"A deep reverberation fills with stars" (2022) by John Mackey
MIDI demo

A deep reverberation fills with stars

Live recording of "Wine-Dark Sea: Symphony for Band" by John Mackey.
Performed by the University of Texas Wind Ensemble, conducted by Jerry Junkin.
Program note and full score available here:
http://ostimusic.com/WineDarkSea.php

Wine-Dark Sea: 1. Hubris

Live recording of "Wine-Dark Sea: Symphony for Band" (2014) by John Mackey.
Performed by the University of Texas Wind Ensemble, conducted by Jerry Junkin.
Program note and full score available here:
http://ostimusic.com/WineDarkSea.php

Wine-Dark Sea: 3. The attentions of souls

"The Ringmaster's March" by John Mackey
Movement 4 of the suite, "The Soul Has Many Motions."
view the full score here: http://ostimusic.com/Ringmasters-media.php
Performed by the University of Texas at Arlington Wind Symphony, conducted by Doug Stotter

John Mackey: The Ringmaster's March

"Unquiet Spirits" by John Mackey
Movement 3 of the suite, "The Soul Has Many Motions"
view the full score here:
http://ostimusic.com/Spirits-media.php
Performed by the Westlake High School Wind Ensemble, conducted by Kerry Taylor

This is an adaptation of the second movement of John Mackey's saxophone quartet, "Unquiet Spirits."

John Mackey: Unquiet Spirits (band version)

"Hymn to a Blue Hour" for trombone choir
by John Mackey
performed by Joseph Alessi, accompanied by the Alessi Seminar Participant Choir, conducted by Jonathan Whitaker.
Live performance from August 3, 2013.
Score available here: http://ostimusic.com/Hymn-Tbn.php

John Mackey: Hymn to a Blue Hour (trombone choir version), feat. Joseph Alessi

"Lightning Field" by John Mackey

Performed by the TCU Wind Symphony, conducted by Bobby Francis

To view the score and read more about the piece, please visit: http://ostimusic.com/LightningField.php

John Mackey:  Lightning Field

"Damn," by John Mackey, for clarinet and percussion ensemble.  View the score here:
http://ostimusic.com/Damn-media.php

Garrick Zoeter, clarinet
Damien Bassman, John Kilkenny, James Swarts, and Sean Dolan, percussion

John Mackey: "Damn" for clarinet & percussion ensemble

Songs from the End of the World
music by John Mackey
text by A. E. Jaques

performed by Lindsay Kesselman, soprano, with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Wind Ensemble, conducted by Kevin Geraldi

view the full score here: http://ostimusic.com/Songs.php

III. At sea

Again, alone.
Again, forever.
Solitude and I, once more, together.

And now—forget?
Or yet remember?
If I hold fast will I still surrender?

Shall I cling to memory, and polish thoughts like bright stones?
But every touch erodes them; to love their light is to lose it.
Remembering. Dismembering.

Forget, then.
Forget him.

Forget him.
Forget, yes.

And cast away the empty oyster shell. 
Tide take him.
But watch—who knows what waters wash home?

Forget him?
Forget, how?

This cruel moon brings ghosts in waves now, to haunt me.
Too-cruel moon brings ghosts to haunt me, to taunt me now.
This tide that gives and takes and tolls the time,
the time, the long and longing time alone.

I can't forget;
I can't remember.
The loss remains, so hard, so tender.

And all my rhymes are ravings,
my words the wailing of a lost one,
storm-tossed one.

The sea won't hear.
The sky won't care.
No different to them,
my silence or song.

No words, so.
Unheard, so.

Why go on then?
Why cry this silence?

Alone.
Alone.

All cast away now.
Just ghosts to stay now.
Alone, all lost at sea. 

Songs from the End of the World: 3. At Sea

Songs from the End of the World
music by John Mackey
text by A. E. Jaques

performed by Lindsay Kesselman, soprano, with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Wind Ensemble, conducted by Kevin Geraldi

view the full score here: http://ostimusic.com/Songs.php

II. Raveling

When I found you, or you found me,
both of us lost in the endless sea,
then I healed you, and you healed me,
two tattered souls stitched up lovingly.

Seven summers of sun,
seven winters of wanting,
seven springtimes as new as the dawn,
seven autumns of falling
deeper into your breath—
seven years you are warp to my weft.

Only now is this paradise paradise.
Only now is this living a life.
Only now is there greenness and sweetness and air—
lost and found ones, we two, what a pair.

As I lose you, and so lose me,
finding I never had what I thought was free—
how can you take what once you gave?
I asked only love for the life I saved.

Seven years you were warp to my weft.
Seven years, yet you leave me bereft.
Seven years and I have nothing left.

You and I, we were bound up together.
You and I wove a heaven from scars.
You and I turned the darkness and lostness and pain
into something worth living again.

Only you made this paradise paradise;
Only you made this living a life;
Only you gave me greenness and sweetness and air—
All unraveling now, past repair.
 

Songs from the End of the World: 2. Raveling

Songs from the End of the World
music by John Mackey
text by A. E. Jaques
performed by Lindsay Kesselman, soprano, with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Wind Ensemble, conducted by Kevin Geraldi

view the full score here: http://ostimusic.com/Songs.php

I. A long time alone

Dawn draws her rose-red fingers soft across the sleeping sky.
Another day unasked-for, light pinking flesh untouched.

Long ago I loved to watch the water wake 
when first rays raced the waves.
Morning warm-born in a moment.

But the sweetest second sours in solitude.
Forever is a long time alone.

Summer murmurs memory of seasons sweet with cypress.
Seabirds basking idle as the fishes dare to doze.

I used to sing with the insects 
answering slee slee whirrups with trilling airs.
But that was years ago,
before the buzzing buried cicada sounds inside
to rattle in the cluttered attic of never-spoken thoughts.

Even lovely liquid languor spoils.
Forever is a long time alone.

Wade into the wine-dark sea and leave the lonely island; 
let salt swamp tears.
Waters hold you for a while.

Skin gleams warm. Long-fallow flesh awakens 
but the ocean's kiss consumes.
Soon there is no woman—only wave.

So the body brought back rushes out again,
tide and time-taken as all things are.
The sea is not a solace but a cell.

Forever is a long time alone.
 

Songs from the End of the World: 1 . A Long Time Alone

Fanfare for Full Fathom Five
by John Mackey
performed by the Columbus State University Wind Ensemble, conducted by Jamie L. Nix
scored for 6 trumpets, 6 horns, 3 tenor trombones, 2 bass trombones, contrabass trombone, 2 tubas, and 4 percussionists

Full score and program note here: http://ostimusic.com/FullFathom.php

John Mackey: Fanfare For Full Fathom Five

"Foundry" by John Mackey
score viewable here: http://ostimusic.com/Foundry.php

Foundry

ANTIQUE VIOLENCES : Concerto for Trumpet
Movement 2 (and the intro to movement 3)
by John Mackey

MIDI Demo
Commissioned by Michigan State University and The American Bandmasters Association
To premiere March 2017, CBDNA convention, Kansas City. Justin Emerich, trumpet.

Four movements in total, each depicting a type of violence.  This movement (movement 2), featuring piccolo trumpet, portrays the social violence of the royal court.

Score available here: http://ostimusic.com/pdf/mvt2and3-SCORE.pdf

John Mackey: Antique Violences - mvt. 2 - DEMO

ANTIQUE VIOLENCES : Concerto for Trumpet
Movement 1
by John Mackey

MIDI Demo
Commissioned by Michigan State University and The American Bandmasters Association
To premiere March 2017, CBDNA convention, Kansas City. Justin Emerich, trumpet.

Four movements in total, each depicting a type of violence. This movement (movement 1), portrays military violence, and imagines if the Revolutionary War had been fought against... I don't know. Where is the music modal and in 13/8? Macedonia?

Score available here: ostimusic.com/pdf/Mvt1-SCORE.pdf

John Mackey: Antique Violences - Mvt 1 demo

"Liminal" by John Mackey
performed by the Abilene Christian University Wind Ensemble, conducted by Steven Ward

John Mackey's homage to progressive metal - specifically the simultaneous mixed-meters of bands like Tool.
Liminality is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. During a ritual's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold" between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the ritual establishes.

View the full score here: http://ostimusic.com/Liminal.php

John Mackey: LIMINAL

THIS CRUEL MOON
by John Mackey

performed by the University of Texas Wind Ensemble
conducted by Jerry Junkin

This piece is an adaptation of the middle movement of "Wine-Dark Sea: Symphony for Band." The full symphony tells the tale of Odysseus and his journey home following his victory in the Trojan War. But Odysseus' journey would take as long as the war itself. Homer called the ocean on which Odysseus sailed a wine-dark sea, and for the Greek king it was as murky and disorienting as its name; he would not find his way across it without first losing himself.

"This Cruel Moon" is the song of the beautiful and immortal nymph Kalypso, who finds Odysseus near death, washed up on the shore of the island where she lives all alone. She nurses him back to health, and sings as she moves back and forth with a golden shuttle at her loom. Odysseus shares her bed; seven years pass. The tapestry she began when she nursed him becomes a record of their love.

But one day Odysseus remembers his home. He tells Kalypso he wants to leave her, to return to his wife and son. He scoffs at all she has given him. Kalypso is heartbroken.

And yet, that night, Kalypso again paces at her loom. She unravels her tapestry and weaves it into a sail for Odysseus. In the morning, she shows Odysseus a raft, equipped with the sail she has made and stocked with bread and wine, and calls up a gentle and steady wind to carry him home. Shattered, she watches him go; he does not look back.

for score and other info, please visit:http://ostimusic.com/ThisCruelMoon.php

MACKEY : This Cruel Moon

Live recording of the world premiere,
Senzoku Wind Symphony, conducted by Jerry Junkin

Full score viewable here: http://ostimusic.com/NightGarden.php

As the old, famous philosophical thought experiment muses: if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? The gist of the question, somewhat clichéd in its frequent application, is to ponder whether direct observation is the catalyst for the existence of any phenomenon. John Mackey’s The Night Garden toys with the fringes of this experiment by depicting—in a loosely programmatic way—the goings-on of nature in the late evening, undisturbed by human intervention. As the composer notes, the imagery of the title provided uncommon inspiration for the direction of the piece:

The Night Garden was commissioned by the Senzoku Wind Symphony at the Senzoku Gakuen College of Music in Japan (Masato Ikegami, director), and the tremendous virtuosity and tradition of that ensemble is made immediately apparent in the workings of the piece, which demonstrates remarkable technical dexterity, a substantive architecture, and refined contours that make the piece exceptionally challenging. The piece is a stylistic departure in many ways for Mackey, with innovations in his compositional voice that are striking and mesmerizing. The work, as a whole, is highly textural, with very little in the way of traditional melodies, instead favoring fragmented flourishes of technique and flaring dynamics that give dramatic color shifts in short bursts. In this way, The Night Garden seems less like a typical 21st-century musical composition and more an Impressionist painting, with a vibrant landscape portrayed in visible brushstrokes.

The composition unfolds in a long arch, with a symmetrical form that brings earlier elements back in reverse order. It opens with a quick, lilting 6/8 introduction that evokes a classic sensation of pastoral themes set atop a shimmering background. After a brief flirtation with a tune in clarinet that evaporates just as quickly as it appears, this bouncy introduction resolves and gives way to a moto perpetuo in the piano – a crystalline skittering of sixteenth notes that floats unassumingly underneath capricious scalar interjections from woodwinds. These layer atop each other, with progressive frequency, building up the texture and excitement, assisted by slowly shifting, but increasingly crunchy harmonies reminiscent of late minimalist composers such as John Adams. A release of tension, and a change to the piano ostinato, introduces the reflective central section of the work where a mist-like web of harmonies gives way to a melody in bassoon. This, the first and only fully-developed melody in the piece, is taken up by trumpet and eventually the whole of the ensemble, before receding back into the constant of the piano. A repetition of the first moto perpetuo follows fairly true to its original, but this time becoming even more emphatic at its climactic moments, pressing into the tension and release of sliding fifths in a cathartic release. The mist returns at the coda, with a gentle oscillation of flutes joining the piano to reminisce on the introductory motivic fragments, before dissipating into a sparkle in the final moments. Like a garden illuminated by moonlight, its magical beauty has become tranquil once more.

- program note by Jake Wallace

MACKEY: The Night Garden - world premiere

"Snarl" - by John Mackey
for concert band, grade 2-2.5
Recorded by the Arizona State University Wind Ensemble, conducted by Jason Caslor

In March 2016, I attended a rehearsal featuring students from the United Sound mentoring program - a program to encourage musicians with special needs to play side by side with general education musicians in the same ensemble. The empathy I experienced in that room was overwhelming. I cried, regained my composure, and asked if I could write a piece for United Sound.  The result is “Snarl.”

Everyone gets picked on at some point - I know I did, especially in gym class. It’s a horrible feeling.  “Snarl” refuses to be bullied, from the opening saxophone section multiphonic, to the flutter-tongued winds and the crashes of cymbals.

“Snarl” is a gift to United Sound in thanks for making those mentored students feel not only special, but strong.

MACKEY: Snarl

"The Rumor of a Secret King"
by John Mackey
performed by the Allen High School Wind Ensemble, conducted by Phil Obado
full score and other info here: http://ostimusic.com/RumorBand.php

MACKEY : The Rumor Of A Secret King (band version)

"Sacred Spaces" by John Mackey
commissioned by the United States Army Field Band
Colonel Jim R. Keene, Commander
DEMO recording
Premiere scheduled for July 26, 2019, conducted by Jerry Junkin, at the Texas Bandmasters Association Conference.

MACKEY : Sacred Spaces - Demo

"Until the Scars" by John Mackey
(adapted from "Wine-Dark Sea: Symphony for Band")
performed by the Florida State University Symphonic Band
Patrick Dunnigan, conductor
Full score here: http://johnmackey.com/UntilTheScars.php

MACKEY: Until The Scars

John Mackey is a composer currently based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He's also lived in New York, Austin, Los Angeles, and Ohio, but he prefers not to talk about Ohio.

As a frequent collaborator, John has worked with a diverse range of artists, from the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps to choreographer David Parsons, from the Alvin Ailey Dance Company to the US Olympic Synchronized Swim Team. (The team won a bronze medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics performing to Mackey's work for clarinet and percussion, "Damn.")

John has served as a Meet-The-Composer/American Symphony Orchestra League Composer In Residence with the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphony and with the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra. He has been Composer In Residence at the Vail Valley Music Festival in Vail, Colorado, and in 2005, at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.  He returns to Cabrillo this summer for  performances of his trombone concerto, "Harvest," conducted by Marin Alsop, with trombonist Joseph Alessi of the New York Philharmonic.

John holds degrees from The Juilliard School and The Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with John Corigliano and Donald Erb, respectively.

To entertain himself while procrastinating on commissions, John enjoys photography and road cycling (but not at the same time). You can hear his music and see his photography (mostly of food, and the backs of conductors’ heads) on his website: www.ostimusic.com

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