Prelude and Pagan Holiday for flute, oboe, violin, cello, and two acoustic guitars, 2012
Performed by Cygnus Ensemble

Pagan Holiday is comprised of a simple mood-setting prelude and a dance-like piece proper with a meditative middle. The title comes from the fact that the work was completed on Easter, a festival tied to Germanic paganism (Ēostre or Ostara was a goddess of fertility), and the music is celebratory in nature.

Pagan Holiday

Disparate Structures for violin, viola, and electric guitar, 2012
Performed by Lisa Tipton, Gregory Williams, and John Dunlap
I. Timbre
II. Melody
III. Rhythm & Phrasing

Disparate Structures is a short three-movement work that explores the trio of violin, viola, and guitar. The first movement focuses on timbre, the second orchestrates a simple pentatonic melody, and the third, which is loosely based on the aria from the Goldberg Variations, is concerned with changes in meter and phrasing over an eighth note pulse.

Disparate Structures

White Buildings for tenor and piano, 2013
Text by Hart Crane
Performed by Chad Cygan and Steven Beck
I. Recitative (Part 1)
II. My Grandmother's Love Letters
III. Garden Abstract
IV. Recitative (Part 2)

A song cycle based on three selections from Hart Crane's book of poetry, White Buildings

"Recitative", "My Grandmother's Love Letters" and "Garden Abstract" from WHITE BUILDINGS by Hart Crane. Copyright © 1926 by Boni & Liveright, Inc. Copyright renewed 1954 by Liveright Publishing Corporation. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Company.

White Buildings

Vocalise for chamber orchestra, 2013
Performed by the Contemporary Music Ensemble conducted by David Bridges

Vocalise is a short work for chamber orchestra based on an unfinished composition for mixed choir. As such,
the music developed around a text, specifically Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken". There are four roads,
so to speak, in this piece (one for each stanza of the poem), and each road is presented with a slightly
different character.

Vocalise

Workin' Progress for piano, 2014
Performed by Steven Beck

Creativity. Conception. Doubt. Direction.
Inspiration. Confidence. Flow and connection.

How did I do that? Can I do it again?
If only ideas would stay where they've been.

Empty space. Writer's block. Excuse! A ticking clock.
Reading then chores then distracted by Bach.

Why is it four and I'm still not in bed?
Who needs a hardhat when you have a hard head?

Workin' Progress

A Late Trio for flute, violin, and cello, 2014
Performed by Roberta Michel, Patti Kilroy, and Meaghan Burke

A Late Trio is loosely based on a twelve-tone row. Slow and methodical, it is almost elegiac, which is perhaps fitting since the title was chosen shortly after I watched A Late Quartet, one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's last films. More simply, the title stems from the fact that most of the work was completed late at night. The piece is well-suited to a dramatic tempo rubato, or “stolen time”, performance, where musicians are encouraged to play with expressive and rhythmic freedom. In such a performance, many notes fall outside of a rigid beat pattern and may actually feel as if they are late.

A Late Trio

Two Movements for Horn and Bassoon, 2014
Performed by Casey Cronan and Annamaria Kis-Ven
I. Gigue
II. Processional

Two Movements is a contrapuntal exercise for French horn and bassoon. The first movement, a binary dance form written in the style of Bach, is quick and lively, while the second, a through-composed cavalcade and fanfare, is stately yet contemporary.

Two Movements for Horn and Bassoon

Haiku for shakuhachi and guitar, 2010
Performed by Austin Shadduck and Sarah Soller
I. Music in autumn
II. Floating on the breath of time
III. As a falling leaf

Haiku began as a study in guitar writing and evolved into a three-movement duet featuring shakuhachi, an end-blown Japanese flute, and guitar.

A haiku is a short poem of Japanese origin, typically with a seasonal reference, that can be contained within one breath. In this vein I composed three fleeting soundscapes that seem, at least to me, to express the beauty of autumn by evoking the season's changing colors and windswept leaves. The titles of the movements come from a haiku I created to give me direction in writing the music:

music in autumn—
floating on the breath of time
as a falling leaf

Haiku

For Choro for flute, trombone, guitar, and pandeiro, 2014
Performed by Choro Down Neck

For Choro is a short samba written for choro ensemble (flute, trombone, guitar, and pandeiro in this case). The flute melody comes from an earlier composition, but it is treated very differently here. While it may not belong to the choro genre, the piece draws inspiration from the contrapuntal, improvisational, and syncopated aspects of the popular Brazilian "lament".

For Choro

Eight Again for shakuhachi, 2015
Performed by Austin Shadduck

laughter shakes the park
as bold as the thunder clap
that made the children squeal

to be eight again
running home through the downpour
savoring every drop

Eight Again is based on a poem written as children played in Central Park during a summer storm. I had been studying haiku at the time and discovered that “thunder clap” is a more appropriate kigo (seasonal reference in Japanese poetry) than, say, “lightning flash”, which is often reserved for fall. In Haiku World, William J. Higginson suggests that this distinction is tied to survival: summer storms drove farmers inside where they heard thunder and rain, whereas the sight of lightning was more formidable in a paddy field at fall rice harvest. Unlike the farmers, the children don’t shy away from any aspect of the storm. Their play is part of their survival.

Both "thunder clap" and "downpour" are associated with the warm season and expressed through a shakuhachi technique called korokoro; this and various other trills also signify laughter. Outside of shakuhachi music, korokoro is an onomatopoeic expression that describes a lightweight rolling object, and the term is also related to “plump” or even “cute”. This stands in contrast to gorogoro, which is more like the ominous rumble of thunder. It's fitting that korokoro represents that which the children find delightful.

Traditionally, eight (hachi or 八) is an auspicious number for the way the end, or bottom of its kanji, spreads out (suehirogari) to signify better times, growing prosperity, or potential.

Eight Again

The Marriage of Figaros for clarinet and piano, 2015
Performed by Igor Begelman and Steven Beck

The Marriage of Figaros combines music from three operatic representations of Figaro, the witty barber and jack-of-all-trades originally found in plays by Pierre Beaumarchais. More specifically, it references arias sung by the character: "Scorsi già molti paesi" from Paisiello, "Se vuol ballare" from Mozart, and "Largo al factotum" from Rossini.

The Marriage of Figaros

Musician, composer, shakuhachi enthusiast

Muraiki Music

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