background music from the video game "Reveal," designed by Marie Lazar.

game website: www.pixelbutterfly.com/reveal.html

Heart Chamber (dark, ominous)

Thornton Symphony Orchestra 
Donald Crockett, conductor 
Chang He, concertmaster

Click here to read more about "Restrung:"
https://tsdoughertycomposer.com/orchestra/#Restrung-Jump

Restrung

Liminal (2018) for orchestra
Performed by the USC Thornton Symphony
Conducted by Donald Crockett
02/23/2018

There exists a period of activity between wakefulness and sleep where the frameworks we use to understand the world around us begin to break down. Liminal (2018) for orchestra explores the concept of in-betweenness from a number of angles, aiming primarily to reflect the psychological behaviors people experience in transitional states. Just as our thoughts can cycle, intrude, drift, or become suddenly focused, musical materials behave in combinations of predictable and unpredictable manners relative to a number of genre contexts.

Liminal (2018) for orchestra

Rictus for Mixed Ensemble
by Dan Caputo

Patrick O'Malley, conductor
Emma McCartney, alto flute
Nick Davies, bass clarinet
Theo Haber, violin
Cristina Basili, cello
Tyler Eschendal, percussion

Rictus (2016) for mixed ensemble explores a range of uneasy and semiconscious mental states through constrained and coerced musical behaviors. Defined as a forced grimace or smile, a rictus is both the face of a person in an undesirable social situation and the result of sudden dismay, discomfort, or dreamlike contentment.

Audio by Adam Borecki and Nick Volpert
http://adamborecki.com/recording

http://www.dancaputo.com

Rictus

Premiered by the USC Thornton Symphony, conducted by Donald Crockett.

Several of my recent pieces concern themselves with dichotomies, or pairs of ideas that push and pull against each other. I find that I have difficulty writing unless I have at least two opposing concepts that I can somehow “compose between.”  Rest and Restless carries this process out with regards to emotional states – I would describe the piece as an “emotional landscape.”  The music slowly alternates, pendulum-like, from low angst-broodings to brighter hopes, back and forth, but without letting either mood "win" over the other. These forces eventually come to a head in a tutti explosion, followed by a stark coda that, to me, feels either optimistic or dejected, depending on what mood I am in. Whenever I try to write this program note my mind keeps coming back to an image of looking out my bedroom window at the evening clouds, my imagination being ignited by the simultaneously serene and troubled shapes of grey. Perhaps the music reflects that fantasy in some emotional fashion.

The piece was originally composed as a solo for double bass for a concert I was giving at university. Without any significant pre-compositional preparations, I set about writing the piece with only a few simple goals in mind: that the piece would be overtly expressive yet interesting to listen to, that it would be manageable for a player to learn quickly, and that it would demand a diverse range of a playing techniques from the single instrument. My decision to orchestrate the piece was based on the impression that the almost constant double stops and high range harmonics on the bass created a texture interesting enough to hear with an orchestral palate. I have tried to preserve the feeling of low, open strings throughout the piece, while adding a greater variety of timbres and layers to the melodic passages.

Rest And Restless (for orchestra)

Duo (2017) for Baritone Saxophones

Performed by Robert Alexander and Isaac López
Cammilleri Hall
University of Southern California
3/8/2018

Audio by Adam Borecki and Nick Volpert
http://adamborecki.com/recording

www.dancaputo.com

Duo (2017) for Baritone Saxophones

felt cute ☺️ might delete later

GLITCH (2019)
for mixed quartet (clarinet, violin, cello, and piano)

Revised quartet version commissioned by Music from Copland House
(Previous piano trio version commissioned by ÆPEX Contemporary Performance)


Performed by Music from Copland House:
Moran Katz (clarinet), Pala Garcia (violin), Alexis Gerlach (cello), and Peggy Kampmeier (piano)

Copland House’s CULTIVATE Residency concert
Merestead, Mt. Kisco, New York - June 9th, 2019


program notes:

GLITCH is a playful take on a record player skipping when playing a track, causing portions to loop unevenly or to be jumped over entirely. While this experience may be frustrating when it happens, it also recontextualizes the material from the existing track, creating a unique listening experience with the same sounds. Using off-kilter and “screwed up” grooves and glitchy ostinato patterns, the piece attempts to portray this sonic phenomenon to take the performers and listeners on a playful, fun, and wild ride.

This work was written for CULTIVATE 2019, Copland House’s emerging composers’ institute, and was premiered by the Music from Copland House ensemble at the Merestead estate in Mount Kisco, NY on June 9, 2019. Many thanks to Music from Copland House for commissioning this piece.

GLITCH

Performed by China National Centre for the Performing Arts Orchestra, conducted by Lü Jia on October 6, 2019 at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Beijing.

Heaven and Earth revive,
and falls the rain upon all.
Breathing the spirit of this world,
grateful.
​
天地复苏
雨落咸安
呼吸万物的气息
感恩

Spiritus 气息 (orchestra)

…remnants… is based on several chord progressions that I composed at different points over the past two years. Memories are often associated with sensory stimuli, and for me the music that arises from these chord progressions is evocative of the various individual moments in time when I first conceived of them. This piece functions as a window into the past, a sonic depiction of reminiscence that encompasses the range of moods and emotions I experienced in my life during those times. To amplify this idea, …remnants… also includes ambient recordings of various spaces that I frequented while composing the piece. I imagine this as a second layer of engagement with the concept of memory: in listening to the piece, you’re hearing not only the music and chord progressions that I’ve associated with different points in my past, but also the soundscapes that I experienced while in the process of composing the work itself—a new memory in its own right.

Performed by Front Porch:
Benjamin Jackson - Violin
Maddy Wildman - Bassoon
Karalyn Schubring - Piano/MIDI Keyboard
Jacob Rogers - Percussison/MIDI Keyboard

...remnants...; for violin, bassoon, piano, percussion, and electronics

"Triboluminescence" is an optical phenomenon in which light is generated through the breaking of chemical bonds when a material undergoes frictional contact, such as being crushed, ripped, scratched, or rubbed. It is famously observable when crunching on Wint-O-Green Life Savers in front of a mirror in the dark. While this piece is not programmatic, I imagine its gestures and morphing sound-world as being evocative of the phenomenon--exploring the conundrum of a material being battered and deformed in various ways, yet somehow ending up transformed into a more luminous state.

Performed by the Indiana University New Music Ensemble

Triboluminescence; for sinfonietta

Patrick O’Malley is a composer of orchestral, chamber, and media music. He is inspired by mysterious dichotomies in nature and art, writing music that often embraces abstract worlds and emotions rather than concrete images. Through balancing challenging techniques and traditional expression, O’Malley’s goal is to ignite the listener’s imagination and memory in enduring ways. His works have been performed across the United States and also in Europe.

Most recently, O’Malley has been recognized or performed by organizations including the Albany, Minnesota, Ft. Wayne, and Milwaukee Symphonies, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s National Composer Intensive, The ASCAP Morton Gould Award, and The Aaron Copland House Residency. He was named Composer of the Year by the Sioux City Symphony in 2018, and made his Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Youth Symphony in 2021. O’Malley also serves as the arranger and a conductor for the video game concert series Journey LIVE with composer Austin Wintory. O’Malley completed his masters and doctoral degrees in music at the University of Southern California where he studied with Andrew Norman and Sean Friar. He divides his time between living in Los Angeles California, and Lake Charlevoix, Michigan.

Rest And Restless (for orchestra)

Patrick O'Malley, composer