave myself the additional objective in this work to compose a work that would fit on one A3 page. I felt, in doing so, I heighten the concentration on the concept of brevity. The resulting approach was a piece that would be made up of one-line phrases. Each phrase would become a section in an abstract work that could essentially be seen as a throughout composed work that was missing the links or transitions that would traditionally be employed to create a smooth structure. The main influence behind this was photomontage (the process of making a composite image by fusing a number of other images together).
Each of the sections has a distinctive feature. The piece starts with an introduction based on air sounds. The first section consists of a low breathy note (E-flat) juxtaposed with loud notes in the upper register, whereas the second section, an inversion of the first, consists of high D’s juxtaposed with quiet melodic fragments in the lower register. The third section consists mainly of trills and tremolos and the fourth juxtaposes multiphonics with various melodic fragments taken from the first two sections. The piece closes with a section similar to the second.

Phrase - 2010 (flute)

written for Anne-Marie O'Farrell

premiered by Anne-Marie O'Farrell, 21.10.2010, Kevin Barry Room, National Concert Hall, Dublin

Before writing this piece I was thinking a lot about spirituality and place; i.e. locations where one experiences a spiritual connection of some sort. While researching places where people experience a sense of collective spirituality,  I came across the Sedona Vortexes, in Arizona.

There are four main vortexes at Sedona, which are said to release spiritual energy. I decided to explore this by writing four short pieces (miniatures) that each deal with the release of energy in some way. This is most obvious in the first piece where the music gradually builds to a point of release and in the last piece where the energy is released evenly throughout, creating a placid (meditative) mood.

Vortices (Four Little Pieces for solo Irish Harp) - 2010

premiered by ConTempo String Quartet, 30.07.2010, Dublin Institute of Technology, Rathmines, Dublin

Discussing his idea of ‘developing variation’, Schoenberg said, "Whatever happens in a piece of music is nothing but the endless reshaping of a basic shape." Schoenberg’s idea here is that the coherence of a work is drawn from the development of a basic idea (basic unit). Therefore, in this work I did not set out with any formal goal to achieve; rather, I attempted to create a coherent work through the extended development of my initial idea.

Little Piece For String Quartet - 2010

written for the New Dublin Voices

premiered by the New Dublin Voices, 12.07.2014, St. Ann's Church, Dawson Street, Dublin 

Sing no more to the wind, 
Sing no more to the darkened souls, 
Sing no more to the evening, 
Darkened, speckled, whispering air. 

A number of my works focus on the subject of mortality and spirituality. The text in this work presents the lament of a deceased character. His soul still attached to his body, he can do nothing but mourn for the lost of earthly comforts.

Sing No More - 2013 (satb choir)

premiered by Kirkos, 19.11.2014, Project Arts Centre, Dublin

This piece explores a serialist technique called rotation, which I used to create my harmonic material. I attempted to explore a number of different sonorities in the string parts through the use of bow placement, asking the players to play particular passages on particular strings, and through the use of tessitura and dynamics. Another important aspect of the piece is the types of chords I used in the piano part. These chords consist largely of fragments of various rows from the rotational array and I voiced them, for the most part, either as clusters or as chords presented in the lower register of the piano. The aim here was to experiment with the use of dense, 'muddy' chords which I hoped would juxtapose well with the string writing.

Movement For Violin Cello And Piano - 2014

written for Cormac Ó hAodáin (member of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra)

premiered by Cormac Ó hAodáin, 28.10.2014, Kevin Barry Room, National Concert Hall, Dublin

This piece belongs to an ongoing series of miniatures for solo instruments. The working title that I used for this work was Broken Buildings, Brown and Blue. I often base my formal design on an imagined architectural landscape and 'Broken Buildings' refers to the approach I adopt when writing miniatures. Rather than creating  miniatures that consist of condensed, perfectly formed movements that could function independently, I focus on creating short abstract movements that are fragments from a larger idea and juxtaposing these contrasting fragments to create the overall landscape of the work. 'Brown and Blue' refers to my attempt to explore colour in this work. I attempted to achieve this by exploring different areas of the horns range as well as the use of extended techniques. For example, in the third miniatures I specified the use of different fingering for individual notes in order to explore the timbral and microtonal differences that this would create.

Four Miniatures For Solo French Horn - 2014

written for Claire Duff

premiered by Claire Duff, 24.03.2015, Octagonal Room, Irish Georgian Society, Dublin

Written for baroque violin, this piece is based on a theme and variations format. There isn't a traditional theme, or melody, rather a number of small, fragmented ideas. These ideas are then developed throughout the work and juxtaposed to present a kaleidoscope of contrasting ideas/colours.

Colour Copied Cold Carbon Contents - 2015 (baroque violin)

written for Léonie Bluett

premiered by Léonie Bluett, 10.09.2015, Lutheran Hall, St. Finian's Church, 24 Adelaide Road, Dublin

This piece is the last in a series of pieces that explores the idea of brevity. A number of the pieces comprised a set a miniatures in which the piece is marked out into distinct and distinguishable sections. This piece, however, plays more loosely with this approach, juxtaposing various fragments and transformations of the main material.

Fragments - 2015 (clarinet)

written for Alex Petcu

premiered by Alex Petcu at Quarter Block Party 2016, 07.02.2016, Samples Studios, Sullivan's Quay, Cork City

While listening to various works in preparation for writing this work, a number of the works I encountered were largely pulse based, setting up, exploring, and developing various patterns, often over an extended period of time. I wanted to explore a different approach in this work. Much of my recent music centres around juxtaposing contrasting fragments/ideas. This work follows on from this, resisting the urge to settle into a prolonged pulse-based pattern, instead juxtaposing a number of short ideas. At the heart of this is the juxtaposition of definite and indefinite pitch materials, where the piece struggles to decided on which material it will settle.

Black - 2015 (Samuel Z Soloman Multipercussion Setup #1)

I am a composer from County Donegal now living in County Armagh.

I specialise in solo and chamber music, however, I have written for a wide range of forces including electroacoustic, choral, mixed ensemble, and orchestral. My music has been performed throughout Ireland and abroad by performers such as XelmYa (Germany), the New York Miniaturist Ensemble (America), the Lawson Trio (England), The Fidelio Trio, the Con Tempo String Quartet, Concorde, Kirkos, Anne-Marie O’Farrell, and the New Dublin Voices.

Some recent performances of my music have been presented by the Fidelio Trio, Alex Petcu (multi-percussion), clarinettist Leonie Bluett, Claire Duff (baroque violin), Cue Saxophone Quartet, and by Cormac Ó hAodáin (member of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra).

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