Performed by Sarah Saviet
Recording by Christian Cummings

Program Notes:
The title of this piece references multiple things. First, it is a pun on “the blackest black”—a proprietary pigment that is licensed solely for use by contentious artist Anish Kapoor. Second, it is a reference to a previous piece of mine titled Ochres and Bones whose title refers to the earliest sources of pigments for painting. Both pieces dabble in painterly metaphors as descriptions of timbre and musical form. In this piece, I continue exploring gradations of bow technique and finger technique to draw out clear, wispy timbres from the violin. At the same time, it still maintains connections to history through its classical form, a theme and variations, and the use of a violin as its medium just as high tech pigment like the blackest black always have some connection to ochres and bones of historical artistic practices.

Clearest Clear

“You know, they ask me if I were on a desert island and I knew nobody would ever see what I wrote, would I go on writing. My answer is most emphatically yes. I would go on writing for company. Because I'm creating an imaginary — it's always imaginary — world in which I would like to live.” 
- William Burroughs

John Secunde - electric guitar

It's always imaginary

Performed by Avanti! Chamber Orchestra
For Savellyspaja International Composition Masterclass 

Program Note: 
Although I am a certified classical music lover myself, I cannot escape the numerous other nefarious ways that classical music has been weaponized in modern society from deterring homeless people to symbolizing white supremacy to manipulating people through propaganda. How do we, as a community of musicians and music lovers, engage with the fraught social position that our artform maintains within society despite our emotional connections to the medium? The piece contains various quotations from standard repertoire which have been mangled and rearranged into a mess of intertwined meanings and symbols similar to the cultural conundrums that plague classical music institutions today.

Backsliding

Yuki Futami Trio new album "Moonlight Serenade" will be released in August 2015. 

Members:
Yuki Futami on piano 
Jeff Dingler on bass 
Micheal Winnicki on drums

Mastering Michio Kobayashi
Studio 
Special Thanks Yuko Kobayashi

This CD is produced by green label.


1 Embraceable You (George Gershwin)

Lyrics:

These days I stumble through existence in a daze
The streetlights cast unholy haloes over my head
The strings that bind my bones together 
I could only feel them slowly coming undone
So we'll erase the lines we've drawn between us
Unlearn each other's words and faces 
The end has begun

The sheets are strewn across the wasteland of my bed
The pillows still remember all the little things we've said
How dare the summer robins sing
Won't they see that bliss can be exhausting?
Well thank you very much, the sun be damned,
I'd rather be in my head counting.

Chorus:
And I'll count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven
I have always thought you were my heaven
Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve
I don't want to love by myself

And I count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven
I wish you could find your piece of heaven 
Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve
Someday I'd live with myself

Bygone are endless nights of unfettered limbs
So sweet the sound of lovers whispering their sacred hymns
Oh, the secret lies between the words
A tired pause, a heartbeat's hesitation
Yeah, the truth it fucking hurts
Someday I wonder what it's like to live in oblivion

So please forgive me if I take a holiday
This business of love is not the sort of game I'd play
The poison flowing through my veins
I can feel it turning me insane
I don't need your sympathy
I just need your help to stop the pain

Chorus:
And I'd count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven
I have always thought you were my heaven
Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve
I don't want to love by myself

And we'll count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven
I wish you could find your piece of heaven
Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve
Someday I'd live with myself

Jonathan Shin - lyrics, guitar, vocals, keys
Daniel Wong - sound engineer, good friend

Help (Original)

Violins: KJ McDonald, Mitsuru Yonezaki
Viola: Hannah Geisinger
Cello: Philip Sheegog

Premiered on the 5th Juilliard Composers' Concert, March 27 2017, Morse Hall 8pm

Broil is the first out of a series of short, culinary related movements for string quartet. Despite not being able to cook really well, I am greatly inspired by the sonic possibilities that different food preparation methods bring. To broil refers to the exposure of food to direct heat, and the persistent, tight interlocking rhythmic groove with timbre and registral contrasts between all instruments seek to enhance the intense process. The piece has a clear form – it begins with the primary theme by the viola which is expanded upon throughout the piece, before a secondary lyrical theme appears. After sudden punctuations, the music returns to a cohesive force, signifying the end of the broil. As to whether the eventual product is edible is entirely up to your imagination

I. Broil For String Quartet (2017) (Studio Recording)

I'll Teach You To Levitate (2017, 7 min.)
for solo cello

I'll Teach You To Levitate

I'll Teach You To Levitate - for solo cello

Matthew Lipman- Viola 
Chelsea Wang- Piano

Benjamin Scheer: Compositions

In Silhouette

Trails of Creativity
---
Recital at the Esplanade, 2nd August 2014.
Brahms on Schumann
Godowsky on Schubert
Sigfrid Karg-Elert
---
Hans Gál

Help (Original)

Jonathan Shin

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