I like the build-up of tension... very nice.

commissioned & premiered by the JACK Quartet during TIME:SPANS 2021

note| mayu: the great river is inspired by Andean (South American Indigenous) cosmology & iconography through the lens of queerness, diaspora, and separation. The score works as an ecosystem for connecting living constellations, musical materials, and the individual/collective experience of time. The piece is a reflection on the multiple temporalities experienced and harnessed by displaced, erased, and structurally excluded peoples. These layers of time, the material and immaterial, are sources of joy | resilience | survival, and perhaps, future.

mayu: the great river [2021] | JACK Quartet

Staring At The Ceiling

A setting of the Lord's Prayer in the ancient Gothic language

Performance by:

Atta Unsar

Debra Dickensheets - Organ
Zac Lavender - Cello

Recorded at Lutheran Church of the Ascension, Buckhead
12-16-2021

Fantasia On "Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel" for Cello and Organ

Text by Anne-Marie Oomen. From her work: "I, Water". Text used by permission of the author.

Performed by Laura Osgood Brown, soprano; Dane Phillipsen, English horn; Ya-Ju Chuang, piano.

How Will You Answer

“Poor little human being! Little child of Time!” (Excerpts)
An interlude from the play “Sensa” (ca. 1917), originally for lyres 

Music by Elsie Hamilton
Orchestration by Rebecca Lane and Thomas Nicholson (2024)
Audio documentation by Sam Dunscombe from the first live performance at KM28 (Berlin) on 10.10.2024

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This music is in Kathleen Schlesinger’s Venus Species, corresponding to the Phrygian mode in her interpretation of Ancient Greek music. 

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MO Abbott (trombone), Ellen Arkbro (trumpet), Sam Dunscombe (recording), Judith Hamann (cello), Jon Heilbron (contrabass), Rebecca Lane (quarter-tone flutes), Thomas Nicholson (viola), Michiko Ogawa (clarinet), Marc Sabat (violin)

Poor little human being. Little child of Time!

Elsie Hamilton – Poor little human being. Little child of Time! (Excerpts)

performed at the 2018 Bang on a Can Festival by:

Nick Photinos - Cello/ensemble leader
Claire Niderberger - Violin
Rose Kow Xiu Yi - Violin
Yi Chun Lin - Violin
Shannon Leigh Steigerwald - Violin
Kieran Welch - Viola
Molly Collier-O'Boyle - Viola
Ashlee Booth - Cello
Rebecca Lawrence - Bass

Blue Aurora

Based on the poem "Complicity" by Brittany Cavallaro, this work was written in collaboration with the poet and the vocalist--Laura Osgood Brown.  Featuring Ya-Ju Chung on piano and Patrick Owen on cello.

Complicity

Elegy was transcribed from a string orchestra piece for the Texas State University Concert Band under the direction of Caroline Beatty.  This is the World and Texas premiere recording.

2019 TMEA

Elegy for Our Children

C modulates to B sharp major

"it comes in waves" is a composition for prepared vibraphone and electronics commissioned by Gloria Yehilevsky in 2019 for her "Waveshape" recital program, representing a large wave (and its parallels with life itself) as it comes up, with ebbs and flows throughout. The electronic track is created exclusively from processed samples of vibraphone sounds recorded by Gloria.
credits
released September 25, 2020

Gloria Yehilevsky - prepared vibraphone, tracking engineer
Samn Johnson - composition, electronic production, mixing engineer
Toshihisa Tsuruoka - mastering enginner
Rosanna Miller, Josh Bench, Isaac Sadovich - sampling session tracking engineers

it comes in waves (with Gloria Yehilevksy)

Samn Johnson (b. 1991) is a composer and electronic musician based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. His work juxtaposes music of different times and traditions as a vehicle to explore themes of mysticism and deep time. Samn has studied composition at The Interlochen Arts Academy and the University of Michigan and is pursuing a masters in composition at NYU, where he studies with Julia Wolfe. His current projects include an album of electro-acoustic vocal and instrumental pieces and a multimedia adaptation of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy.

Blue Aurora

Samn Johnson

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