May 6th, 2015
Northwestern University Saxophone Ensemble
Thomas Snydacker, conducting

Watch here:
https://youtu.be/9WUA9gNfHUU

"and but so" is a work for ten saxophones. The title references a language tick of David Foster Wallace. It also neatly represents the primary rhythm used in the piece, 3+3+2. The piece is in a series of three connected sections, each preceded by the chordal progression they are based on. The first section is jazz-inflected, the second is a classical ballad, and the third references pop-rock, showing off the range of genres the saxophone has been used in. The piece was written collaboratively with the ensemble, with a new section being brought in and read through for 3 consecutive weeks, until the final product was put together.

and but so (sax ensemble)

Aidan Manaligod, solo alto saxophone
Taichi Fukumura, conducting

"Lamento Variations" is a saxophone concerto of stylistic expression. It starts with a source material from Monteverdi’s Eighth Book of Madrigals, “Lamento della ninfa”. This is one of the earliest examples of an Andalusian Cadence (i-VII-VI-V), a chord progression that has since crossed genre borders like no other. Each variation takes Monteverdi’s melody and spins in a new style, ranging from Pachelbel to Led Zeppelin and plenty in between.

Youtube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaBg78ws4-k
Composition information: https://pauseforfermata.wordpress.com/compositions/lamento-variations/

*Please note, for headphone listeners especially. There was a recording error, and so the recording switches into a mono recording halfway through.

Lamento Variations

Sean Whitworth and Gillian Huff, trumpets

Recorded in Alice Millar Chapel on 3.16.16.

Fanfare for a Renaissance

Daniel Brottman, mellophone
Max Briggs, sousaphone
Austin Busch, djembe

 nTransit was inspired by the sound of brasshouse, a genre that imitates the energy of electronic music with brass and percussion instruments suitable for acoustic performance in subways or other public spaces. As the piece progresses, it relies more and more heavily on improvisation from the players, until they improvise a call and response completely away from the written page. It's short, it's brash, and it's catchy, meant to provide a small dose of raving into the lives of people with somewhere to be.

nTransit

DaJuan Brooks, basset horn

This piece uses a loose rhythm and open fourths and fifths to evoke the feeling of observing the heavens on a clear night. It is named after an astronomical text from 10th-Century Persia by Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, one of the earliest texts to describe the constellations systematically.

Book Of Fixed Stars

An excerpt from "Missa Solemnis", currently in progress.

Agnus Dei

Vincent Povázsay, coducting
Aidan Manaligod, soprano saxophone
Karen Zhang, alto saxophone
Daniel Kim, tenor saxophone
Eric Zheng, baritone saxophone

“and but so” is a work for ten saxophones. The title references a language tick of David Foster Wallace. It also neatly represents the primary rhythm used in the piece, 3+3+2. The piece is in a series of three connected sections, each preceded by the chordal progression they are based on. The first section is jazz-inflected, the second is a classical ballad, and the third references pop-rock, showing off the range of genres the saxophone has been used in. The piece was written collaboratively with the ensemble, with a new section being brought in and read through for 3 consecutive weeks, until the final product was put together.

and but so (strings and sax quartet)

Vincent Povázsay, conducting

“Calligraffiti” is intended to resemble a DJ mix, using solely acoustic instruments to emulate the electronically produced sounds typical of the genre. In keeping with standard electronica practice, the piece is built using samples of other composers’ works, inserted into a modular framework of remixes of my own previous works and new original tunes. A solid tempo is held throughout, while rhythms and grooves shift with each new section. Each composer is sampled once, although these samples sometimes recur throughout the piece. This technique is quite similar to the layering of orchestral excerpts in Berio’s “Sinfonia”. The piece also includes specific references to the Electronic Dance Music canon, such as the use of the ‘amen break’ drum groove, commonly used in hip hop. I focused particularly on work presented through BBC Radio 1’s Essential Mix, where more freedom is given to the performer to make concept-driven music without the usual dance considerations. The musical material, while originally from quite fragmented sources, blends together into a coherent whole as the piece progresses. The piece seeks to connect the two genres of classical music and electronica, using the tropes of EDM to recontextualize the warhorses of classical repertoire, as well as providing a human element for what is ordinarily computer-generated music.

Calligraffiti (full orchestra)

Danny Mui, bass clarinet
Jeffrey Leung, baritone saxophone

Premiered 5.4.16 @ Galvin Recital Hall, Northwestern University

Titled after the well known pangram commonly used to test font choices, focuses on a ground bass of three ascending notes, built up throughout the piece with shifting foreground material and complicated meter changes. Both instruments play simultaneously nearly throughout, trading accompaniment and melodic focus. This material carries the piece through a myriad of meter changes, defying rhythmic expectation  while maintaining a certain flow throughout.

https://pauseforfermata.wordpress.com/compositions/quick-brown-fox/

Quick Brown Fox

Recorded 5.7.16
in a reading with Third Coast Percussion.

this is how we fly

Premiered by the Spektral Quartet
on 4.9.17 @ Galvin Recital Hall.

Grooves and Glides combines the perfect, mechanized repetition allowed by computers with the layered idiosyncrasies of human tendencies. Overlapping transcriptions of seven drum loops are used as its source material, found in a library of live-sampled performers of various genres. Each loop is transcribed to the notes of a pentatonic scale, assigning each drum to a relatively corresponding range. These transcriptions are then looped, with various sections cut out, added, or augmented. The transcriptions work through the circle of fifths, starting and ending with the set of open strings.

video: https://youtu.be/EDgOZOxqy24
website: https://pauseforfermata.wordpress.com/compositions/grooves-and-glides/

Grooves and Glides

Austin Busch is a composition major at Northwestern University.

pauseforfermata

Popular tracks