This song was written in 2008 and released with a video that received over 175,000 views. The video is now archived on YouTube: : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw1BwFp-Ojk. Special thanks to Sam Cardon, who helped me produce the song, and to vocalists Jenny Frogley and David Osmond. Written for and generously funded by Wizard Language Institute, Brazil, Carlos Martins, president. 

Joy To Everyone This Christmas - Studio Version (2008)

This song was written in 2008. The orchestra parts were recorded in Prague and the vocals in Utah. Special thanks to Sam Cardon, who helped me produce the song, and to vocalists Jenny Frogley and David Osmond. Written for and generously funded by Wizard Language Institute, Brazil, Carlos Martins, president. 

Joy To Everyone This Christmas - Orchestral Version (2008)

I wrote this song for my mother in 1982. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, who had sung it multiple times, asked me to arrange it for orchestra and choir, and sang it in May, 2009. Their YouTube version of the song is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8y_3Rk6jAk&list=PLXPFet_zDHiotbA0N2b5Cg3YfVwguJItA

A Mother's Eyes Reflect The Love Of Heaven – Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square

strike 2 is a work for ten percussionists commissioned by the Meadows Percussion Ensemble at Southern Methodist University, Robert Stroker, conductor. It is based on materials from strike, a work written for the Meadows Wind Ensemble, and was premiered at the 1997 Percussive Arts Society conference (PASIC). 

My dictionary lists 63 definitions for the word strike. I like the definition “to produce by playing an instrument.”  strike requires ten players and features several challenging keyboard parts whose pitch materials is derived from the octatonic scale.  It has three sections and lasts five and a half minutes. 

strike 2 is recorded by the Meadows Percussion Ensemble on Garparo 346. 

strike 2

strike was commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition for the Meadows Wind Ensemble at Southern Methodist University. Jack Delaney, the group's conductor, asked me if I would write a short, energetic piece for the close of their concert at the 1997 conference of the College Band Director's National Association in Athens, Georgia. strike is a roughly six-minute work which begins and ends on the pitch F and has an overall fast-slow-fast scheme. My dictionary lists 63 definitions for the word strike. I like the definition “to produce by playing an instrument,” as in the phrase, “strike up the band.”

strike is published by Boosey and Hawkes. A recording made by the Meadows Wind Ensemble is available on the CD "Snow Tracks" on Gasparo Records. 

strike

Passages is a two-movement work for sixteen wind, brass and percussion players that lasts roughly eleven minutes. It was commissioned by Jack Delaney for the Meadows Wind Ensemble at Southern Methodist University, who premiered it April 13, 2003 at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England as part of the Conference of the British Association of Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles.

The short first movement introduces the materials upon which the piece is based. Its slow, focused duet between clarinet and horn gradually gives way to strongly profiled melodic ideas punctuated by tutti chords that drive toward an energetic finish. The second movement uses much of the same harmonic material as the first but is a wholly different music. The winds provide an active, constantly moving background of arabesque-like patterns that swirl around small melodic fragments which rise out of the background texture. These melodic fragments are echoed in various instruments so that the listener hears slight rhythmic and timbral variations of them. As the movement progresses the melodic materials become more unified and dominant, building to a climax that marks the transition to the final movement, played without pause. The last movement is quiet and more sectional. Near the end the opening melodic ideas of the piece return, followed by a short coda.

The title of the piece alludes to the idea that musical movements are really journeys of some kind, taking us through sonic worlds that transport us through time, inviting us to travel across spaces and into interior places we have never been. Such moments are often fleeting and yet long retained in memory because our passage through them brings us face to face with who we really are.

Passages is published by Boosey and Hawkes. A recording is available on Gasparo Records, GSCD 358, titled “Snow Tracks."

Passages II

Passages I

At the Center of Clarity is a short piece for flute, cello and piano written for a modern dance duet created by choreographer Ihsan Rustem for the  Brigham Young University Department of Dance. It was premiered in October, 2014 in Beijing as part of the 60th anniversary celebration of the Beijing Dance Academy (北京舞蹈学院). 


At The Center Of Clarity

sing the earth was commissioned by the Utah Arts Festival and premiered June 23, 1995 by the Utah Symphony, Robert Henderson, conductor. It received a Judges Commendation for Excellence in the 1995 Barlow International Competition. Its most recent performance was by the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra at the 2014 Beijing Modern Music Festival. The score is available at: http://bit.ly/1DJifRo. 

The piece is in three sections played without pause. They are arranged in a traditional manner, the slow movement in the middle, the last movement fast. The opening melodic line, played in unison by all four horns, reveals the basic material from which the entire piece is made. That material is cast and recast in different guises, harmonically and melodically, using tonal and non-tonal resources, its pitches becoming the structural framework through which the music’s drama is acted out.  

The title is drawn from a poem by Leslie Norris that speaks of a boy who will

… sing the earth,
its textures and tiered strata,

the quick lives of its surfaces
and arriving cities, built
with climbing labor.

He names the solid properties
of house, tree, petal, friend,
gives a voice to love,
peoples the earth 
with the nouns of his insight.

Earth, air, fire water;
a little of each,
to comfort life
and define death.

He is moving away,
his feet slow on the hot ground.

He knows where he walks.


The poem’s sense of the boy knowing himself and being connected to everything around him seemed appropriate to the idea of a festival as a place where our collective capacities and opportunities are displayed and performed.

sing the earth is dedicated to my wife and children, whose lives and love fill me with being and purpose, and to the people of Utah, past and present, who have made and maintain its goodness and beauty. 


Sing The Earth (1995)

"At the Exactest Point" was premiered in January, 2004 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Sir Andrew Davis conducting, and was commissioned by the Ernst and Young Emerging Composers Fund. It is recorded by them on the Tantara label. Here is a link to the CD: 
http://www.byumusicstore.com/at-the-exactest-point-cd-stephen-jones-and-the-chicago-symphony-orchestra/
The score is available at: http://bit.ly/1f4O5My. 

The work lasts about 17 minutes and is in three movements played without pause. The main theme of the piece is introduced at the beginning in the trombones. Its influence pervades the work. The lyric middle movement is slow in tempo and easily distinguishable from the outer parts. The last movement is highly sectional with materials that are juxtaposed in a rondo-like fashion, to which are added later the main ideas of the first movement. A short coda featuring the opening theme closes the work.

The title comes from the ninth stanza of Wallace Stevens' poem "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven." I am struck by Stevens' reference to the "poem of pure reality, untouched by trope or deviation," an object "at the exactest point at which it is itself, transfixing by being purely what it is." This vision of exactness and clarity achieved through reality is, for me, a driving force and the essence of what composition is all about.  

I am deeply grateful to Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for the opportunity to make a new work for them. I also express appreciation to Augusta Read Thomas, CSO composer in residence, for her help. Finally, thanks to my wife and family for their unending support, patience and love.  

SJ
6 September 2001

At The Exactest Point, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis (excerpt) (2002)

Sixteen Stones is a sextet for flute (doubling alto, piccolo), bass clarinet (doubling Bb clarinet), violin, cello, piano, and percussion. It was a performance commission from the Utah Arts Festival and was premiered at the Festival on June 23,  2018. This recording was made on October 25, 2018 at Brigham Young University. 

Thanks to each of the performers: Matthew Mainella, conductor, with Tina Castellanos, flute, Henry Caceres, clarinet, David Price, violin,  Cassie Olson, cello, Jed Moss, piano, and Gavin Ryan, percussion. Recording engineer: Jeff Carter. Additional editing by Troy Sales.

Recording made possible through the support of the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University.

Sixteen Stones (2018), unedited live performance

Sixteen Stones is a sextet for flute (doubling alto, piccolo), bass clarinet (doubling Bb clarinet), violin, cello, piano, and percussion. It was a performance commission from the Utah Arts Festival and was premiered at the Festival on June 23,  2018. This recording was made on October 25, 2018 at Brigham Young University. 

The score is available at: https://issuu.com/stephen-m-jones/docs/sixteen_stones_-_score__2018-12-31_ 

Thanks to each of the performers: Matthew Mainella, conductor, with Tina Castellanos, flute, Henry Caceres, clarinet, David Price, violin,  Cassie Olson, cello, Jed Moss, piano, and Gavin Ryan, percussion. Recording engineer: Jeff Carter. Additional editing by Troy Sales.

Recording made possible through the support of the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University.

Sixteen Stones(2018)

"Above the Brightness of the Sun" was written in early 2019 and premiered by the Brigham Young University Chamber Orchestra on March 22, 2019 as part of special collaborative concert between BYU and the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Here's the program note I wrote for the concert: 

In my life’s experience the moments of greatest joy and strength have been those in which I have encountered divine love and truth. Whether manifest in prayer or quiet meditation, in interactions with my family and friends, or in a host of other ways, these experiences have brought beauty and selflessness into my life and purified my heart. I cherish them and seek for them on a daily basis.

While few in number, scriptures record experiences some have had encountering the divine in a personal way. "Above the Brightness of the Sun" is a meditation on the story of Joseph Smith, who records a revelation of God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ to him in 1820 in a grove of trees near his home in upstate New York. The work’s three sections are framed by three images from his story:
• On a beautiful spring morning he went alone to the woods to pray. 
• As soon as he began to express to God the desires of his heart he was “seized upon” by a power that entirely overcame him. Thick darkness gathered around him and he felt abandoned to destruction. 
• Calling upon God to deliver him from this “moment of great alarm,” he saw a pillar of light above him, “above the brightness of the sun,” which gradually descended upon him and delivered him from the darkness that had held him bound. In this light appeared God and Jesus Christ, who spoke to and directed him in his search for truth.

Joseph’s singular experience is one of great dramatic intensity. I am sure this work falls short of communicating the depth of either the darkness or the light he encountered, yet trying to imagine how to represent it sonically has caused me great reflection about many truths I know and many questions I yet have. I hope it will do the same for those who listen.

Art credit: "The First Vision," by Warren Luch (1935 - ), hand-rubbed linocut print, 1990.

Above the Brightness of the Sun (2019, premiere)

I'm a composer and professor at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, USA. Below is a short bio. I hope you enjoy my music! 

Stephen Jones is Professor of Composition in the School of Music and former Dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications at Brigham Young University. He is also the former chair of the Board of Directors of the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition.  

Jones’ works have been played throughout the United States and internationally, including performances by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the Fairbanks Symphony, the The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, and many other professional and university-based ensembles. His works have been heard in performances at the Beijing Modern Music Festival and at national conferences of the Society of Composers, the College Band Directors National Association, the Percussive Arts Society, the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music and the British Association of Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles. 

Jones studied composition as an undergraduate at Brigham Young University and received MM and DMA degrees in composition from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, where his principal teachers were Jonathan Kramer, Joel Hoffman, Alan Sapp, and Earle Brown. His studies also included work with Bernard Rands at Aspen and Joseph Schwantner at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. 

He is the recipient of a Utah Arts Council Artist Grant, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship, and a Composer Assistance Grant from the American Music Center. His music can be heard on the Gasparo and Tantara labels. His works for wind band are published by Boosey and Hawkes as part of their Windependence series.

Stephen Jones

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