EXAUDI

Cressida Sharp (soprano)
Jessica Gillingwater (mezzo)
Tom Williams (countertenor)
David de Winter (tenor)
Michael Hickman (baritone)
Simon Whiteley(bass)

James Weeks (conductor)

World premiere, live performance
Milton Court Concert Hall, London
22 May 2023

text:
haru (spring) yuki (snow)...

...the uncertainty was unbearable...
I felt only a strange sense of emptiness...
... and yet the trees were still bathed in bright summer sunlight...
... that intense sunlight in the trees...

words spoken by Yukio Mishima, NHK broadcast 1966

Spring Snow is the title of the first book in the final tetralogy written by Yukio Mishima before his death on Nov. 25th 1970.

Paul Newland: spring snow (2023)

tilted form - four different ones (for large ensemble)
composed by James Layton (2023)
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Orkest de Ereprijs
Gregory Charette (Conductor)

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artwork: Sol Lewitt - Tilted Form No. 4

tilted form - four different ones [2023]

Chance, Love, and Logic (2024)

Performed by Ordinary Affects
Grand Gallery, RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island
4 August 2024
Morgan Evans-Weiler (Violin), Jordan Dykstra (Viola), Laura Cetilia ('Cello), J. P. A. Falzone (Vibraphone doubling Piano and Electronics)

(c) 2024 J. P. A. Falzone, Multiversal Edition (BMI)

Recording by Laura Cetilia and Jordan Dykstra

Chance, Love, and Logic

Artwork by Zurkas Tepla

Tracklist:
Katya Shirshkova - Le Heron
David Maranha - A Reunião
Alex Zhang Hungtai - Swimming Bird
Michael Pisaro - Liu - Tombstones. Fool
Pierce Warnecke - The Unraveling
R. Murray Schafer - Snowforms
Louis Laurain - Pulses, Pipes, Patterns
Bernardo Devlin  - Albedo. Quadras do Alvor
Gonçalo Almeida - Ciclos
Ivan Fedele - Arc en ciel
Katya Shirshkova - Pond
Zurkas Tepla - In forehead
Pavel Kushnir	- Sergei Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp minor

Albedo. Mix for NoodsRadio

Commission by and written for the Blueridge Chamber Music Festival - Sonic Story Brook, new chamber works inspired by children's stories.
Flute, Paolo Bortolussi
Clarinet, Liam Hockley
Cello, Jonathan Lo
Accordion, Taras Luka
Vibraphone, Katie Rife
Piano, Manuel Laufer

recorded by  Piotr Wieczorek

--
Notes
The book, “The little engine that could,” is used to teach children the value of optimism and the belief in one’s ability to complete difficult tasks. It was my favorite book as a child. As adults, we still need to be reminded to believe in ourselves.

i think i can (or the importance of self-efficacy) (2024) - for sextet and localized electronics

Life repeats what is similar, never the same. The repetition of the same material, slightly altered with each iteration, engenders the feeling of going nowhere, yet simultaneously, progressing. 

Recorded live on December 7, 2024 at MacEwan University, Edmonton, Alberta

UltraViolet:
Roger Admiral - piano
Chenoa Anderson - flute
Allison Balcetis - saxophone
Mark Segger - percussion

Recording: Nicolas Arnaez

This performance was made possible with support from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts

Slightly Altered Suns (2024) - for mixed quartet, UltraViolet Ensemble

Flat Pack Music takes an architectural approach to building a composition. Pre-composed panels are arranged, Juxtaposed and altered to build an emotive and surreal sonic experience. The flat character of the sonic materials invites the listener to listen carefully to each object and build relationships between the different materials.

Flat Pack Music


1) No.1 Triumph Over Tooth Decay
2) Acousmatic Interlude No.1
3) No.2 No Proper Breakfast
4) Acousmatic Interlude No.2
5) No.3 Because It’s More than Just Paper
6) Acousmatic Interlude No.3
7) No.4 Take a Shiny Object
8) Acousmatic Interlude No.4
9) No.5 Attracts Dust and Grime
10) Acousmatic Interlude No.5 
11) Ending 

This composition explore setting up a very simplistic ritual and then subverting it at the end of the composition. 

An Ontological Study of the Paradigms in Advertising Media within Capitalist Societies for string quartet

Excerpts from my masters thesis Fall recital of a musical setting of the first two sections of Montgomery Furth's translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics -- Memorial Chapel, Wesleyan University, Middletown CT
2 November 2018

The Providence Research Ensemble

Judith Berkson, soprano; Lisa Stein, alto; Ian Davis, tenor; J. P. A. Falzone, bass
Genevieve Cross, flute
Morgan Evans-Weiler, violin i; Francesca Caruso, violin ii; Jordan Dykstra, viola; Laura Cetilia, violoncello
Emma Minges, piano
Luke Martin, electric guitar

The Eek Papers [excerpt]

Performed by
NyNorsk Messingkvintett 
Kammerfest 23  June 2024  Kulturkirken Gamle Fredrikstad - Norway

Eternal Chasms explores the intersection of medieval Iranian tuning systems, psychoacoustic resonance, and contemporary experimental thought. Its pitch world is built from Omar Khayyam’s tetrachords, expanded into 28 pitch gamuts and adapted for brass instruments through the HEJI notation system. Carefully chosen enharmonic substitutions preserve the structural integrity of Khayyam’s ratios while making them performable within the limits of modern instruments.
A dense fixed-media layer functions as a surrounding “sound wall,” not as accompaniment but as an autonomous sonic force. Performers must respond to it—and to each other—through active listening, shaping their melodic choices moment by moment. The score provides clear logic yet grants complete interpretative freedom, echoing the open-form practices of Cage and Wolff, where performers participate directly in the ongoing creation of the work.
The philosophical backbone of the piece is drawn from Gilles Deleuze’s concepts of nomadology and rhizomatic structures. Rather than progressing toward a single musical destination, the work unfolds as a field of continuous transformation—sound as a network rather than a line. No hierarchy is imposed: acoustic and electronic layers coexist, interact, and reshape one another. In this fluid, nonlinear environment, Eternal Chasms becomes a sonic manifestation of Deleuzian thought—a space where form dissolves into motion, and meaning emerges through perpetual becoming.

Eternal Chasms (2024)

fiol was commissioned by the Rothko String Trio (Cliodhna Ryan - violin, Cian Ó Dúill - viola & Robin Michael - cello) in 2008 with funds provided by the Arts Council of Ireland. The soundworld of this piece was inspired by the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle (hardingfele). 'Fiol' was the predominant term used for 'fiddle' in DanishNorwegian of the 17th and 18th centuries. This instrument is mainly used for the performance of Norwegian folk music and is similar in construction to the violin, but with eight or nine strings. Four of the strings are strung and played like a violin, and the remaining strings, called 'sympathetic strings' resonate 'in sympathy' with the other four. Here I was interested in treating the trio as a single twelve-stringed 'meta-instrument' rather than as three separate voices, almost like a hardingfele or Baroque viola d'amore with sympathetic resonating strings. This is a live recording of the premiere at the Hugh Lane Gallery Dublin, 2008.

Fiol - Rothko String Trio

James Layton is a British composer, musician, and visual artist currently based in Oslo, Norway. His work often explores non-climactic forms, which slowly unfold and focus on the juxtaposition of progression and stasis. His use of patterns, permutations, and repetition aims to draw listeners into the music while exploring ideas of time and memory. This work is often informed by his interest in visual art, particularly the works of Agnes Martin, Sol Lewitt, and Bridget Riley.

James’ compositional output includes works for opera (saudade 2022), orchestra (focal 2019), chamber music (honour thy error as a hidden intention 2023), choir (veering slowly, losing identity 2023), as well as electro-acoustic music (are we on other, less concrete shores? 2021), and collaborations with dance (Rock-A-Bye 2023) and visual media (time spent 2023). This work has been performed around Europe by musicians and ensembles such as Cikada (NO), Orkest de Ereprijs (NE), I Solisti (BE), Ensemble Spectrum (SK), Stephen Upshaw (US/UK), Standard Issue (UK) Ensemble Ernst (NO), Ostravská Banda (CZ) and ONO – Ostrava New Orchestra (CZ), including at festivals such as Bergen Festspillene (2024), Bijloke Wonderland (2023), NODO/New Opera Days Ostrava (2022) and Ostrava New Music Days (2019).