Music and Lyrics by Stephan Carlson (SJCarlsonMusic.com)
Art by Christine Kaporis (poetryandpainting.wordpress.com) 

Purchase your copy of Stephan's CD at his website, 7/1/2019.

Modal harmonic progressions and a blend of acoustic and synthetic orchestration place this song with one foot in western and the other in eastern traditions. A broad sonic landscape and the evocative poetry herald the coming Day of the Lord-- the great Wedding Feast.

Every year I put together a CD to raise money for Hope Worldwide, a charitable organization that stands among the world's first responders to any global disaster or human crisis. 

This year's CD, Kaleidoscope Kingdom, features music composed and performed over the past two years. Choral performances by the NIU Chamber Chorus and myself; electro-acoustic music; progressive metal; and worship music. It is my pleasure to share this music with you, and I truly hope you will stand with me in contributing to the efforts of Hope Worldwide to bring compassionate aid to the needy throughout the world.

Kaleidoscope Kingdom

The Wedding Feast

Music and Lyrics by Stephan Carlson (2019)

Composed in 2016.

Stephan’s Kyrie, known in its setting for women, has been reimagined for men— new harmonic colors, and a new middle section based on music from an actual dream.

A Cappella Selections!

Kyrie for Men

Music by Stephan Carlson
Perf.: JACK Quartet

In alchemy, the term chrysopoeia (Ancient Greek: χρυσοποιία, khrusopoiia) means transmutation into gold (from the Greek χρυσός, khrusos, "gold", and ποιεῖν, poiein, "to make"). It symbolically indicates the creation of the philosopher's stone and the completion of the Great Work.

Now begins my humble art. I am not a sage, nor am I a chymist. Neither am I, in office, a priest. I have no wisdom, I have no mercury. But if I am poured out into the crucible, broken down and then remade, would the chords of my spirit resonate harmoniously? And would you be poured out? Could we become music, together?

Chrysopoeia, for String Quartet

Fixed media (2019)

Soliloquy is a setting of text from the book of Job, and focuses on the content of the soliloquy found in chapter 3. Job's frenetic dialogue froths over the deep and thundering presence of his agony. Between the ebb and flow of his grief, Job hears the distant sounds of the world around him. In the piece's closing sections, Job turns his eyes toward the heavens and the flicker of starlight. The voice of God comes to him then, but not to answer his appeals: to call him to attend to his place in all of this. God speaks into the pain of Job, to help him sublimate his grief and to help him understand that finding peace isn't always about finding answers.

Soliloquy, Stephan Carlson

Stephan Carlson (b. 1990) is a composer and song-writer from northern Illinois. Stephan's musical interests include popular musics like rock and metal; vocal musics, including classic, contemporary, and experimental choral works, as well as a cappella and barbershop music; experimental electronic musics and technologies; and experimental instrumental techniques exploring the foundational, physical motions idiomatic to any instrument for which he writes.

Stephan earned his B.M. in Music Theory and Composition at Elmhurst College in 2013, where most of his work was in vocal and choral music. Some of the choral music he wrote at this time and since has been published by Alfred Music, and has been performed in the States, Canada, Europe, and the Pacific Islands. In 2017 he continued his studies at Northern Illinois University, where he began to explore contemporary music more deeply-- being particularly stricken by composers like Julia Wolfe, Eriks Esenvalds, Salvatore Sciarrino, and Gerard Grisey. In his own compositional work he sought to explore different methods of organizing and developing sound, and to develop new idioms for himself. 

He completed his MM in 2019, and is currently at the University of Iowa pursuing his Ph.D. Stephan's work at UIowa has involved composing pieces which use the physical motions of "playing" the instruments for which he writes as the fundamental materials of the work, rather than the sounds themselves. He has described these works as "choreographies of motion". In addition to this Stephan has been exploring electronic music techniques, including the development of tools via Max/MSP for the manipulation of sounds' spectra. The electronic pieces he has composed often feature voice as a primary element, and feature spectral manipulations (as well as other forms of synthesis) as foregrounded means of musical expression.

Stephan Carlson

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