Concert recording of world premiere, 2/14/81. Kyle Peterson + James Perone, clarinets; Charles Clifton, piano.

The work's title can be read as a noun meaning 'antenna,' or as an adjective meaning 'in the air.' To me, an antenna has always struck a note of yearning, whereas being airborne commonly symbolizes freedom and fulfillment. This duality shapes the poetic dimension of my piece.

Aerial

Concert recording of world premiere, 5/18/83 at Hallwalls in Buffalo, NY.  Scored for two violins and percussion (vibraphone + glockenspiel).

I wrote Cold Spring in 1981 while studying for my doctorate with Morton Feldman at University at Buffalo. One day, Feldman played a tape recording of Christian Wolff's Duo for Violins for our composition seminar. I was entranced by the work's austere beauty, and intrigued by the way Wolff traded a handful of pitches between two like instruments. This deceptively simple device suggested new formal and expressive possibilities for my own music. In short order, I wrote two pivotal works incorporating a similar technique: Aerial, for two clarinets and piano, and Cold Spring, for two violins with vibraphone and glockenspiel. 

The title refers to a chilly season in Buffalo, and also one of the city’s neighborhoods. Cold Spring is dedicated to Christian Wolff.

Cold Spring

FP: 4/11/80, Baird Recital Hall, University at Buffalo
Deborah Weiss, violin; Deborah Ungaro, bass clarinet; Bruce Penner, percussion; Charles Clifton, prepared piano; Vincent Fuerst, conductor

Convergence

Recorded 5/21/86 at BACA Downtown, Brooklyn, NY 
New Music Consort conducted by Claire Heldrich

Local Vertical is scored for percussion trio: vibraphone, marimba, and drums (one player: low conga, low bongo, and high bongo). The title derives from research on weightlessness: the astronauts who adapt best to that condition are those who adopt the "local vertical" – "up" being determined by where the astronaut's head is, rather than in relation to the "top" of the spacecraft.

Local Vertical

Coquis Near El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico (field recording)

World premiere of 'Any minute, now' with Joseph C. Phillips, Jr. conducting Numinous at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY | September 17, 2023

Program note:

'Any minute, now' is the third and final piece I composed during the COVID pandemic. For most, it was a time of waiting, alternately tinged with boredom, despair, frustration, and flickers of optimism. And then there were those who made it possible for the rest of us to wait.

In the two contrasting panels that comprise 'Any minute, now,' time passes in distinctly different ways. The first part is yearning and expectant; the second, suspended and tremulous. False starts and endings abound. Waves of hope crest and recede, looking out toward an uncertain future. 'Any minute, now' is dedicated to my wife Kristi Sunde, a frontline hospital worker, and to all who didn’t have the luxury of waiting.

Any minute, now

World premiere of '10 Narrow Trees for Small Gardens,' performed by RighteousGIRLS (Gina Izzo, flute + delay pedal; Erika Dohi, prepared piano) at Joe's Pub, 7/5/2022. Unrevised version.

I. flute + piano 
II. alto flute + piano
III. flute with delay pedal + prepared piano
IV. flute with delay pedal + prepared piano

'10 Narrow Trees for Small Gardens' was composed in the early months of 2021. Written for RighteousGIRLS, it is scored for flute with optional electronics and prepared piano. The ten-minute work is divided into four movements of identical length that can be played in various combinations.

As in most of my music, the entire piece is based on a small amount of material – in this case, a sequence of short motifs. As they unfold and recur, the earlier motifs recede and the latter ones become more prevalent. Guided by a simple algorithm, this process gives rise to a drifting effect, like the movement of clouds across the sky.

In '10 Narrow Trees for Small Gardens,' each movement has a distinct timbral profile. The first movement is straightforward, with unaltered flute and piano. The second movement is played on alto flute, while the piano uses the sostenuto pedal for an afterimage effect. The third movement introduces prepared piano pitches in the right hand and analog pedal effects in the flute. The fourth adds preparations in the piano left hand.
 
In addition, as the piece progresses, the flute, piano left hand, and piano right hand take turns splitting off from the other voices and jumping into new registers, creating fresh harmonic, rhythmic, and textural combinations. The mood changes as well from movement to movement, alternately matter-of-fact, pensive, playful, and trippy.

I came upon the title by chance in a gardening blog. In one sense, the four brief movements are like small gardens, “planted” with a variety of succinct motifs. On a deeper level, it spoke to me of our time of pandemic confinement, when it became more important than ever to have a bit of nature at hand, a living thing. Beauty brings hope.

10 Narrow Trees for Small Gardens is dedicated to Gina Izzo and Erika Dohi of RighteousGIRLS.

10 Narrow Trees For Small Gardens

Without an observer, there can be no horizon. Standing on a shoreline, we can see about three miles to the earth’s apparent edge. Our atmosphere extends another 6,210 miles, while the sun’s light travels 93 million miles to reach us. Out of these distinct elements in our visual field, our minds construct “the horizon.”

As a composer, I’m drawn to composite sounds – sonorities that emerge, separate, and form new groupings at a leisurely pace, like clouds drifting across the sky. And nothing highlights the atmosphere like a sunset. 

So I conducted a little research. I watched the sun set over various bodies of water (New York Harbor, Lake Superior, the Tyrrhenian Sea) and noticed something curious. While we tend to visualize the horizon as a simple thing – a crisp line dividing sea and sky – in actuality, it’s much more elusive and interesting. It changes by the moment. We can chase it, but never catch up to it. You could almost call it playful.

When the horizon has a mind of its own is scored for piano and percussion. It is divided into four principal sections, separated by measured pauses. Each section evokes a different dynamic of sun, sea, horizon, and sky:

1)	unreliable mirror
2)	interrupting islands
3)	sky box
4)	afterimage 

In the space between our mental images and our perceptions, imagination thrives. I think that's true for sound as well as vision. From the interplay of sense experience and memory, music takes shape in our minds.

When the horizon has a mind of its own is dedicated to pianist Marilyn Nonken, who commissioned the score, and percussionist Jonathan Haas, who joined Marilyn in its world premiere. 

Steven Swartz
March, 2025

When the horizon has a mind of its own - WP at NYU, 04-24-2025

'Alignment,' composed 1982-83 under the guidance of Morton Feldman in partial fulfillment of the PhD in Music Composition, University at Buffalo.

First performance: Momenta Quartet, May 20, 2016 at Spectrum in NYC. 
Photos by Noah Fowler: http://bit.ly/SURPR1ZE

Generous thanks to all who made this performance possible, especially Jacques Swartz, Kristi Sunde, Sarah Baird Knight, and Andrew Stein-Zeller! Illustration by Kristi.




Alignment

A composer whose music explores the interplay of sound and silence, form and memory, intention and process. Possessing “an instinct for sensuous color-blends” (Buffalo News), Swartz creates musical landscapes that evolve unpredictably as they move through time, like cloud formations across the sky.

Steven Swartz, composer

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks