Tantrum, for piano 
 
Composer: James Terrell 
Performer: Alyssa Sorriano 
 
Recorded: 
04.28.2021 
Dancz Center for New Music, University of Georgia 
Athens, GA

composer's note:

Tantrum explores a tradition of virtuosity through the controlling metaphor of the title. Its spirit is capricious and ironic but not literal. It is filled with challenges for the performer, not least of which is balancing the volatility of the shifts in musical character that sprout from the opening ritornello and its ultimate intransigence. As a performer myself, I have had a very conflicted relationship with instrumental virtuosity and how that is and/or is not resolved in performance, and upon reflection, I wonder if the piece was something of a way of prodding at the absurdity and bombast while maintaining a deep reverence for the virtuoso's achievements and the rich musical pleasures therein.

-James Terrell

Tantrum

Tantrum, for piano

a short piece for solo violin

It's the first thing I ever composed.

violin solo (2005) [live recording]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

This is a live recording made during a concert of new music in Amherst, MA in the spring of 2010.

Apophenia (2010), trio for viola, cello, and double bass [live recording]

Title: Pisgah Mosaic
Composer: James Terrell

Intstrumentation/Performers:
Guitar - James Terrell
Violin - Benjamin Dawson

Duration - ca. 6 minutes

Recorded live in the Dancz Center for New Music, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 02/25/2020


Notes:


PISGAH MOSAIC was composed for the 2020 Integrative Conservation Conference held in Athens, Georgia at the University of Georgia and premiered at a concert that was part of the conference. Composers paired with researchers to produce musical reflections on conservation research.

The Pisgah region is located in the southern Appalachian mountains of the United States.

Mosaic generally refers to the artistic process where an artwork is formed by the arrangement and patterning of small, discrete pieces, but it has another meaning in landscape and forest ecology, describing the shifting patchwork of forest types that arise through patterns of disturbance and the resulting patterns of old growth, middle-aged, and young forest/open areas. Furthermore, it can also refer to the mosaic of land uses, such as forest, agriculture, etc., and while this term isn't used in social science necessarily, it still communicates something of the many communities, voices, worldviews that are part of a contested landscape and its future patterns.
-JT

James Terrell

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