Suite for String Orchestra
Duration: 15'
For More Information: https://robertpaterson.com/suite-for-string-orchestra
Publisher: Bill Holab Music: http://www.billholabmusic.com/composers/robert-paterson/
Purchase Sheet Music: http://billholabmusic.com/store/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=%22suite+for+string+orchestra%22

PROGRAM NOTE
Unlike some of my previous works, Suite for String Orchestra is not inspired by an over-arching programmatic theme. Although there are some technical and motivic relationships between some of the movements—particularly the first and fifth—the movements are generally unrelated and are meant to be noticeably distinct. It is in five short movements and is intentionally written in an “old-fashioned,” somewhat archaic style. I initially played around with the idea of titling this work Old-fashioned Suite or Old Time Suite, but there seems to be a sufficient sprinkling of “new fangled ideas” in this work to make these alternative titles seem inadequate.

The first movement, Allegro vivace, is written in a “mid-20th century American” style. My model for a few of the sections in this movement is the evocative, German phrase Sturm und Drang, which literally translated means “storm and stress.”

In the second movement, Trapped waltz, I imagine an ethereal, yet cognizant waltz floating above the stratosphere, looking for a place to rest, but hobbled and shackled by a pounding rock and roll drumset. I see this as a metaphor for the various dances throughout history that have come and gone but are continually vying for attention in contemporary culture. The movement fades out at the end, as if the waltz is eternally looking for a place to settle down. Admittedly, I was somewhat inspired by the collage works of Charles Ives.

The third movement, Nocturne, begins slowly and sadly, and I imagine the pulse in the beginning as similar to the gentle breathing of someone who is asleep. The middle of the movement is much more intense and violent, and the end is as soft and calm as the beginning. The first chair violin and the first chair violoncello have brief solos in this movement.

Although material from the middle of the fourth movement, Balinese scherzo, is derived from a Balinese scale, the beginning is somewhat chromatic and the ending is essentially based on the E-major scale. This movement is distinctive in that the orchestra is asked to play pizzicato almost the entire time.

The fifth movement, Finale: allegro moderato, is the movement that is most reminiscent of the first movement. The ending combines material from the beginning of both the first and fifth movements.

Suite For String Orchestra - V. Finale: allegro moderato

Thanks for visiting. 
What's new:  I have completed my violin sonata. It is posted first in line to your left.  My new symphony, "Symphony for Chamber Orchestra," is posted and waiting for you.  rjb

Scores and parts for many of my works are available from my publisher Creative Spirit Music Publications. Go to  https://www.creativespiritonline.com and select "Robert John Brooks." There, you can also follow the score while listening to a recording.

My music is fully notated and is intended for live performance by live musicians.

After completing my doctorate in composition in 1979 from UNT, I took 30 years off from composing to join the computer software revolution as a software engineer.  In 2010 I began composing again and have not stopped. So, I find myself beginning (restarting?) a composition career rather late in life...but that's OK.  Most of the works posted here were written since 2010. 

Thanks for visiting.

Instrumental guitar-based duo, Jerred Seveyka and Bret Tobalske.

Douglas Boyce writes chamber music that draws on Medieval and Renaissance traditions and modernist aesthetics, building rich rhythmic structures that shift between order, fragmentation, elegance, and ferocity.  His approach is deeply historical and broadly philosophical.  Many of his works have an direct historical touchstone, such as his  Etude on 'Pymalion qui moult subtilz estoit' (A Book of Etudes, Quire 4, No. 1) which features quotations of and elaborations on music from 15th century Cyprus, or La Deploration for clarinet, violin, and cello, which couples Josquin's lament on the death of Ockeghem with works of his own teacher Robert Suderburg, synthesizing jazz and Renaissance approaches. Other works draw on sources from antiquity, such as the string quartet Alcyone, a partially spoken setting of a tale of Ovid's Metamorphoses, or Tethys, a violin concerto which links the sea-goddess to geological time and tectonic change.
Literature and philosophy are also significant points of articulation: The Winter Journey, a current project commissioned from the ensemble Yarn|wire, is based on a short story by George Perec; the story itself  takes the form of a 19th century fairytale of memory and loss, and so the new composition will involve transformation of the French and German art-song tradition of the 19th and early 20th century. A song cycle focused on settings of American poets (Jorie Graham, BJ Ward, Wallace Stevens) entwines with the poems fragments from philosophers (James, Aristotle, Husserl, Bergson). The piano trio 'Fortuitous Variations' draws upon the language of William James and C.S. Peirce in inspiration, organization, character markings, and movement titles. This approach and the works themselves connect to many aspects of the scholarship in the humanities, including history, anthropology, literary studies, and philosophy. 
His works have been praised many times in the press.  Regarding his Quintet “l’homme armé”, Allan Kozinn wrote “he couches [the medieval melody] in such thoroughly modern scoring that the ear is lured to other things, including the juxtaposition of eerie string writing with playful material for the clarinet and piano, or the lively interplay among all five instruments.” (The New York Times March 12, 2005.) Regarding A Book of Songs (2006), the Stephen Brookes wrote “[they] can only be described as drop-dead beautiful. Easily the most captivating works on the program, these songs of love and death are extraordinarily well written and insightful.” (The Washington Post May 23, 2006)  Regarding La Déploration, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim wrote that "...the violinist, cellist... and clarinetist... spread out throughout the crypt. Against vaporous harmonics and ghostly fragments of Renaissance music played by the strings, [a] warm, clear clarinet announced itself as very much alive as it sashayed in and out of blues territory and laughed in the face of their mournful keening." (The New York Times May 17, 2015.)
He has been awarded the League of Composers ISCM Composers Award (2005), the Salvatore Martirano Prize (2006), and the Robert Avalon Prize (2010), and a Fromm Commission (2012). He is a MacDowell Fellow in Winter 2017, and an Avaloch Music Farm Fellow in Fall 2017. His music has been performed by  counter)induction, Aeolus Quartet, Inscape Chamber Orchestra, Redlight Music, Dan Lippel, Robert Baker, Trio Cavatina, Edge Ensemble/Contemporary Music Forum (DC), pianists Ieva Jokubaviciute (Shenandoah University), Alice Belem (State University of Minas Gerais), and Ning Yu; cellists Elise Pittenger (Federal University of Minas Gerais) and Schuyler Slack (Richmond Symphony) and Lori Barnett (George Washington University); and clarinetists David Jones (Washington National Opera), Benjamin Fingland (Dorian Winds).
He is a founding member, curator, and composer-in-residence of counter)induction, a composer/performer collective active in the New York region (www.counterinduction.com).

*Thank you all for your kind support*

Happy 2025

I play strings and I like arranging music.

American composer Robert Paterson is a true New Yorker—born and bred in Buffalo, he lived in Rochester and Ithaca for over ten years, in New York City for over twenty years, and now lives in Saratoga Springs, near the Adirondacks. Paterson’s colorful music embraces a wide variety of themes, everything from goddesses and online dating to mathematics and the environment. His music is filled with emotion and fierce rhythmic energy, marked by elegance, wit, and meticulous craftsmanship. Named Composer of The Year by the Classical Recording Foundation at Carnegie Hall, Paterson is the winner of the Alfred I. DuPont Award, and his opera Three Way won the Grammy® under Best Classical Producer of the Year. His music is often a Best of the Year pick on National Public Radio. His orchestral tone poem, Dark Mountains, regularly airs on NPR’s Performance Today. Three Way premiered with Nashville Opera, then BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), and across the United States. Minnesota Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, The Oratorio Society of New York, Buffalo Philharmonic, Albany Pro Musica, Albany Symphony, Musica Sacra, Austin Symphony, Vermont Symphony, and ensembles worldwide perform his works. Paterson gives masterclasses at the Curtis Institute of Music, New York University, the Aspen Music Festival, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and more. He is the Artistic Director and house composer for Mostly Modern Projects. Robert is a lifelong vegan and advocates for animals and the environment, celebrating the natural world with ground-breaking works such as his Triple Concerto, A New Eaarth, Listen, and I Go Among Trees.

I knew at an early age that music would be a part of my life forever. In music I found my self-esteem and a way to make people feel. I began singing in public at nine years old and playing drums at thirteen.  In the tenth grade I auditioned to play drums and percussion with the South Georgia College and got the "gig". I performed in many musical productions there until I graduated high school and joined the army.  I continued performing in the NCO clubs while serving.
After obtaining the G.I. Bill I attended the University of South Carolina, where I played with several local bands. In 1982 I graduated college and taught special education until retirement last May. There, I witnessed the magic of music through my students.
I now enjoy the peace and solitude of a farm in the middle of "God's Country" here in Tennessee. With much help from family and friends, I am able to share my original songs with you.
I sincerely thank you for taking a bit of your time with me. I hope you receive a blessing from a song or two and as you listen, I hope you hear my heart in each and every one.  Tony

H.A.R.A
This is my first music project, were I started learning how to make and record music by my own. I tried and tried, and Im still trying…
Thank you for listening. God bless you all.

Matthiaz has based his entire musical career on contrast, polarization, the storm that destroys you and the calm that heals you. The Indonesian artist is a true organic piano music alchemist, he is able to delve into soundscapes of ambient.

Suite For String Orchestra - V. Finale: allegro moderato

Robert Paterson Composer