"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

キングダムオープニングテーマ (Kingudamuōpuningutēma)

"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

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

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

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Bernard Haitink, conductor
Paul Lewis, piano
Neeme Järvi, conductor

Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 19 (October 2018)

NEC Philharmonia, conducted by Hugh Wolff, performs Shostakovich's Concerto No. 1 for Cello in E-flat Major, op. 107. This performance features cellist Claire Deokyong Kim '21, winner of the NEC Concerto Competition.

Shostakovich Cello Concerto - Moderato

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

John Mackey: LIMINAL

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