PAN for oboe and orchestra (2022)

When Chris Wheeler asked me to compose a piece for oboe and orchestra, the word “Pan” was in the air, and I heard it from all directions: Pandemic. Panic. Pandemonium. Panopticon. Pan. 

Pan, the legendary Greek god of the wilderness, half-human half-goat, was the son of Hermes, the trickster god of change. Pan was a tremendous musician, who mainly played pipes, and he was also an expert hunter, a shepherd, and a passionate lover. 

Though his name means “all”, he was often a solitary spirit, who wandered the forests and mountains, alone, and playing music for nymphs to dance.  When traveling through a forest, people would imagine his dark presence, somewhere hiding, and this would often evoke a crescendo of mad fear - panic.  After long woodland jaunts, Pan would nap. If he was rudely awakened, he would bellow and roar and scare people out of their wits.
 
In this piece, I invoke the shadowy spirit of Pan, and slowly crescendo towards a wild tarantella (music played to help a sick person dance out the poison). I’ve always found music to be a universal medicine – 
a panacea - and I wrote this music for oboist Chris Wheeler, and conductor Nan Washburn, and the Michigan Philharmonic, in hopes that we may all face the darkness with dance

~es

"Sometimes I forget completely what companionship is.
Unconscious and insane, I spill sad energy everywhere.
My story gets told in various ways: a romance, a dirty joke, a war, a vacancy.
Divide up my forgetfulness to any number, it will go around.
These dark suggestions that I follow, are they part of some plan?
Friends, be careful. Don’t come near me out of curiosity, or sympathy."

~Rumi (transl. Coleman Barks)

This is the recording of the electrifying premiere performance with the Michigan Philharmonic, 4/22/2023

Thanks to Toko for the fantastic cover art.

PAN for Oboe and Orchestra (2022)- Premiere Performance

Please feel free to download!

Jeffrey Chappell, piano
Sebrina Maria Alfonso, conductor
The Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra is the result of a commissioning consortium  -- six orchestras, their music directors, and four pianists joined me in planning this work for premiere during the 1994-95 concert season.  The four pianists were Michael Arnowitt (Montpelier, VT), Jeffrey Chappell (Washington, DC), Robert Palmer (Muncie, IN), and Ron Levy (Woodcliff Lake, NJ).  Following is a list of the orchestras who participated in the piano concerto consortium, their music directors and the three pianists who premiered the work in 1995:

• Fairfax Symphony Orchestra
William Hudson, Music Director; Jeffrey Chappell, piano 
	
• Muncie Symphony Orchestra
Leonard Atherton, Music Director; Robert Palmer, piano 
	
• Goucher Chamber Symphony
Sebrina Alfonso, Music Director; Jeffrey Chappell, piano 

• University of Vermont Symphony Orchestra
David Davenport, Music Director; Michael Arnowitt, piano 
	
• Frederick Symphony Orchestra
Sebrina Alfonso, Music Director; Jeffrey Chappell, piano 
	
• Missouri Symphony Society
Hugo Vianello, Music Director; Jeffrey Chappell, piano 

The concerto is presented in four movements, preceded by an introductory Invocation for solo piano that briefly presents the musical building blocks upon which the four movements are based.  

The gentle Invocation is followed by the explosive first movement, Toccata (hell-bent), which asks the pianist to explore and exploit the full range of the piano keyboard with unrelenting vigor.  

The second movement, Invention (quirky) - Dance (elegant), contrasts the somewhat eccentric, angular rhetoric of the imitative Invention with a graceful and more conventionally melodic Dance.  

The romantic, expansive third movement, Rhapsody (tender), unabashedly invokes beauty and pathos in the spirit of the late 19th-century concerto. 

Employing a variety of orchestral textures and tempi, the fourth and final movement, Ebullition (zesty), finds the piano weaving its way through now familiar musical materials as it pushes inexorably towards the concerto’s conclusion. 

The musical language of the concerto orbits several simple melodic and harmonic cells that are developed both tonally (Invocation, Rhapsody, Dance), and not-so-tonally (Toccata, Invention, Ebullition).  The juxtaposition of these two harmonic “spins” sets up a sonic platform conducive to exhibiting the vast range and versatility of the piano -- not to mention the impressive virtuosity of the pianist.  

The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra is dedicated with thanks to my colleague and friend, composer Ellen Lindquist.

Score and parts available directly from James Grant:
jim@jamesgrantmusic.com


CONCERTO FOR PIANO | I.Toccata

Performed by WWU student ensemble at COW concert, 2005.

Sonata for Chamber Ensemble (2005)

A composer, vocalist, and genre-spanning collaborator, Hanna Benn has been creating music for over a decade. Her multi-disciplinary approach incorporates dance, opera, and theater — submerging boundaries and discovering new sonic landscapes in the process. With roots in gospel and choral music, Benn began exploring music as both an intimate and collective experience at an early age.

Benn's voice carries the crispness of cathedral tones — the sensuality of her sacred sonic corpus mixes with a clarity that rushes ambiguity out through stained glass windows. Able to take clearly delineated genres, deconstruct them, and then unify them in her work, Benn creates pieces that are simultaneously accessible and profound, elevated and organic, sacred and common.

She wrote and recorded work on Son Lux's "Bones" album and toured with Boots (who has produced Beyoncé, FKA Twigs, and Run the Jewels). Her commissioned work and compositions have been performed across the country, from a five-hour opera and dance performance in collaboration with Alice Gosti and the Northwest Symphony Orchestra to a composition celebrating Black American composers with Davida Ingram and the North Chamber Orchestra. She recently completed a residency at Central State in Indianapolis where she wrote much of her debut EP.

Divide (Sing, Persist)

Walnut Creek, California - June 2018
Niko Yamamoto: accordion, electronics

invocation (2018)

Many thanks to everyone that gave me input and lent an ear on this one. 

Lift the Sun on Hype Machine! Give it some love please ❤️❤️❤️ 
https://hypem.com/track/2veg8/Bels+Lontano+-+Lift+The+Sun

The cover art is by the incredible Jei Kobu

Follow me and share this track!
Instagram: www.instagram.com/belslontano/
Twitter: twitter.com/belslontano

Lift The Sun

Terrorist Dynamics (American Sketch No. 1)

This song was written with the deepest love for my grandmother Emma Kale and her identical twin, my great aunt Edith Shear. I beg of the listener to light the way for one another on this Earth. It is part of a larger song cycle, "Don't say a word." The text is:

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
And you twinkle, twinkle all through the night.

Light your earthly sister,
All through the night.

Music copyright (c) Annika K. Socolofsky 2019. ASCAP. All rights reserved.

Recorded by Andrés Villalta at the Princeton Sound Kitchen, Taplin Auditorium, Princeton University on October 15, 2019.

Like a diamond (2019) // Annika Socolofsky & Latitude 49

Multitrack recording by Derek Charke (flutes). A minimal and meditative work for flute quintet centred on F. 3 C flutes, alto flute and bass flute.

Five Lines for flute quintet

Live recording by Michael Kieran Harvey and Timothy Phillips.
Creativity Unlimited, Western Sydney University, September 2, 2016

Brake Dance (Excerpt)

Patrick Harlin’s “aesthetics capture a sense of tradition and innovation…” (The New York Times). His music is permeated by classical, jazz, and electronic music traditions, all underpinned with a love and respect for the great outdoors. His works have been performed by the St. Louis Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, the Rochester and Calgary Philharmonic Orchestras, Collegium Cincinnati, and Calidore String Quartet, among others.  Patrick was recently chosen as the inaugural composer in residence with the Lansing  Symphony Orchestra (2019-2022).
 
Patrick’s interdisciplinary research in soundscape ecology—a field that aims to better understand ecosystems through sound—has taken him to imperiled regions around the world, including the Amazon rainforest and the Book Cliffs of Utah. His baseline recordings for ecological impact studies are also the fodder for artistic inspiration. These pieces draw parallels between the sounds of the natural world and those of the concert hall, seeking to bring awareness to the importance of sound in our environment.
 
Patrick’s work in this field has been supported by a Graham Sustainability Institute Doctoral Fellowship, Theodore Presser Award, and a University of Michigan Predoctoral Fellowship, resulting in an ongoing body of works called The Wilderness Anthology. 
​
Recent CD releases include American Rapture by the Rochester Philharmonic, My Time is Now featuring #tbt and the premiere recording using George Gershwin's Steinway piano, and River of Doubt with the Atlantic Classical Orchestra.   
​
Patrick holds a B.Mus from Western Washington University, and an M.M. and D.M.A. from the University of Michigan.  He has studied with Alexei Girsh, Roger Briggs, Evan Chambers, Bright Sheng, and Michael Daugherty.  He  was raised in Seattle, Washington, and is currently an adjunct faculty member at the University of Michigan.