Name: Broken String by Kenneth D. Froelich
Duration: 4 min 40 s
Description: Glitch EDM featuring a repeated banjo riff. My first attempt getting back into composing experimental electronic dance music.

Performed by the Fresno State Percussion Ensemble



In 5:1 (Five to One), the parts of the five players are often interlocking and interact with each other. As the piece reaches its climax, the players break through their register constraints and overlap the others' playing areas. Finally, the piece disintegrates until the underlying rhythmic motive expands and disappears.

Kent Nagano [cond.]
The Berkeley Symphony Orchestra
from a 1998 performance in Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley

from Five Pieces For Orchestra: MM I

Performed by the Argus Quartet at the New Music on the Point Festival


String Quartet is structured by the exponential growth and decay of certain musical elements including range, section length, dynamics, texture, and tempo. The work features a series of chords which change one note at a time, each new note forming a melodic line which moves around the quartet. As the piece progresses, this melodic line is overtaken by the other voices and rhythmic unity across the ensemble is lost.

String Quartet


New Zealand Trio
Justine Cormack, violin
Ashley Brown, cello
Sarah Watkins, piano

Recorded on "Spark" CD, Morrison Music Trust

A Feather of Blue takes its title from a phrase in a poem called “A View From A Window” by New Zealand writer Kevin Ireland.  I have always admired the wry humour and brightness of Kevin Ireland’s writing and many years ago set three of his poems for soprano and mixed ensemble.  As a kind gesture Mr Ireland sent me a copy of his book of poems “Skinning A Fish”, and I was particularly struck by the imagery of colours, flowers, feathers and birds in this poem, which illustrates rain pouring down a window pane and giving way to a burst of sunshine after a storm.  The piece uses a melody that I derived from a chant and originally used in an earlier piece but felt it was more suited to the piano trio combination in this work.  The expansive melody appears in a somewhat fragmented form at first, giving way to a livelier section where the cello plays guitar-like chords alongside an isorhythmic exchange between violin and piano. The music builds up to a virtuosic climax before sighing with relief and a return to the opening textures. A Feather of Blue was commissioned in 2000 by the New Zealand Trio, and is recorded on their album “Spark”.

A Feather of Blue

Glitch EDM featuring a repeated banjo riff. My first attempt getting back into composing experimental electronic dance music.

Broken String

Entropy In Reverse. Composed with Csound and Perl in 2001, ported to Csound Python Score in 2013.

Code:
https://github.com/jacobjoaquin/csd/blob/master/demo/pysco/entropy_in_reverse.csd

Entropy in Reverse

Described as "energetic, exciting, and rhythmically dynamic," composer KENNETH D. FROELICH’s music has been performed internationally in England, Germany, Italy, France, Slovenia, Finland, Canada, Peru, Argentina, Chile, and China, as well as numerous major cities across the United States. Emerging as a vibrant new voice in the world of contemporary chamber and orchestral music, Kenneth has been honored with awards from ASCAP, the National Association of Composers/USA, Meet the Composer, the Percussive Arts Society, the American Composers Forum, and the Society of Composers Inc.

Kenneth’s works have been presented by such acclaimed ensembles as the American Composers Orchestra, Duo46, Earplay, the Empyrean Ensemble, the California E.A.R Unit, the Jolles Duo, the Indianapolis Symphonic Orchestra, Conundrum, the University of New Mexico Percussion Ensemble, the University of Southern California Symphony Orchestra, the Indiana University New Music Ensemble, and the Orpheus Ensemble of Fresno. Some of his more recent works include Crescent Shadows (2012), premiered by the Georgia College Wind Symphony; Visionary (2011), premiered by the Fresno State Wind Orchestra; Nerd Songs (2012), premiered by soprano Ann Moss of CMASH; and Portraits of Mt. Rushmore (2012), premiered by USAF Brass in Blue at Mt. Rushmore National Park.

Kenneth's opera Valentine (2010) was recently recorded and will be released through Heretic Opera in Spring 2013. Other upcoming premieres include Small Messages (2012) for the UNLV Wind Ensemble and Piano Quartet No. 1: Mirror  (2012) for Pacific Serenades.

Kenneth received both his Doctorate of Music and Masters of Music degrees from Indiana University, and received his Bachelors of Music degree summa cum laude from the University of Southern California in 1999. His principal composition teachers include Claude Baker, Don Freund, Sven-David Sandstrőm, Eugene O’Brien, Donald Crocket, Frederick Lesemann, Morten Lauridsen, and Erica Muhl.

Kenneth currently resides in Fresno, CA with his wife Jennifer and daughter Katerina, where he is Associate Professor in Music Composition at California State University, Fresno and director of the Fresno New Music Festival. He previously taught at Ball State University in Muncie, IN, and at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival in Sewanee, TN.

Kenneth’s percussion ensemble work Accidental Migration is available through C. Alan Publications, and his concert band work Tock is available through Wingert-Jones Publications. Additional scores are available through JOMAR Press and his website at www.kennethfroelich.com.


Broken String

Kenneth D. Froelich

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