"like sugar in coffee...everything dissolves"
[this piece is meant to recreate that distinct sensation]

"sweet particles" explores how sugar and seemingly everything else in life begins solid and concrete and over the course of time fractures, dissolves and dissipates.

CREDITS
from Mundane (works for piano), releases March 24, 2023
sweet particles - recorded by: Yifei Xu

All tracks mixed and mastered by: Tyler Bisson

sweet particles (2021) - for solo piano

Performed by the University of Toronto Wind Ensemble in MacMillan Theatre at the University of Toronto, March 2016.

“amok as a syndrome” is very tangibly related to Romitelli’s 1991 piece “amok koma” – its opening is almost identical. However, seeing as the original piece is scored for a small chamber ensemble with electronics, this piece exists in a very different sonic landscape, sharing signs (symptoms) with the original that correlate to a shared musical influence (condition). Romitelli’s piece shared a name with a 1980s punk album, so it only makes sense that my title would also integrate the name of the original. Interestingly, “to run amok” is a common expression that actually refers to behaviour that has been classified as a “culture-specific explosive behavioral disorder” related to psychopathic violence. 

Musically, the piece alternates between grungy, chaotic sections and more subdued, lyrical moments. The opening figure produces the majority of the material, especially the intervallic content, with minor thirds and seconds playing a major role.  Ultimately, “amok as a syndrome” is an homage, but not one of the sentimental variety – it’s a grateful thank you to the current musical landscape and composers like Romitelli, where dozens of wild influences coalesce into a singular output…a condition whose manifestation is strongly shaped by cultural factors…

amok (wind ensemble)

This is My Scary Robot Voice by Kerrith Livengood

Composed for and commissioned by the junQtin keyboard collective, Microlocking explores groove based musical development as well as microtonality. This piece is composed for 6 digital pianos, three of which are tuned a quarter tone higher.

Microlocking

~ Drops ~ (2017)
for saxophone quartet

premiered by the 
Quartet Iberosudamericano

18th World Saxophone Congress
in ACADEMY OF MUSIC Fran Lhotka Hall

The piece was initially commissioned by the association "Friends for Music" of Venaria Reale and was presented in parts by the Vagues saxophone quartet, Toniro – Italy, September 23rd, 2017.

~ Drops ~ (2017), for saxophone quartet

Recording from reading session with the NEC Orchestra on April 29, 2019. Conducted by David Loebel.  

I’ve been trying to remember a lullaby my mother sang to me. Fragments of it would come and go for me.  The fragment that constantly haunted me was this perfect 5th interval that started and ended each line of the lullaby.  It was a such a distant memory that I wasn’t even sure it was my mother’s lullaby and I started thinking that it was something my mind created, maybe in a dream.  I started to believe this after I listened to hundreds of recordings of traditional Vietnamese lullabies and nothing clicked for me.  

Regardless, I decided to sing what I heard in my head on pure intuition, recorded it, and then notated it out on paper.  

I finally called my mom to ask about this lullaby and the most amazing thing happened when she sang it to me.  Not only were my contours correct, but I was also in the right key.  I don’t have perfect pitch.  

The process of discovering this lullaby deep in my subconscious was very humbling. It made me realize on a different level how much a mother’s love can imprint on someone. I know she spent hours singing that to me as a baby and to my little brother.  The words that go along with that perfect 5th interval is “À Ơi”, which means “listen, my child”.

In My Life There Is This Lullaby (2019) - for orchestra

premiered by amanda deboer bartlett & kayleigh butcher of quince ensemble @ provincetown playhouse

beat by christian melhado
mixed by andrew noseworthy
**for best (bass) experience, listen with headphones/good speakers(!)**

---------- 

program notes: 

“the place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.” - james baldwin

the music my parents listen(ed) to, & the music of my childhood consisted of almost entirely hip-hop/rap & RnB. kendrick lamar’s pulitzer win for DAMN. in 2018 is perhaps the first time in my lifetime that hip-hop music has been put on such a scale--& that this type of music has been widely recognized as not only ‘good,’ but deserving of a place among ‘intellectual,’ ‘academic,’ ‘classical’--whatever you want to call it--music. this piece stems from that, but is also a playful experiment in pairing & coalescing some of the interesting, ‘weird’ & seemingly ‘misplaced’ sounds of contemporary classical vocal music with nonsense syllables derived from jazz scat singing & ad libs associated with trap music.

place

loading screen dream

getting back into it

how do you do group improv by yourself? 

listen with your pets or your immediate family or roommates or by yourself in a cocoon of sheets in a dark room only please

crumble

Piano: Me :)
Vibes: Dan Reifsteck 
Mixing/Mastering: Dan Reifsteck

my technology

www.stephenryanjackson.com

This is a small online portfolio of my music. I hope you enjoy it. My email is stephenjacksoncomposer@gmail.com if you have any questions,  commissions, performance requests etc. please feel free to contact me. I'm always happy to start another project or collaboration!

sweet particles (2021) - for solo piano

Stephen Ryan Jackson

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