Vignettes

Metal Works - Part 1 (for piano and electronics)
1.  Steel
Interlude 1
2. Quicksilver
Interlude 2

Recording: Kathleen Supové, piano
Recorded and engineered by Adam Pietrykowski

Metal Works is a suite of 5 pieces for piano and live electronics connected with electroacoustic interludes which explores the sonic and poetic associations of the piano and different kinds of "metal".

Metal Works - Part 1 (2014) for piano and electronics

JACK Quartet, premiere performance (February 27th, 2015), The DiMenna Center, New York City

In Partial View (2015) - for string quartet

Marilyn Nonken, Live from Roulette (May 23, 2016)
"Vortex Temporum Revisited" Project
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Patricia Franchini:  What is your greatest ambition in life?
Parvulesco: To become immortal… and then die.
//
Patricia Franchini: It’s sad to fall asleep.  It separates people.  Even when you’re sleeping together, you’re all alone.
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"À bout de souffle" (English “out of breath”) takes its title from Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film (English: Breathless).  My piece shares no direct relation to the narrative of the film, but the compositional process drew inspiration from both the (then) innovative use of jump cuts that film critic Andrew Sarris analyzed as representing “the meaninglessness of the time interval between moral decisions”, and the two quotes above.

Written for the same scordatura tuning as Grisey’s magnus opus Vortex Temporum, it was a great hurdles to compose something new in dialogue with such a monumental and personally influential work.  I focused on simultaneously highlighting and obscuring the relationship between the piano’s standard equal temperament and the four quarter-tones available.  I play with the idea of Grisey’s structural arc and the Ravel arpeggio by presenting repetitive ostinato gestures nested in sonic, resonant arcs that bloom and decay through processes of dynamics, timbre, and registral expansion – a sort of restless breathing.

À bout de souffle (2016) for piano scordatura

HADDAD Manarah

Sharon Harms (soprano) and Talea Ensemble (Jeffrey Means, conductor)

Text: "Unset" by Joshua Clover (used with permission)

Unset (2017) for soprano and chamber ensemble

A Concertino for Trombone and Ensemble.

"Pack up all my care and woe
Here I go, singing low
Bye-bye, blackbird"

2017-05-11: Noon Concert, Works by graduate student composers

Sing Low for Trombone and Ensemble (2017)

Happy Birthday Beethoven

Performed at Aspen Music Festival 2019
Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra
Piotr Waclawik - Conductor


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A Rube Goldberg Machine, is a machine that achieves trivial tasks through an overly inefficient and convoluted process. 

You may have seen “the marble rolling down a track to topple a domino piece that hits a lighter that lights a candle that burns a thread that releases a lever that...” well, you get the point. And all for what? To have the machine finally add some salt to a dish or perform some other trivial task; a task that clearly could have been achieved in a much more straight-forward manner.
 
It’s the complex and innovative way such a machine works, that gives it its raison d’etre. The machine stops being about the outcome, and instead lets us focus on the way that outcome is achieved. Often, the more elaborate, clever, and creative the machine is, the more we enjoy seeing it do its magic. 

It occurred to me that our music is also kind of a Rube Goldberg Machine. On the surface it appears as if the goal is to move from 
dominant to tonic, or from tension to release. Yet, a cadence on its own is hardly a piece. And so, composers find elaborate, clever, and creative manners to get from tension to release, making the process intentionally inefficient for the sake of that journey. A journey that may include twists and turns, and marbles and levers, 
and... you name it. 
 
This is my machine.

A Rube Goldberg Machine

Performed by Bokyung Byun, July 14, 2019, Fresne Saint Mames, France

“Ganggangsullae” was written for my dear friend and inspiration Bokyung Byun for the first year of Sounding Board Project. Sounding Board is a collaborative project Bokyung and I began in the winter of 2018, hoping to make an environment for composers and guitarists to collaborate and enrich the repertoire of guitar music. I was fortunate enough spend about two years right next to Bokyung in LA and really learn her process of learning and performing music in the finest quality possible. I wanted to incorporate a Korean folk tune from the region Bokyung is from and Ganggangsullae is one of the most well-known tunes in the country. The piece is reminiscent of the theme and variation form to present Bokyung’s absolutely mind-blowing understanding and execution of guitar playing. I dedicate this piece to Bokyung Byun and thank her with all my heart for being the best friend anyone could ask for and the biggest inspiration and motivation for me and my music.

Ganggangsullae (2019)

Saad Haddad (b. 1992) is a composer of orchestral, chamber, vocal, and electroacoustic music that achieves a “remarkable fusion of idioms” (New York Times), most notably in his work exploring the disparate qualities inherent in Western art music and Middle Eastern musical tradition. His music delves into that relationship by transferring the performance techniques of traditional Arabic instruments to Western symphonic instruments, while extending their capabilities through the advancement of technology. 

Vignettes

Saad Haddad

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