what i have been up to recently...

Composed as part of the L.A. based Lyris Quartet's 2015 "Intimate Letters" commission/recording project. I imagined that if a letter is meant to be read, then music is meant to be heard. In this is 10-11 minute piece for string quartet, all the twists and turns that instigate change are begun by the second violin and viola...the first violin and cello have no option but to oblige and follow suit.

K. Rohde - Inside Voice For String Quartet (2015)

From performances of some works I completed years ago: 

-from Four Remixes for piano trio (2010/11), MM III & IV (Looped Trip & Maxed Out), with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble

K. Rohde - 4 Remixes - III - Looped Trip

From performances of some works I completed years ago: 

-Concertino for violin and small ensemble (2009/10), MM I (Moto), MM II (Sotto), and MM III (Rotto), with Axel Strauss (vln.), Matilda Hofman (cond.) and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble

K. Rohde - Concertino for violin and small ensemble, MM I (moto)

Full piece in a new recording by Lydian String Quartet

I – NODE: Tuning Knot  00:00-03:22
II – Recently Found Fragments: Chant Loop  03:28-11:38
III – Striding Rituals: Nocturnal Gatherings for Mass Wooing  11:44-17:30
III.5 or 5.IV – Optional habits  17:43-18:40
IV – CODEX: I know I know this (…almost remembering…)  18:44-25:04
V – Turn the Corner: Post-Rapture Celebration  25:08-28:04
VI - NODE: Ex nihilo…In nihil [-for Mary Ruth-]  28:05-35:30

Treatises for an Unrecovered Past is dedicated to the Lydian String Quartet and was composed as part of their Composition Commission Award, which was made possible by the generosity and vision of Marjorie B. and Martin Cohn. It was composed in San Francisco and Cambridge and is 35 minutes long.

Treatises for an Unrecovered Past (2013-14/rev. 2017) for string quartet

"power is everywhere" is an assemblage of various writings/talks by Foucault. The singer is observer, actor, and deliverer of the message. She is not there to simply sing the text – she is there to instigate the way the music unfolds by way of what the words tell us. She is powerful, taking note of what happens and how to move forward. She is everywhere all the time. My piece is influenced by opera, song cycles, theater, and might even be considered a surreal singspiel.

Left Coast Ensemble, with Nikki Einfeld (soprano)
video: https://youtu.be/75lAqvPOLjQ

TEXTS (indicates omitted words)
Power (is everywhere.)

We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in negative terms: it "excludes," it "represses," it "censors," it "abstracts," it "masks," it "conceals." In fact power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth. The individual and the knowledge that may be gained of him belong to this production.

Discourses are not once and for all subservient to power or raised up against it... We must make allowances for the complex and unstable process whereby a discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy. Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart.

Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism. In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating. Madness is the absolute break with the work of art; it forms the constitutive moment of abolition, which dissolves in time the truth of the work of art.
 
Justice must always question itself, just as society can exist only by means of the work it does on itself and on its institutions. The judges of normality (are present everywhere.) We are in the society of the great teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the social worker-judge.
 
The lyricism of marginality may find inspiration in the image of the outlaw, the great social nomad, who prowls on the confines of a docile, frightened order. What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something, which is only related to objects, and not to individuals, or to life. As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one, perhaps, nearing its end.
 
But there exists a system of power which blocks, prohibits, and invalidates this discourse and this knowledge, a power not only found in the manifest authority of censorship, but one that profoundly and subtly penetrates an entire societal network. (Intellectuals are themselves agents of this system of power - the idea of their responsibility for "consciousness" and discourse forms part of the system.) The intellectual's role is no longer to place himself "somewhat ahead and to the side" in order to express the stifled truth of the collectivity; rather, it is to struggle against the forms of power that transform him into its object and instrument in the sphere of "knowledge," "truth," "consciousness," and "discourse."

Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true.

Power exists only when it is put into action; it does not require your consent.

If no one knows who you are, can you be forgotten? If memory is power, are those who are forgotten powerless? The powerless are everywhere.

power is everywhere, an observed distraction for soprano & ensemble on texts of Foucault (2017)

Diane Seuss is a poet, a thinker, a seer, a sayer - an oracle of sorts. Her collection Four-Legged Girl is a complete game changer in the way it:
-tells stories, 
-captures the way we remember, reinvent, forget, 
-manages to shock and touch and move us,
-catches us off guard and draws us only further in.

It Wasn't A Dream is a collection of six settings of Seuss's poems from her collection. It is for soprano, tenor and piano four-hands. I composed it for the Brooklyn Art Song Society in 2018. Here is the opening setting of the first third of the title poem. Thanks to soprano Charlotte Mundy, tenor Andrew Fuchs, and pianists Miori Sugiyama and Michael Brofman.

I - It Wasn't A Dream (part 1) from It Wasn't A Dream (2018)

Scott Hunter's impeccably constructed texts were conceived with the intention of being read by an online simulated voice that was purposefully archaic in its delivery – glitchy, devoid of tone or context, flat and relentlessly even in the rendering. While the idea of using an outdated technology to realize one's work might seem like a gimmick, it actually imparts a disarming poignancy, effortless in its delivery, yet also enduring in its impact.

The three poems of Hunter's that are set in Three Scented Candles mostly operate in an outdoor environment or inside the ethos of late night. Half-awake awareness of the mundane or specific momentary happenings, with moments of jolting revelation brought about by self-soothing pot smoking, are part of the very common experience of late night rambles through a quiet neighborhood when one gets to be alone with oneself - - their past and their dog, all part of a nocturnal ritual where the present slowly melts away as one readies for slumber. Three Scented Candles is 11 minutes in duration, and sets the following texts.

1 - Midnight Rose Meets Angel Of The Morning
2 - Dumpster Dive
3 - Marijuana Dogwalk (Take 3)

Thank you Charlotte Mundy & Miori Sugiyama - you are amazing!

Three Scented Candles for soprano and piano (2018) on texts of Scott Hunter

"gentle rules" is an ongoing series of short movements for piano four-hands. The movements may be played separately, as a complete set, or as selected movements; If more than one movement is played, these movements may be performed in any order the performers desire.

Each movement has a "poetic" title. The basic music material is "generated" through a series of very simple rules that were put in place before the composing occurred. These rules were inspired by the poetic title by way of a free associative process.

The work was composed for ZOFO. They premiered the first movement at Old First Concerts on Sept. 15, 2019 in San Francisco.

I. - "petals open/closed": The numbers 11, 7, 5 and 3 are the basis for generating where to start and where to end a series of symmetrically constructed mini-canons; Piano Right is -1 and then in retrograde; Piano Left is +1 and then in retrograde. After the middle section, the process is reversed and exchanged between the parts.

gentle rules, I. petals open/closed (2019)

An easy way to get quick access to some recent works of mine. These selections will be regularly updated as performances of new works and projects become available. Contact me with any queries. REQUEST: Should you wish to play my work, I ask you include it on a program that is representative & includes a number of pieces by POC and/or female or non-binary identifying people.