Hine Ma Tov (2021) for SATB chorus
Soren Stavnicky (b. 2003)

Hine Ma Tov is my choral adaptation of a famous Jewish hymn sung in the synagogue service, and traditionally sung at Shabbat feasts. As a Jewish convert who has listened to, and performed in, a synagogue choir for most of my life, this prayer has always spoken to me with its message of world peace and unity. I took what is a more celebratory text and created a more melancholy, somber approach for the music, denoting the continuous struggle to achieve world peace. However, there is also a recurring message of hope in the Jewish faith, and I wanted to express that as well, primarily in the work’s more uplifting conclusion.

Performed by the Cleveland Chamber Choir
Scott MacPherson, conductor
Recorded in Drinko Recital Hall on 1/30/2022
John A. Powell, recording engineer

TEXT:
(Hebrew):
הִנֵּה מַה טוֹב וּמַה נָּעִים
שֶׁבֶת אָחִים גַּם יַחַד
(Hebrew transliteration):
Hine ma tov umah nayim
Shevet achim gam yachad.
(English):
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers (people) to dwell together in unity.

YouTube link for the scrolling score video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecNlA9Rg_c0

Hine Ma Tov (2021) for SATB chorus

This is my orchestral transcription of "March", the third movement from Sergei Prokofiev's "Four Pieces" (Op. 3) for solo piano.

Audio is NotePerformer.
Copyright © 2023 by Soren Stavnicky. This transcription is of a work in the public domain. All rights reserved.

YouTube link for the scrolling score video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFSBYRChoMc

Four Pieces (Op. 3): III. March (transcribed for orchestra)

This is my orchestral transcription of "Story", the first movement from Sergei Prokofiev's "Four Pieces" (Op. 3) for solo piano. This first movement was completed as my final project for an orchestration course.

Audio is NotePerformer.
Copyright © 2023 by Soren Stavnicky. This transcription is of a work in the public domain. All rights reserved.

YouTube link for the scrolling score video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFSBYRChoMc

Four Pieces (Op. 3): I. Story (transcribed for orchestra)

This is my orchestral transcription of "Phantom", the fourth and final movement from Sergei Prokofiev's "Four Pieces" (Op. 3) for solo piano.

Audio is NotePerformer.
Copyright © 2023 by Soren Stavnicky. This transcription is of a work in the public domain. All rights reserved.

YouTube link for the scrolling score video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFSBYRChoMc

Four Pieces (Op. 3): IV. Phantom (transcribed for orchestra)

A French Variation On "Korobeiniki" ("Tetris" Theme) (2023) for solo piano
Soren Stavnicky (b. 2003)

This piece was written as the final project in a music theory course I took earlier this year. Everyone was asked to compose a piece (of any instrumentation we wanted), choosing one of the various musical styles/genres we covered that semester. It seemed the most natural choice for me on that list was Impressionism. My introduction to classical music essentially was from the timeless, gorgeous piano works of Claude Debussy, and I thought it would be a nice project to try and write in that expressive, colorful, French style he pioneered.
For a central theme or idea, I thought it would be fun to take an iconic melody that everyone knows, and approach it as if someone like Debussy or Ravel were writing a variation on it. I eventually landed on the 19th century Russian folk tune, “Korobeiniki”, commonly known today as the main theme to the iconic video game "Tetris."
My main idea was to utilize the melodic shaping of this tune, and fit it to the chords, voicings, and harmonies that are prevalent in Impressionist music. Things like Debussy's prevalent use of the whole-tone scale, very spaced-out and open-ended chords (stacked fourths and fifths), the use of chord planing, monophonic melodic lines (often doubled at the octave), and very colorful arpeggios in the left hand while the right hand has more of the melodic drive, propelling the piece forward.

Performed and Recorded by Sequoia Sounds, piano 

If you would like your piano piece brought to life, Sequoia is available for work so please do check his website and YouTube channel out:
https://sequoiasounds.com
https://www.youtube.com/@SequoiaSounds

Link to the scrolling score video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RcwIJoglvM

A French Variation On "Korobeiniki" ("Tetris" Theme) (2023)

This is a short 90-second piece I wrote for a project on looping menu music. The restrictions were we were only allowed to use 4 instrument tracks: a main instrument, a "bass" instrument, some sort of drum loop or percussion, and a synth/pad of some kind.
I had written the cello melody here a long time ago, but I didn't know where or how to use it. This seemed like a good opportunity for it. This piece has a mixture of the Journey soundtrack, with a bit of sci-fi elements with how I incorporated the different synth textures.

Menu Theme Project

I wrote short little spooky, cinematic-sounding piece for a student project where we had to write music (around a minute long) accompanying an animated walk cycle. For the animation each of us picked, we then had to factor in the frame rate and the number of frames in the walk cycle to get the BPM we needed to write music in sync with the video. 
My animation was of a seemingly scared skeleton walking at a slower pace, and looking around with a look of fear. This seemed like an appropriate atmosphere, and a definite "spookiness" sound with a whistly synth taking the lead when the "drop" so-to-speak happens in the second half. With its length and structure, I could kind of see this as the opening intro music to a Halloween-themed movie/show of some kind.

Skeleton Walk

I'm happy to present my arrangement of some of the famous pieces from the "Hollow Knight" soundtrack. This includes the tracks "Dirtmouth", "Greenpath", and "Hornet". I've taken those three tracks and combined them into three movements that are played one after the other without pause.
I arranged this for my university chamber ensemble. Our chamber group splits up into smaller trios/quartets etc. My group is a woodwind trio consisting of flute, oboe, and English horn (that's me), and I was granted the option to add piano, which is inherit to the soundtrack of Hollow Knight.
With more limited time on our hands to prepare this, I did have to simplify and splice certain sections of the original material (mainly Hornet), as adapting essentially a full orchestral work to just 4 players was tricky. I'm happy with the result, and I tried to stay as true to the original music as I could.

Audio is NotePerformer.
Arrangement of music by Christopher Larkin.

0:00 - Dirtmouth
2:04 - Greenpath
4:44 - Hornet

If you would like to contact me for the music or otherwise, feel free to leave a comment or private message me on the social media profiles linked to the channel. Thank you for listening!

Hollow Knight Medley (arranged for woodwind trio and piano)

Definitely one of the most bizarre things I've written so far, and I'm pretty happy with the result. This was for my sound design class, and the instructions were about as simple as could be: compose an original piece of music containing an opening intro, a looping middle section, and a conclusive ending.
The spawning of my piece in particular came from another sound design assignment from earlier, where we had to create our own adaptation of a track from the Pikmin Bloom OST titled "Planting Flowers." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVjky...)
So you hear some of the Pikmin inspiration in the intro, as well as the bouncing piano rhythm throughout, basically most of the instrumentation heard in the first 30 seconds. Then, to keep it as interesting and contrasting as possible, my brain went the absurd, batshit insane direction and tried to make the rest very unexpectedly strange, creepy, and unnerving. I'm pretty happy with it. I also kinda just came up with "Helljoy" out of nowhere (I've never heard it from anywhere else off the top of my head). I think it fits haha.

Music was created in REAPER. Samples are from the Opus EastWest ComposerCloud.

Helljoy

Over winter break, on a Minecraft server with some friends, I was tasked to make a redstone pumpkin and watermelon farm for our area to sell to villagers. I thought to add a fun twist to this farm, where every time a pumpkin or watermelon is grown and is grown and caught by the minecart underneath, it triggers one of the note blocks above. I decided to make the note blocks different notes in a major scale going up with added extensions (7th, 9th, 11th, etc.), so it would create this aleatoric tonal ambience.
One of my friends in the server (username is Nuggit Souce) captured some audio from it, pitched it down and added some reverb/echo effects and I think it came out nicely.
Here's his SoundCloud check him out: https://soundcloud.com/user-36324061-399029529

Pumpkin Farm Melody

I made this in about 2 days, really happy with the result. The atmosphere is something either akin to outer space or the awe of winter. With how the synths almost shimmer over top of the other layers with this dreamy sound texture, it reminds me a little of both.
I asked the YouTube comments what the title should be. I liked all the suggestions, but I'm giving the winning one to ‪@DanielApon‬ for Frosted Imagination. In retrospect, this is a perfect title, as with the beginning 3-note motif in the chimes, I was definitely inspired by the opening of "Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

Frosted Imagination

Greetings, I'm Soren Stavnicky (b. 2003). I compose the music. Please let me know if you want any :) Student composer and sound designer. DigiPen Institute of Technology '27

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