Sung by Kennedy Jean-Baptiste in July 2016. Written September 2013.

Come Back

Composed in 2018, 迴光 is a setting of a poem of the same name by Brian Kot (b. 1999). The piece’s dark harmonies and slow tempo reflect the brooding atmosphere in the poem’s mirrorless, light-less world as shadows slowly lengthen on the ground. The music slowly builds up to its climax as the persona is tragically killed by a formless, shadowed figure. The piece then relaxes and diminuendos into a reflective, soft end.

迴光 - Remnants of the Day

迴光 - Remnants of the Day (2018) for unaccompanied SATB choir

The graphic above is a visualization of global wind patterns; massive amounts of weather data are fed into a supercomputer that then produces a live (or pseudo-live) “wind map.” The swirls and swoops are color-coded: areas of blue and green are relatively calm, while red and purple usually imply devastating conditions in a tropical system. There is something particularly poetic about seeing our atmosphere on such a macro scale; the same colors converted from numerical data also suggest Van Gogh-esque brushstrokes. The confluence of the empirical and the aesthetic in the “wind map” has proved wildly inspiring for the composition of this piece.

The Juilliard Orchestra (reading)
Jeffrey Milarsky, conductor

Wind Map (2018): for orchestra

This piece was written as part of a 4-part suite entitled “Impressions of House and Home”, co-created with two other composers of Oberlin’s KOI collective. The suite explores various interpretations of home and how our distinct cultural upbringings influence our musical language. When thinking about what to write for a piece on “house and home”, my mind was immediately flooded with memories of various music from my childhood in Japan, where I grew up. I drew from these different music fragments to write Lineage Traces: the school song of the Japanese elementary school my mother and I attended, the melody of a folk tune, short songs that would play over public speakers, and finally, rhythms reminiscent of traditional Japanese festival dance. While the piece itself is not quite a narrative of my sentiments of home, it is a collage of – like the title suggests – traces of music both literally and figuratively from home.

Lineage Traces (for piano trio)

Zeitgeist for violin and piano

Composed for Emma Schubart

Premiered by Allison Taylor and Cole P. Abod

Zeitgeist

This piece was originally written for piano trio, as part of a composer-performer collaborative suite “Impressions of House and Home” that explores various interpretations of home and how our distinct cultural upbringings influence our musical language. When thinking about what to write for a piece on “house and home”, my mind was immediately flooded with memories of various music from my childhood in Japan. I drew from two main melodies: one, the school song of the Japanese elementary school my mother and I attended, and the other, the melody of a traditional holiday folk tune. I also used fragments of short songs that would play over public speakers down my street, and rhythms reminiscent of traditional Japanese festival dance. While the piece itself is not quite a narrative of my sentiments of home, it is a collage of – like the title suggests – traces of music both literally and figuratively from home.



The piano trio was written during a three-week residency, and while I had an incredible experience composing the piece during that time, I realized that I wanted to continue working on the piece. I felt that some of the musical ideas could translate better into a larger orchestration, and I had to also previously discard some sections that I was attached to because it was just not quite idiomatic for a piano trio instrumentation.  Thus, I expanded Lineage Traces for full orchestra.

Lineage Traces (excerpts; read by Oberlin Orchestra)

Performed by Jaclyn Hopping (soprano) and the Phlox Orchestra, led by Nan Washburn, on February 2nd 2020 at Finney Chapel, Oberlin Conservatory

TEXT
"The cold earth slept below"
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

The cold earth slept below;
Above the cold sky shone;
And all around,
With a chilling sound,
From caves of ice and fields of snow
The breath of night like death did flow
Beneath the sinking moon.

The wintry hedge was black;
The green grass was not seen;
The birds did rest
On the bare thorn’s breast,
Whose roots, beside the pathway track,
Had bound their folds o’er many a crack
Which the frost had made between.

Thine eyes glow’d in the glare
Of the moon’s dying light;
As a fen-fire’s beam
On a sluggish stream
Gleams dimly—so the moon shone there,
And it yellow’d the strings of thy tangled hair,
That shook in the wind of night.

The moon made thy lips pale, beloved;
The wind made thy bosom chill;
The night did shed
On thy dear head
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky
Might visit thee at will.

The Sleeping Earth (for soprano and orchestra)

The Lord's Prayer (2019) was commissioned by the Diocesan Boys' School Old Boys' Association for the 2020 Kobe Sing 'n' Pray chorus competition.

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory.
For ever and ever.
Amen.

The Lord's Prayer (2019) for unaccompanied TTBB choir

LEGACY., for SATB choir, was commissioned by the Cleveland Chamber Choir to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the May 4th, 1970 shootings at Kent State University in Kent, OH. Based on the poem of the same name by Megan Neville-Jellen, LEGACY. seeks to both remember the violence and tragedy of the incident, as well as pay respect to those affected. The text draws moving imagery from the Pulitzer Prize-winning iconic photo of Mary Ann Vecchio screaming over the body of Kent State student Jeffrey Miller, and captures the way in which remnants of tragedy trickle down through generations; lingering for decades, never to be forgotten. In LEGACY., the musical setting shifts between dissonant chords which are then resolved in a more comforting, familiar manner to reflect the grit and emotional weight of the text.

Witten in sobering remembrance of the victims, and every individual whose lives have been touched by this violence.

Performed by the Cleveland Chamber Choir at the St. Ignatius of Antioch Church, Cleveland, OH on March 8, 2020.
​

Zeitgeist

Sammy Sussman

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