Date completed: spring 2013

Duration: 7'30"

Instrumentation: bass clarinet (dbl Bb clarinet), harp, violin, and cello

Recording: East Coast Contemporary Ensemble (ECCE) at the 2013 Etchings Festival in Auvillar, France

Vacuum of the Mind (2013)

We're Finally Landing

"distance, reminiscence, flow...thousands of crickets
or frogs
or one"

–dedicated to Lee

Recorded in performance, 5/17/15, Northwestern University
Ryan Dohoney, voice; Deidre Huckabay, bass flute; Erin Cameron, bass clarinet; Nick Meryhew, trombone

Night Chorus

Performance by Patchwork (Noa Even and Stephen Klunk), 
Spectrum NYC, June 12, 2016

Program Note:
When I was a teenager, I had a fascination with progressive rock, a genre that emphasizes technical precision and rhythmic complexity. Often the eclectic and wildly contrasting sections that comprise its long form songs are stitched together with short interludes. These are frequently unrelated to the sections they bridge, but nevertheless have recurring tactics: rhythmic unisons, repeating and gradually lengthening melodies, and sudden, incongruent silences. "Interstitch" expands on these tropes, creating a whole piece out of transition material inspired by "prog rock" classics.

Interstitch (2014)

Performed by Empyrean Ensemble:
Jeff Anderle, clarinet/bass clarinet
Hrabba Atladottir, violin
Megan Shieh, percussion


The initial concept for this piece comes from a niche community that is dedicated to completing video games as fast as possible, a recording or play-through of which is known as a "speedrun". Speedruns are mainly attempted for the purposes of entertainment and competition. Running a game requires technical mastery, lots of practice to reach that level of mastery, planning and execution, stretching boundaries of what is possible/practical, and extending interest through new objectives. A great run meets these goals while displaying creativity, variability, surprising outcomes, and a very high level of handling awkward situations efficiently. These qualities are desirable in many other areas, including the creation of art. In some ways, speed runs do approximate a sort of art form--they can be balletic in some cases, showing beautiful movement and coordination. Some require a degree of improvisation when strategies do not go as planned. And some particularly broken games--that is, games whose speed runs utilize so many glitches and sequence breaks that very little of the original, developer-intended gameplay remains--are weirdly wonderful to watch.

There is a further subcategory of speedruns known as "playarounds," which make some speed sacrifices in order to increase the entertainment value. In writing this piece, I've sought to embody the aesthetic of such runs, subverting local goals and curbing climaxes while messing about and eventually reaching the intended ending, but not without some weird detours.

PS--This is originally titled "Playaround" because it is more in line with this specific subcategory of speed runs in terms of my thinking about its formal design and aesthetic. The concert production team changed the title, but I had also considered using the title they changed it to, so I left it alone.

Speed Run (2016) for clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, & percussion

Jesse Langen, guitar; Mabel Kwan, piano and toy piano; Meret Bitticks, piccolo; Shanna Gutierrez, bass flute

Ich ruf zu dir (I call to thee) is a musical collage in constant metamorphosis. The musical material begins with my own work then slowly incorporates two pieces by J.S. Bach, his church Cantata BWV 177, Ich ruf zu dir Herr Jesu Christ, first performed in Leipzig, July 6, 1732, and Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 639 from his Orgelbüchlein collection of 46 chorale preludes for organ composed from 1708-1717. The chorale preludes are a collection of organ music for church services, a treatise on composition, a religious statement and a pedagogical manual. Rolled chords heard in the guitar part are derived from the chords in the chorale. Rhythmic motives, gestures, and ornamentation are derived from the cantata. The kaleidoscopic and dense textures, and the rhythmically frenetic moments in a low register slowly traverse through rough terrain to reveal recognizable fragments of Bach’s works.  A more literal quotation of the organ chorale at the end with piccolo, bass flute and toy piano acts as a calming force, a call, perhaps from a lost child, is heard and answered.

Ich ruf zu dir for guitar and piano; piccolo, bass flute and toy piano

Stephen Hartke - Cancel my Rumba Lessons, with Richard Faria and Xak Bjerken

Performed by Ensemble Itinéraire, Dir : Mark Foster
Recorded live at Radio-France, Paris on February 23rd, 2007


Charleston (2005/2007) for fifteen instruments

Hi, potential listeners! I'm a composer in Boston whose musical interests include dense/transparent counterpoint, coincidental theatre, improvisation, non-linear narratives, forced audience participation, and purposefully inaccurate quotation, among others.

Speed Run (2016) for clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, & percussion

PaulWatkins

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