John McGovern, vibraphone

Score video: https://youtu.be/ObafUDqqFeU

More information: https://seanklink.wixsite.com/music/embracing-decay

Embracing Decay (2022) for solo vibraphone

Performed by the Tesla Quartet at the University of Maryland, College Park on May 8th, 2023.

Score follow video: https://youtu.be/oCIoD1qDxf0 

https://seanklink.wixsite.com/music/works

Tesla Quartet
Michelle Lie, violin I
Ross Snyder, violin II
Edwin Kaplan, viola
Austin Fisher, cello

On the Backs of Your Eyelids (2022) for string quartet

Program notes:
On White and Crimson was commissioned by Justin Swearinger for the Monmouth College Wind Ensemble, an ensemble I spent four formative years performing in as an undergraduate student. This piece is inspired by a memory from my freshman year of a professor explaining that flowing beneath the Monmouth campus is an underground river which shaped its hills and influenced the placement of many of the campus’s buildings. Reflecting on this memory, I remembered a quote by Philip Glass which surprisingly connects the idea of the underground river to the ways in which my undergrad made an impact on my conception of music. 

“My experience with music is that it’s like an underground river, it’s always there. And like an underground river, you don’t know where it comes from and you don’t know where it’s going. The only difference is whether you are listening to it or not.”  
								—Philip Glass

Representing the river, most of the wind players have two smooth stones, like those you might find in riverbeds. The sounds created by clicking or gently grinding these stones together are found all throughout the piece, enriching its textures. The title of this piece is adapted from Monmouth College’s alma mater: A Flame of White and Crimson. While there are no musical references to the hymn, this piece is my attempt at writing on my college experience—looking back now over five years post graduation.


performed by the University of Maryland Wind Orchestra, dir. Michael Votta
May 3, 2024

On White and Crimson (2023) for wind ensemble

recorded by Ying Quartet and Xavier Foley at the University of Maryland 
Robin Scott, violin
Janet Ying, violin
Phillip Ying, viola
David Ying, cello
Xavier Foley, bass

Folded Strata (2024) for string quintet

SCORE:
https://issuu.com/seanklink/docs/three_miniatures_score_w__pn 

Program Note:
These three movements were initially inspired by Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for string quartet and its use of harmony and form. Each movement explores how musical cycles can be used to create structure. In the first and third movements, each voice is given its own function, with unique rhythms, collections of pitches, and durations, resulting in a cyclical counterpoint of constantly-varying motive and harmony. The second movement explores a similar idea, but in a strict symmetrical form where entrances are staggered before building to a monophonic climax and then diverging. The final movement ends with the same two notes that began the piece, bringing the large-scale structure to its end.

This piece was premiered April 9, 2019 by the President's International String Quartet at Western Illinois University.

The PISQ is:
Vlad Hontila, violin
Erik Ghukasyan, violin
Maria Gonzalez, viola
Nathalie Hernández, cello

Sean Klink, composer

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