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 - 2. in love with...

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

Two Shorter Songs was originally composed for countertenor Jerry Hui and saxophonist Aaron Durst. Whenever a composer is given the opportunity to write for a countertenor with perfect pitch, we are honor-bound to do so! I am thrilled that Jerry and Aaron were open to me writing for them.

Texts by Dora Sigerson Shorter
performed by Jerry Hui and Aaron Durst

2021.11.11 Faculty Saxophone Recital

Two Shorter Songs: An Eclipse

Two Shorter Songs: Beware

Composed for Katherine Crawford and given its premiere performance at Electronic Music Midwest in 2013. The poetry is by Robert Fanning and is included in the score. Special thanks to the Freesound.org users ethang, laureci, ephemeral-rift, and sandyrb for their sonic contributions and to Laura Patterson whose live performance of my piece All My Dreams are Silent is also used in the background.

Flute

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

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

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

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

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

Three

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

Five

A bonus track for my Five Bagatelles (about buildings and food)

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 have a problem. As a composer, I’m supposed to write Extremely Serious Music (ESPECIALLY for orchestra). My problem is that, as a man of my age, I listened to a lot of music from the ‘80s. And I still do. I have several pieces in my catalog which draw on ‘80s hits and abstract them, toy with them, and generally have fun with them. Each of these movements was a pure joy to write and continually made me laugh through each stage of the compositional process. The first book of Songs My Radio Taught Me was for solo marimba.
These four short movements were composed for the Central Michigan University orchestra. Bonus points if you can name all the quotes!

Jovial

Jamuary 2025, day one.

synth texture: Korg Volca Modular
beat: PO-32 Tonic
keys: Kawaii 32-key toy piano
effect: Reverse Delay from Zoom MS-50

Recorded in one take

Jamuary1 - Volca PO jam

Day 2 of Jamuary, this was made entirely in Koala sampler on my phone using stock samples (and mixer add-on)

Jamuary2 - Koala.wav

Just a fun G-major progression played on autoharp and baritone uke. Spent more time tuning the autoharp than recording. Would have done a bit more but Miles, my car, was getting pushy about dinner time and jumped on my shoulder.

Jamuary3 - G jam for Miles

Using my Stylophone Beat and my slightly glitchy Gen X-1. Recorded in one take.

Jamuary4 - Stylophoning it in

Day 5 of Jamuary and I used my 3 Pocket Operators (PO-14 Sub, PO-32 Tonic, and PO-16 Factory) to make a little jam based on the bass line from Psycho Killer.

Jamuary5 - Pocket Killer

A short fun beat made with G-Stomper on my phone

Jamuary6 - GStomper Beat

My first no-input mixer creation using a somewhat broken Tapco Mix50. I recorded it into Reaper and used compression and reverb to sweeten it.

Jamuary7 - No Inputs Just Vibes

I used my Korg Volca Modular and two Korg Monotrons (Duo and Delay) to make a noisy synth set.

Jamuary8 - Temu Subotnick

Got out my Korg Little Bits synth kit for this one! I didn't have my audio interface so I just used a simple recorder app and went live to the microphone.

Jamuary9 - Little Bits Boo

Making up for a little lost time over the weekend. This was a simple Little Bits groove recorded into my phone. I thought I could use my Zoom recorder but it ran out of batteries!

Jamuary12

Threads was inspired by simple Renaissance melodic imitation techniques, specifically “stretto fuga.” I learned about the technique from the YouTube channel Early Music Sources and decided to play with it a little and see what I could make. The end result also draws on my influence from the dissonant counterpoint found in mid-20th Century American symphonists such as William Schuman. I am honored that I was asked to compose this work for the CMU flute studio!

Threads

Based on a story told on The Great Eastern. Created for my RPM Challenge in February 2025.

Four Diamonds

This sentence from the book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism has stuck with me for several years.

We Tend to Live in the Future

A sparkly and spacious quasi-improvised prelude for piano

Prelude

A piano prelude I recorded and then expanded with toy pianos and drones

Prelude (Expanded)

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

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 is a composer who has Done Things and Been Performed Places. His catalog ranges from traditional ensembles such as natural horn + live electronics, 4-hand organ duo, and countertenor + alto sax, to the unusual and idiosyncratic ensembles of voice + piano, unaccompanied bassoon, and choir. His works have been performed on all habitable planets in the known universe.

As a collaborator, Jay has created music with numerous choreographers, visual artists, and poets. His interdisciplinary work with Team Hyena Puppet has led to the production of several science-based dance pieces, a journal article, a book chapter, several conference presentations, and a feature in Forbes. It is through this work that Jay claims to know more about hyena mating behaviors than any other musician on the planet.

Currently, Jay rambles about music and various tangents (comic books, science fiction, hyena mating behaviors, etc.) at Central Michigan University. He has degrees from Serious Places but that was a long time ago. Right now Jay is completing his first full-length opera (his first opera was pretty short) and trying to get better at chess. Actually right now Jay is writing this biography but you get the idea.

jaybatzner

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