Performed by the Eugene Contemporary Chamber Ensemble during March Music Moderne 2014 in Portland Oregon, March 8th, 2014.

[REDACTED], for amplified viola and fixed media (2013)

The premier performance of FANTASY IN METAL, for percussion duet. Recorded live on 8/16/14 in Portland, OR.

Performed by Seattle's RE:Percussion Duo - Andrew Angell and David Solomon, percussion. 

Fantasy In Metal, for percussion duet (2014)

First performed by Julian Kasonovic on Cascadia Composers' 2012 fall concert.

PROGRAM NOTES

Violet Fantasy is, essentially, about change. The piece is a series of ever evolving variations of a single theme. As the piece progresses its melody is torn apart and re-contextualized in a number of ways, winding and flowing through a free variation form like a flower laced vine across a branch. The theme never appears exactly the same way twice. It's often fragmented and disjointed, yet manages to find itself in the end. If anything, Violet Fantasy represents an idea of what pertains through change, and what susceptible to the moment. 


Image by Cyra R. Cancel.

Violet Fantasy, for solo cello (2011)

TWO MINIATURES, for sax quartet. Premiered by the AVSC Sax Quartet at the University of Wisconsin on 9/27/14. 

Lada Gaines, Jennifer Schmitz Johnson, Sam Stranz, Steve Johnson - saxes

Two Miniatures, for sax quartet (2013)

Commissioned by, dedicated to, and premiered by the Contemporary Portland Orchestra Project, 2012. 

Justin Ralls, conductor - Lisa Lipton, clarinet - Travis Chapman, violin - Julian Kasonovic, cello - Brandon Becker, synth - Jay Derderian, electric guitar.

Recorded live at the Someday Lounge on June 30th, 2012.



Optical Delusion, for mixed quintet (2012)

I WANT TO UNFOLD, for sax quartet and fixed media (2016)

Commissioned by, dedicated to, and premiered by the Mana Quartet (Michael Hernandez, Thomas Giles, Diane Hunger, and Michael Mortarotti) at the Festival of New American Music in Sacramento, California on November 12th, 2016.

Image - "Expectation" by Armenian painter Valentin Podpomogov

I want to unfold, for sax quartet and fixed media (2016)

"In Metal And Wood" for solo prepared guitar. Performed on my senior recital by Ian Luxton. 2008.

In Metal and Wood, for prepared guitar (2008)

Performed by Elisabeth Tsai.

PROGRAM NOTES:

Henry Cowell's Tides of Manaunaun is a wonderful bridge between past and present. Manaunaun, I think, is an elegant example of the power of juxtaposition. There's a simple folk-like melody of Cowell's invention played above surging, wave-like clusters that grow and recede over the course of just three and a half minutes. This simple yet powerful contradistinction was so great that, after hearing Cowell perform the work, Bela Bartok asked if he could borrow Cowell's tone clusters for his own work. I myself was left in a stunned silence after when I heard this piece for the first time.

My composition, In The Tides I Break, is a single-movement extension of the bridge that Cowell set up. It's a "companion" piece which was written very conscientiously; I wanted to write a piece that could be performed alongside Cowell's Manaunaun while also being able to stand on its own. There are a couple fragments taken from Manaunaun alongside my own set of harmonies that lay the groundwork for Tides. As with Manaunaun, opposites meet here. Harmony begins highly verticalized and played with lots of repetition and unpredictable rhythms. As the piece progresses harmony is eventually broken into fragments in the form of delicate, crystalline arpeggios, out of which Cowell's melody emerges (and is engulfed within) before receding into nothing.

In The Tides I Break, for piano (2017)

Premiered by Kathy Supove on September 25th, 2018 in Portland Oregon.

PROGRAM NOTES

My great-grandmother arrived in the United States in 1913 escaping the atrocities of the Armenian Genocide. She arrived after travelling alone for weeks in a country where she didn’t speak the language, didn’t know anyone, and was completely isolated. Her husband remained in Armenia for an additional 15 years after she left, and since the country was in turmoil, she had no way to contact him. My great-grandmother never knew whether her husband was dead or alive for a decade and a half while she completely built her life up from scratch. Fortunately they were able to reunite and start a family, which lead to a new branch on our family tree.

Contrast this with our current political climate.

Families are being torn apart by ICE; people seeking asylum are having their children torn away from them and face the horrifying possibility of never seeing them again. Babies are being torn from their mother’s arms, even as they’re breastfeeding. There are entire detention centers full of crying, hysterical children being kept in cages, wondering where their parents are, wondering where they themselves are. And there are people in the United States – both private citizens and people within our current administration – who view this not only as a proper but necessary deterrent to the misdemeanor of illegal border crossing. People who have the privilege of not having to escape a country ravaged by violence, poverty, and fear, who don’t have to know what it’s like having to do whatever you need to do to save your family.

While I can’t possibly hope to communicate what it’s like to live through such senseless atrocities, The People They Think We Are is my meager attempt to point towards the atrocious state of humanity that brought us to our current policies expressed through dissonant, fragmented, and violent piano gestures juxtaposed against a harsh backdrop of distorted guitar feedback and pounding, arrhythmic drums. The piece also offers an extended prayer during the second half for those still searching for their lost love ones, and is book-ended by footage of the annual swift migrations that take place at Chapman Elementary in Portland Oregon every year.

We are supposed to be the melting pot, but instead we are becoming an incinerator.

Electro-acoustic Music

The People They Think We Are

The People They Think We Are, for piano, video, and fixed media (2018)

OUTSIDE THE EYES, for string quartet. 

Performed by the Third Angle New Music Ensemble.

Ron Blessinger & Greg Ewer - violins, Brian Quincy - viola, Hamilton Cheifetz, cello. 

Recorded live on March 21st, 2013 in Lincoln Hall at Portland State University.

Outside The Eyes, for string quartet (2012-13)

musician, software engineer, husband, father.

jderderian

Popular tracks