Break of Day (2015), for vibraphone and string quintet. Composed by Kyle Brenn. MIDI-generated audio file.

Program Notes:
My mom has made a habit of scattering chunks of stale bread on a bush near her kitchen window most mornings and watching all the little birds take their breakfast. It was during one of these mornings that she heard a particularly melodious birdcall, which she recorded and sent to me. The melody was so clear and evocative that I felt compelled to write a piece surrounding it. Break of Day celebrates birds in an impressionistic way, avoiding instruments (like the flute) or musical figures that are generally associated with them. I try to evoke a wide range of images and emotions throughout, from the graceful, almost hypnotic motion of an airborne flock to the chaotic scramble for the last breadcrumb—all in the service of honoring nature’s original music makers.

Break Of Day

LIVE from Pulsing & Shaking

composed by ellen hardcastle 

Rational Animals LIVE

Xylophonist nails Colas Breugnon

This is the first single, Slanza, off our freshman EP, The Unanswered Question! Thank you to everyone who donated to the GoFundMe, this wouldn't have been possible without you.

Composed by Rohan Chander and Kyle Brenn
Arranged by Kyle Brenn
Featuring: Rohan Chander (Fender Rhodes, Moog Minimoog, Upright Piano), Shyam Natarajan (Tenor Sax), and Kyle Brenn (Drums, percussion)
Special thanks to the following musicians:
Connie Li- Violin
Yaz Lancaster- Violin
Theo Wayt- Viola
Dorothy Carlos- Cello
Paul Hutchings- Trumpet
Thomas Jankovic- French Horn
Heather Gray- French Horn
Zachary Voelbel- Trombone

Thanks to Jake Lummus and the Grand Street Recording team for production on this track. 
Thanks to Trevor Rivkin for additional EQing and mastering.

Core Members:
David Mayers- Guitar
Rohan Chander- Keyboards, Piano
Kyle Brenn- Guitar
Dani Strigi- Bass
Shyam Natarajan- Tenor Sax

Copyright 2016.

Slanza (Rough Mix!)

For harp, flute, viola, banjo, and electronics. Recorded by janus trio for their album "I Am Not" (New Amsterdam Records 2011).

Drawings for Meyoko

A revised and expanded version of "Haves and Have Nots", performed at the Fall 2017 NYU Composer's Collective Concert. 

Featuring: Kyle Brenn (conductor), Yaz Lancaster (violin), David Mayers (bassoon), Alex Saraceno (piano), Danielle Chan (percussion)

Program Notes: Haves and Have Nots started its life as a dance piece written for a collaborative workshop between NYU and the Jewish Community Center of Manhattan, based on a five-month study of Jewish text. It was originally premiered there on February 16, 2017, with choreography by Mimi Liu (a Master's student in the Tisch dance program). As the first concert work I wrote after coming to college, I believed it marked a milestone in my compositional development, so I chose to revise and expand it for this concert. Its original instrumentation was for violin, cello, piano and percussion, but difficulty finding musicians led me to use bassoon for the cello's part at the last minute. In its current form, the piece is a one-movement work with slow opening and closing material bookending a faster, more intense middle section primarily in 5/8 time. Triadic motives presented in the solo piano introduction make appearances throughout the remainder of the music, with harmonic content emphasizing chromatic mediant and half-step relationships. Despite the non-functional harmony, I made an effort to compose melodic lines that were expressive and lyrical.

Haves and Have Nots (revised version @ NYU Composer's Collective)

This piece was performed by the NYU 01 Orchestra on March 11, 2019.

Program Notes:

Doubt has a bad reputation. At least where I’m from. However, I’ve come to really appreciate and cherish the dichotomy of views on doubt.  It can be a philosophical conundrum. To doubt or not to doubt? When is good? When is it bad? 

There is something oddly profound and empowering about the awareness that many of your deeply held beliefs are potentially wrong. Currently, there is probably something you believe in so strongly that its truthfulness is as sure to you as gravity – but you’re wrong.  

How crazy is that? We don’t even know what it is? Because we’re so sure of ourselves. But sometimes we’ll see or read something that makes us say, “…what?” But most the time, the natural instinct is to make an excuse, justify, and forget. 

This piece is about one of those doubts and how powerful a single doubt can be when we don't ignore it. 

The piece begins in silence, unaware of itself. The silence is interrupted by the faintest whisper – as all doubts begin – barely audible and easy to ignore. However, this doubt isn’t tossed aside. It’s heard and listened to – cautiously. Slowly growing and developing. Using trial and error to see what the whisper meant – if anything. 

This poem, by Robert T. Weston, was an inspiration for this piece:

Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the attendant of truth.
Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge; it is the servant of discovery.
A belief which may not be questioned binds us to error, 
for there is incompleteness and imperfection in every belief.
Doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is an acid which eats away the false.
Let no one fear for the truth, that doubt may consume it; for doubt is a testing of belief.
The truth stands boldly and unafraid; it is not shaken by the testing;
For truth, if it be truth, arises from each testing stronger, more secure.
Those that would silence doubt are filled with fear; their houses are built on shifting sands. 
But those who fear not doubt and know its use; are founded on rock. 
They shall walk in the light of growing knowledge; the work of their hands shall endure.
Therefore, let us not fear doubt, but let us rejoice in its help: 
It is to the wise as a staff to the blind; doubt is the attendant of truth.
-Robert T. Weston

Doubt - for orchestra

Recorded live at my NYU junior composition recital on April 26, 2019.

Flora Hollifield, violin
Yaz Lancaster, violin
Harper Randolph, viola
Dorothy Carlos, cello
Kyle Brenn, conductor/fixed electronics

My grandfather took the songs he loved (mostly from the 40s and 50s) and wrote his own words to the tunes. Many of these were performed over the phone and recorded onto my home answering machine, along with spoken messages to me and my family. As the messages move forward in time, the decline in his health is evident, making singing a belabored process. The players in this piece interact temporally and dramatically with one specific song, one that my grandfather claimed was based on a tune it sounds nothing like. In all my research, I was unable to source was tune he was referencing, so I attempted to fully realize it for myself. 

This is a provisional version of the piece that will be expanded upon in the future, with a studio recording planned for release later in 2019.

Recorded by Aron Kobayashi Ritch.
Photo by Kabi Kariuki.

Blossoming Like Crazy (world premiere)

***LISTEN ON HEADPHONES OR LOUDSPEAKERS***
what happens when we have the technology to confirm an existence of God?

for percussion quartet, prepared saxophone quartet, improvised and fixed electronics, custom proximity electronics, improvising drum set

special thanks to Jessie Cox, Andrew Koss, Chris O'Leary, and Kobi Abedece for helping develop this version

My Prayers Are Made of Silicon (v2.0)- Rough Mix

composer, arranger, actor, musician, music director, copyist
www.kylebrenn.com

Haves and Have Nots (revised version @ NYU Composer's Collective)

Kyle Brenn

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