Compositions

Inspired by cut-up technique as described by Tristan Tzara

2:50

Lullaby

RicksPlund, Nov. 18, 2014, Madsen Recital Hall.  This track meanders a bit, but DEAL WITH IT.  It's an improvisation for crying out loud.  

LIVE ACTIVATION OF AVAILABLE RESONANCES

When you wake up in the morning, but something's not quite right, then you wake up again and realize the first time was a dream.

Morning Edition Theme REMIX

My take on the Morning Edition theme, hope you like it!

Morning Edition Theme

Aubade deals with the intersections of clarity, fog, and memory in “transcribing” Wayla Chambo’s poem. It seeks to express in music a chance encounter, a brief, intensely emotional experience—but one that is (mis)remembered with fragmented ambiguity.

Aubade (flute + fixed media)

a tiny fleck of blue crying light into the void is comprised of four vignettes played on a piano tuned for La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano. These vignettes are suspended in a web of spectral inversions of the piano. The title is taken from the novel House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, which tells the story of house that has different dimensions inside than it does outside. It's available on the compilation album Mind & Machine, vol. 2, by Ravello Records.

a tiny fleck of blue crying light into the void (electroacoustic)

Anne Carson’s beautiful translation of the surviving fragments of Stesichorus’s tale of Geryon, the red monster of Greek mythology, served as the inspiration for ‘Geryoneïs’ (The Song of Geryon). Red Meat (Carson’s title) tells from the monster’s perspective the story of Hercules killing Geryon and his dog and stealing Geryon’s prized herd of red cattle. This Geryon, however, is a pitiable monster and one in appearance only. He is the innocent victim of Hercules’s murderous rampage — the hero and the monster having switched roles.

Geryoneïs was conceived as 16 musical fragments — matching Carson’s 16 fragments of verse — interwoven into a dynamic tapestry of different-each-time textures and harmonies. As with much of my music, I’m especially interested here in overlapping layers that may or may not complement one another, which are well-suited for evoking the kind of jagged non-linearity I associate with the memories of traumatic experiences. Specifically, the competing themes at play are otherness and family, tragedy and heroism, violence and pastoral peace, heaven and hell.

Geryoneïs was commissioned by Akropolis Reed Quintet and premiered on October 20, 2017 at a Babcock Season concert at Sweet Briar College. This was recorded live at that time.

Geryoneïs (The Song of Geryon) (reed quintet)

This recording of the third movement of Septimus was created by the Nova string quartet at the University of North Texas in December 2009. The pitch content is based on the harmonic series of the lowest string of each instrument (C for cello and viola, and G for the violins).


Septimus, III. (string quartet)

The Wanderer began as a reflection on the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina–-dark, quiet woods; dense fog that settles into the valleys in the mornings; fierce, howling wind on the tops of ridges. It is awe-inspiring and has a mysterious, even dangerous quality to it all–as if one could suddenly lose his way at any moment. I was reminded of a recording of Wayfaring Stranger made in Beech Mountain by Horton Barker in the 1960s:

“I am a poor, wayfaring stranger wandering through this world of woe…
I know dark clouds will gather ‘round me. I know my way is rough and steep.”

That recording served as the germinal element from which the piece developed. Barker’s subtle pitch bends and liberties with rhythms, for example, are abstracted and transformed into large-scale passages of glissandi, with the pitches sometimes sliding, but frequently overlapping in dense cluster chords, as well as irregular meters that produce some interesting percussion patterns. The folk song, wandering through the world, as it were, does battle with the elements, emerges alone briefly, and then loses its way again.

This recording was created by the Appalachian State University Wind Ensemble under the direction of John Ross. The Wanderer was commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition.

The Wanderer (wind ensemble)

This is a performance of Morton Feldman's Why Patterns? at the University of North Texas on Friday, November 13, 2012. The performers are Wayla Chambo, flute, Peter Soroka, glockenspiel, and Josh Harris, piano.

Why Patterns? by Morton Feldman

In the Taoist tradition, there is a duality in all things. Even within one person are two souls, the p'o, or physical soul, and the hun, or spiritual soul. After death, the p'o remains on earth while the hun ascends to heaven. The mysterious mirror, or in other words, the mind, reflects these various perspectives, which become various realities. The following verse from the Lao Tzu served as my inspiration for The Mysterious Mirror:

When carrying on your head your perplexed bodily soul, can you embrace the One
And not let go?
In concentrating your breath can you become as supple
As a babe?
Can you polish your mysterious mirror
And leave no blemish?
(Translation by D.C. Lau)

Performers:
Andrew Martz - alto saxophone
Armin Abdihodzic - electric guitar
Éva Polgar - piano
Peter Soroka and Tyler Tolles - percussion

The Mysterious Mirror - Hun (mixed chamber ensemble)

Magic [tape]

Miniature using various delay process, MacBook Pro internal mic, and various tappings and clickings on the keyboard. And a whistle.

Delaze (fixed media)

I'm a composer. I'm currently an associate professor of music and chair of the music program at Sweet Briar College in central Virginia. I have degrees from Appalachian State University, Brigham Young University, and the University of North Texas. 

My music is grounded in a fascination with visual art, textures, sound spectra, non-linear narratives, and extreme temporal manipulations, and it has been heavily influenced by studio techniques of electroacoustic composers. I've been commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, the Nova Ensemble at UNT, Akropolis Reed Quintet, Virginia Wesleyan University, and many amazing performers. I've composed two feature film scores—King Rat (2017) and HUM (2020), and my concert works have been performed throughout the United States as well as South Korea, and is available on the SEAMUS and Ravello record labels.

Check out additional pieces at my YouTube channel (link below).

Email me at jkharriscomposer@gmail.com

The Mysterious Mirror - Hun (mixed chamber ensemble)

Joshua Harris

Related tracks