Lament (2013, excerpt) for symphony orchestra. P: NorrlandsOperans Symphony Orchestra, c. Rumon Gamba. Commissioned by NorrlandsOperan. 

Programme note (in Swedish) - 

– Lament utgår från Beethovens Symfoninr 9. Ett recitativ i cellostämman i fjärde satsens inledning blev grundmaterial till hela stycket. Jag har tagit fram den lyriska sidan av Beethoven, kanske inte den allra mest typiska egenskapen i hans stil, men eftersom jag tyckte att all kamp och det fyrverkeri som ofta får beskriva hans musik, kändes lite ovidkommande i det här sammanhanget. Jag har upprepade gånger lagt ut utdrag av cellorecitativet i olika register, så att det blir till ett slags mantra. Detta förtätas med övertoner och klusterlinjer, som ackompanjemang. Detta mantra blir flera gånger avbrutet med fanfarer, som faller som en skugga över det lyriska elementet.

Lament (excerpt)

Kelsey Broersma, alto sax
Ian Kaminski, violin
Sakari Dixon, viola
Jeremy Boersma, cello
Austin Davis, conductor

Recorded by Manuel Perez at the University of Redlands in May 2014.
Composed in 2014. Photo adapted from Kunal Mukherjee's work on Flickr using an Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license: https://www.flickr.com/photos/redlinx/3858645744/

feRaL

Evensong was written in the fall of 2014 for Bonnie McAlvin, Emily Vold, and Manon Hutton-DeWys. The work was a bit of a stretch for me in a number of ways. Bonnie’s speciality is multiphonics, where two or more pitches are produced simultaneously on the flute. Not a flutist myself, I had very little knowledge about that technique, so it was a great opportunity to learn more. Eventually, I combined some sketches I had written for Bonnie with some for an earlier, abandoned work to create the melodic and harmonic material for the piece.

Early in the compositional process, though, an image appeared in my head of the three players surrounding the piano, dipping their hands to the strings in choreographed motions and producing mysterious and ethereal noises. This became the literal starting point of the piece, and the work as a whole represents a gradual move from that abstract sound world focused on timbre into the more familiar realms dominated by pitch and rhythm.

Purchase Sheet Music

Evensong

Performed by Trio Andromeda (Allion Salvador, violin; Hye Jung Yag, cello; Li-Cheng Hung, piano), Seattle, May 30th, 2015. 

In the first movement, Tapestry, the piano sonically outlines the structure of the nested rings of a mandala by playing arpeggios and scales with expanding frequency sweeps in a wave-like contour and accelerating and decelerating tempo. On top of this structure the cello and violin fill in the symbolic details of the mandala, repeating patterns and motifs. As we get closer to the center of the mandala, time speeds up and the notes start to blur, lose differentiation, and are on the brink of unification, oscillation, and drone, indicating the true nature of sound and the illusionary, relative difference between pitch and rhythm. 

By the second movement, Phosphenes, the music has transcended its initial structure. The minimalist score acts as generative code to manifest sounds that attempt to conjure ineffable metaphysical and emotional resonances. These cascading note clusters are echoes and reflections, like the colorful smears of light imprints lefts on a retina that give the movement its namesake. Phosphenes easily can manifest into hallucinations or illusions, and by the third movement, there are three entities created that playfully arrive as distinct notes, a trinity of fractal spirits from the previous movements. During the third movement each musician is designated a single note to play at any timbre, octave, or rhythm based on their improvisational instincts and the logic they have learned from the piece. In the final movement, the music slows down as it dissolves, inviting moments of space and silence. We are in a new state, altered, but vaguely familiar.  

Program note by Rian Souleles

Sacred Geometry (2015)

From Faculty Recital at Lawrence University with Mark Urness (bass) and Drew Worden (drums)

Grab It! by Jacob TV

From faculty recital at Lawrence University 9/26/15

Set Sail For The Sun

Justice Robin Camp (Live)

Ashley Cutright, mezzo-soprano
James Beauton, gong



pale, pale light

"LUNE - in memoriam Simon Chernack" for violin and electronics, performed by Lilit Hartunian.

In writing "LUNE," I was inspired by the nocturnal sound world of Lake Dunmore in Leicester, VT, where, of a summer evening, the air is filled with long, wailing loon calls that echo across the lake. The pitch content of these loon calls provides the harmonic fabric of the piece, in which the violin and electronics slowly converge from individualized parts into a mass sound depicting a flock of loons passing overhead. The type of loon call heard here is specified amongst other loon vocalizations as a “wail,” which is used to locate other loons. I wrote LUNE for violinist  and longtime friend Lilit Hartunian. It is dedicated to her and to the memory of our childhood friend Simon Chernack, who passed away while I was writing the piece. This tombeau for him, like the loon calls, consistently wonders: “Where are you?”

LUNE

Premiered by Charles River Wind Ensemble on May 15, 2016 at the Scottish Rite Masonic Library and Museum, Lexington, MA. 

The inspiration for Circles Circling comes from my longstanding interest in the music of tenth-century German abbess Hildegard von Bingen. Hildegard’s flowing sense of line and distinctive motivic material are ideal foundations for the texture and atmosphere I want to create in this piece. O Virtus Sapientie, an antiphon on the virtue of wisdom, provides both the conceptual, melodic, and harmonic foundation for the undulating, swirling rhythmic figures central to the form and sound of the piece. Its dominant image is of circles and wings moving between and around heaven and earth, and the text setting of these key phrases is built of repeated dyads. Such motives facilitate a sound world churning with energy and activity that can both enliven prolonged harmonic and melodic ideas and propel them into new musical territory. 

To provide contrast on both conceptual and musical dimensions, I am also using the Sed Diabolus, which describes the Devil mocking and seeking to disrupt creation. This shorter antiphon makes greater use of Hildegard’s signature rising and falling fifth motives and has a heavier, darker sensibility in keeping with its text. 

My concept for Circles Circling will create an immersive sonic experience illustrative of the physical and metaphysical actions in the text of both antiphons. Textural activity and timbral diversity will illustrate the immense creative energy of Hildegard herself, whose body of work touched on nearly every subject studied in the medieval world, as well as the intensity and vivid clarity of the mystical visions which directed her life. 

I will use material from these two antiphons to build contrasting textures and melodic treatments that will be juxtaposed and combined throughout a ten-minute, three-movement piece. The first movement rests on a background of swirling, undulating yet rhythmically energetic and diverse figures. Over this rippling sonic foundation, a contrasted melody in long durations will emerge and eventually dominate. 

Circles Circling, Mvmt. 1

StefanieL

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