Winter. The season of joy, relaxation, and social 
gatherings. Many people, including myself, enjoy this 
part of the year very much. In this work, I wanted to 
bring the audience into a soundscape of those wintry 
nights by the fireplace, hearing the crackling of the logs 
burning, sipping a nice hot cup of hot chocolate, and 
looking out over a landscape of white snow. The piece 
name “Arctic Overlap” refers to the Arctic region of Earth, 
where it is always in perpetual winter. The quiet and 
barren biome is quite peaceful, seeing the haze amongst 
the sunlight, and the sprinkle of snowflakes. Imagine 
being away from the noisy metropolitan areas and
soaking in all that mother nature has to offer. A QR code 
can be found in the score. It will take you to a 
website filled with winter paintings painted by artist 
Claude Monet. I took visual inspiration from these 
paintings to structure the piece and to use timbres of the 
specified instruments in this ensemble, which is why the 
forces are so unique. Between the sweet, twinkly sound 
of the celesta and the soothing timbre of the alto flute, 
this piece will take you to the heart of the north (or 
south) pole!

Arctic Overlap

Quattuor Motus is a piece of music that takes you through an array of emotions in the span of four movements. Each movement name has an adjective describing the general emotion of the movement. Even
the title itself “Quattuor Motus” is a Latin phrase. Translated to English, it means “Four Movements.” Through specific harmonic, rhythmic, technical, and orchestration choices, each emotion is grasped using the piano alone in various ways.

III. Raucous

II. Doldrums

I. Pert

It’s party time! The Whirlygig is a fun, whimsical, and memorable short piece that utilizes idiomatic techniques for the saxophone. Some of these techniques include pitch bends, glissandos, and slap tonguing. From beginning to end, I wanted to put the listeners of this
piece in the center of the popular party that everyone talks about. The music is the party after all. Near the end, things go south as the party is crashed due to an unforeseen event and causes everything to stop. Then the awkward silence hits. But things quickly resume to
normal operation and all is merry. Throughout the piece, there are, as many people call catchy melodies, “earworm” melodies, just like you would find in a real-life party setting with the music. Sometimes the music is adrenaline-rushing and it makes you feel alive, like the
opening melodic motive of The Whirlygig. Other times the music scares you unexpectedly, like the shift during the middle portion of the piece. All in all, the piece keeps its groove and entertainment up until the party crash. But then it quickly resumes! The night is still young!

The Whirlygig

The glaciers of an arctic biome have always been a place of barren open land, with little life to be found. However, I find it one of the most relaxing and pleasing biomes to imagine being in and take in the surroundings it has to offer. Between the heavy snow under your feet, keeping you on the surface firmly, to the thick layers if ice holding you up, preventing you from falling through, to the musty sound of the wind howling in the distance, the glaciers of mountain ranges are a peaceful zone of Earth, unless you cause an avalanche. The glaciers are a gateway of hope and rejuvenation from the rest of the drab, unconventional world. It confuses those who are not worthy of understanding the value of nature, and thus blocks them from the light of seeing the good of the world, because they are the reason why it is not as good as it can be. The text for this piece is from the poem “Body That I Bring to You in Winter” by Lynne Knight.
The poem is as follows:

There was more snow than usual
those winters, as if Nature had contrived
to complicate things for the painters,

confuse their eyes while they tried
to paint light becoming light
With the speed of the body becoming

lover—lifted from the ordinary
into radiant particles. How their bodies
must have ached as they waited

under swirling flakes to paint more
snow effects, sometimes the snow
itself, falling over trees, fields
that break down into brush strokes
when I move in close, until I can smell
the oils, feel how a body loses

heat. If I were Sisley, I’d have to atop
a minute, coax the cold from my fingers.
But I’d want to keep going. Love

cries are the same in any language.
Look: they break open like light, they go on
long after the body turns to winter.

Glacial Gateway

Forlorn Valley

Synergized Backrooms

Trebor

Withered Bastion

In It To Wing It!

Robert is currently an undergraduate student at LSU studying Music Composition as well as Experimental Music & Digital Media. He has composed chamber music, ensemble music, and electroacoustic music alike. “Typhous Tranquility,” is based off of a poem that is written for soprano voice and piano accompaniment. Throughout the piece, the theme changes to distinguish a new stanza of the poem. By exploring different different timbres, Robert crafts music for telling an audible narrative. Works have been submitted to festivals around LSU and in the surrounding area such as Electric LaTex. He has many works forthcoming that fit within acoustic and electronic instruments alike, including a symphony that utilizes full orchestra and a laptop orchestra together for a unique performance.

Robert Chedville Jr.

Popular tracks