For Christmas in 1992, my future in-laws gave me a poetry collection from the Pitt Poetry Series. A few of Bill Knott’s poems were in this collection and I’ve been a fan of his work ever since. When Kevin Keith asked me to write a work for him, we talked about a lot of possibilities of how to incorporate his interest in drama with his interest in performing. I thought merging Knott’s poetry with a percussive commentary would be the perfect opportunity to give the performer the kind of music he wanted and to finally write a piece that shares some of the poetry I hold dear.

This is a live performance by Kevin Keith from April 2012.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/bill-knott

Knott's - for speaking percussionist

Supernatural

In January of 2009 I started writing a chamber piece. As the music unfolded, I kept changing the scoring, changing the instrumentation, etc. and was never happy with the way it was working. Eventually, I realized the piece was a really a piano piece. I wrote on the manuscript paper: THIS IS A PIANO PIECE. DO NOT CHANGE THIS. In 2010, I participated in the RPM Challenge in which I had to compose and record an album’s worth of material in the month of February. I finally completed the piano piece, titled it Prelude, and recorded it for the album. I put off making a score, just leaving the awkward sketches behind.

In 2012, when my colleague Alexandra Mascolo-David (http://www.mascolo-david.com/) asked me for any solo piano music, I told her about this piece. I sat down to write the score, but couldn’t make it work. Something else happened with the material and I couldn’t figure out why. The music was so simple, so plain, yet so lovely that I was slightly embarrassed to give it to her. The title, Lullaby Boxes, is meant to invoke a kind of music box.


Lullaby Boxes

I composed these two pieces for mezzo-soprano LaToya Lain and pianist Casey Robards. These texts about love made such an impact on me that I just had to share them with as many people as possible.

Sufi Songs

Here is the concert flute version of All My Dreams are Silent, performed at the Ball State New Music Festival in 2013.

All My Dreams are Silent - 1. Spider

I started composing this song for my friend and colleague Keith Clifton in late 2017. I finally finished the setting in early 2018. The text is taken from a letter written by Alec Guinness while he was on the set of Star Wars.
Performed here by Keith Clifton and Alexandra Mascolo-David

A Draft of Guinness

The first World War was particularly devastating to the population of the Canadian province of Newfoundland, in which it has been said that every family on the island suffered a loss in the conflict. Prior to 1949, Newfoundland was a colony of the British Empire and during the first World War, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment fought alongside British soldiers at the disastrous first Battle of the Somme near the French village of Beaumont Hamel on July 1st 1916. Of the more than 700 members of the RNR who fought on that day, nearly 80% were killed.
My Great Uncle was a new recruit of the Regiment and the Somme offensive was his first battle. He had enlisted in early 1916, just after his 16th birthday and had trained with the regiment for months in preparation for the battle. As they sat entrenched in the camps near the Somme, they wrote letters home, sang, joked and were convinced that this battle would be a major success and a turning point in the war. It was a terrible disaster, many of the soldiers barely making it to the halfway point of the open battlefield where one lone apple tree was standing. Nicknamed the “Danger Tree,” it was the point where they would be out of range of enemy mortar fire but within range of machine guns.
My uncle was hit and fell unconscious. When he awoke, he was sitting upright under the Danger Tree – clear, beautiful sunny skies, birds singing and no gunfire or any sounds of war. He thought – “I have died and this is paradise” – but then he could feel his injuries and looked further around to see the devastation of the battle – so many friends who would not be returning to camp, or home to families in Newfoundland.
Through the use of two melodies – the patriotic anthem of the province: “The Ode to Newfoundland” (heard first on the media accompaniment as depicted on an old phonograph recording) and the rollicking shanty “The Ryan and the Pittmans,” the first line of which is “We’ll rant and we’ll roar like true Newfoundlanders”- the piece depicts the journey of the brave men of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in 1916 from the beautiful shores of Newfoundland to the devastation at the Danger Tree. Lest we forget. — Bruce Bonnell

Danger Tree

Composed for the Central Michigan University New Music Ensemble, both movements are typical of my current compositional output. Harmonies are based on the repetition of a simple interval pattern and long lyrical melodies weave their way through these chaconnes. The rhythms and colors are rather plain, unadorned, and far from ornate. The directness and simplicity in the music is by design.

Two Slow Movements - I

I have a file full of potential titles and one summer this file grew quite a bit as I re-read William Gibson’s classic Neuromancer. When Tammy Evans Yonce asked for a piece for glissando flute (flute with a glissando head joint) and electronics I proposed the title “Dreams Grow Like Slow Ice,” which I’m pretty sure I got from Neuromancer, and used that fragment’s imagery to guide the basic form of the piece.

A simple lullaby becomes more abstracted and frozen as glassy drones emerge in the electronics. Eventually the lullaby returns and we end in a serene but slightly dark place. Strangely enough, this is the second piece revolving around dreams which I have composed for flute and electronics. I’m not sure why that is.

This work was given its premiere performance at the National Flute Association Conference in 2013. The following recording is from the Society of Composers, Inc. National Conference in 2014.

Dreams Grow Like Slow Ice

composed for the Yara Ensemble (Sarah Stone, mezzo-soprano and Alexandra Mascolo-David, piano) in 2020 and premiered at Pianoforte in Chicago, December of 2022. This recording is from their performance at Central Michigan University in April 2023.

Charlie Mann

Little Nancy Etticoat

Jack and Jill

Girl in Bulan Town

Harry Larry Pridemore Newe

Sufi Songs - Rumi

Sufi Songs - Bawa Muhaiyaddeen

Three obsessive piano pieces written for Alexandra Mascolo-David. These new recordings are play by Alexandra from my September 9th recital.
http://www.mascolo-david.com/

Lullaby Boxes 1

Lullaby Boxes 2

Lullaby Boxes 3

I am an avid reader of comic books and one of my all-time favorite series is Planetary by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday. One of the main characters in the series is The Drummer, a man who can control the flow of energy and information with drumsticks. By drumming on computers, televisions, or electrical panels The Drummer can move, shape, and bend the forces to his liking. This piece does a similar thing with chaotic and random synth textures becoming transformed and shaped as the percussion soloist plays. In addition to the synth textures, I've used recordings of my father and I doing some carpentry work in his garage on summer. The power tools (and our captured conversations) are another stream in this “control and shape things” metaphor.

Let's Keep It That Way

In late 2012, I challenged myself to write a new vocal composition each week. I dubbed the project “Lied Time” and while I tried my best, I only managed to complete a handful of compositions. This haiku by Evelyn Lang was just so lovely and perfect, I couldn’t resist doing anything but a simple setting.

perfect summer sky

Sonata One from Five Sonatas.
For toy piano and microsynth. Performed by Jay Batzner

sonata one

Sonata Two from Five Sonatas.
For toy piano and microsynth. Performed by Jay Batzner

sonata two

Sonata Three from Five Sonatas.
For toy piano and microsynth. Performed by Jay Batzner

sonata three

Sonata Four from Five Sonatas.
For toy piano and microsynth. Performed by Jay Batzner

sonata four

Soundscape/spoken word piece. Based on true events.

The Phone Story

Sonata Five from Five Sonatas.
For toy piano and microsynth. Performed by Jay Batzner

sonata five

For Christmas in 1992, my future in-laws gave me a poetry collection from the Pitt Poetry Series. A few of Bill Knott’s poems were in this collection and I’ve been a fan of his work ever since. When Kevin Keith asked me to write a work for him, we talked about a lot of possibilities of how to incorporate his interest in drama with his interest in performing. I thought merging Knott’s poetry with a percussive commentary would be the perfect opportunity to give the performer the kind of music he wanted and to finally write a piece that shares some of the poetry I hold dear.

This is a live performance by Andrew Spencer from September 2014.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/bill-knott

5. How I Lost My Pen Name

4. To X

3. (Poem)(Chicago)(1967)

2. At The Crossroads

1. Lifer (AKA  Happy Birthday )

I first heard the koan about Ryonen on the Daily Buddhism podcast. At first, I was struck by the Zen teachers' reactions to Ryonen since their views on her beauty offended my more contemporary feminist attitudes. The story stuck with me and I kept thinking about it. The more I sat with it the more I saw my reaction change. I now do not see Ryonen as a victim of a male-dominated culture in this story. Instead, I see her astounding dedication to Zen and her liberation through non-attachment embodied by her actions.

Ryonen's Clear Realization

This piece is the second in a series of collaborations with Bruce Bonnell for natural horn and live electronics (the whole project has been dubbed Supernatural). To contrast with the hectic and spastic counterpart movement Silhouettes, Receding, this movement is a single melody set against a gradually evolving drone. The title is taken from the graphic novel Bone.

Ghost Circles

Stalker is based on the book Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky and was composed for Aaron Ragsdale. In this book, aliens have visited Earth and left strange objects behind in certain “zones” around the globe. Stalkers are black market dealers who enter these zones and procure these rare and often dangerous objects. In this composition, the mundane world is represented by the tin cans and flower pots. The various mysterious alien artifacts are the more standard percussion instruments. The alien objects encountered are, in order: Empty, Carbonated Clay, Full Empty, Hell Slime, and the Golden Sphere.

2017 Faculty Recital

Stalker

The title of the work refers to the Pioneer 10 satellite launched in the 1970s. Pioneer 10 became the first man-made object to leave our solar system and in 2003 NASA finally lost contact with the satellite. Pioneer 10, as far as we know, is not broken or damaged. Even though the satellite was built to last for 6 months of travel, after 30 years the power supply is simply not powerful enough to send a signal all the way back to Earth. For me, the most profound aspect of Pioneer 10 is how it sits alone in space, dutifully sending messages to Earth, not knowing that they will never be received.

Performed by Christopher Hawes from the disc Fleeting Visions: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/beauportclassical4

Pioneer X

I was in love with a well-known actress. While I have never met this woman in real life, the love that the two of us had for each other was amazingly strong and as real as anything I've ever felt. In the dream, we had been apart from each other for some blurry reason and most of the dream centered around the anticipation of being together at last. When I awoke, the feeling of love for this woman remained for several hours. Sometimes, I can still feel it.

All My Dreams are Silent - in love with

This is my first “keeper” composition. A simple aggressive ostinato provided the inspiration and motivation for the work. Even though this toccata is only about two minutes long, there is a brief break in the motoric energy for a more lyrical moment. Finally, a mad dash towards the end and an explosive finale.

Performed by Scott Marosek.

Toccata

The concerto takes the soloist on a circular journey through two connected contrasting movements. The first movement is slow and contemplative with no interaction between the soloist and ensemble. The ensemble is transformed throughout the movement by gradually swapping the pitched and non-pitched materials. The second movements rapid textures are initiated by the soloist and developed in the ensemble. Various portions of the rapid texture are highlighted and deconstructed as the movement progresses. After the climax, a timpani cadenza ends the piece in a familiar place.
This piece won the UK Percussion Ensemble Composition Contest in 2007.

Performed by John W. Parks IV and the KU Percussion Ensemble.

Concerto for Timpani

This piece is the first in a series of collaborations with Bruce Bonnell for natural horn and live electronics (the whole project has been dubbed Supernatural). Originally performed under the title "Golfballs the Size of Hail," the title Silhouettes, Receding seems to be a better fit for the mood and tone of the piece. Hectic, spastic, staccato gestures are initiated in the horn until a long and lyrical line emerges. The hectic material returns, as it is wont to do, but is beaten back into place for a subdued and introspective ending.

Silhouettes, Receding

Jay C. Batzner (b. 1974) is a composer and zazen practitioner. Jay’s music has been performed at new music festivals such as Society for Composers, Inc., College Music Society, Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the US, and Electronic Music Midwest as well as instrument performance societies including the National Flute Association, International Horn Society, and North American Saxophone Alliance. His works have received recognition from such organizations as the Bourges festival, the Areon Flutes International Composition Competition, the VI Concurso Internacional de Miniaturas Electroacusticas, and the London International Film Festival. Jay's frequent interdisciplinary collaborations with choreographer Heather Trommer-Beardslee has led to several dance piece presented at venues such as the National Dance Educators Organization, Electroacoustic Barn Dance, and the Regeneration Dance Festival of Detroit.

Jay is currently on the faculty of Central Michigan University where he teaches composition, theory, and technology courses. He holds degrees in composition and/or theory from the University of Kansas, University of Louisville, and University of Missouri – Kansas City. A lot of his output is instrumental chamber music, frequently with electronics, but he has recently been expanding his vocal compositions. He’d love to write opera and has many music drama ideas he’d like to implement, just ask him. He reads too many comic books and tries to find time for sewing and other various hobbies. He’d like to get better at chess but never seems to find the time for it.

Jay's music has been recorded by R. Andrew Lee, David Thornton, Meerenai Shim, The Crescent Duo (with Tracy Watson), Alexandra Mascolo-David, Bruce Bonnell, and many others. His works are published by Unsafe Bull Music. As you might expect, there are scores and recordings available at his website: jaybatzner.com.

jaybatzner

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