This is an arrangement for flute and piano of the aria "Tornami a vagheggiar" from Handel's opera Alcina.  The challenge here was "mesa di voce" many of which were in the violin part.  The recomposition involved moving all of the mesa di voce into the flute part, since it would not be idiomatic on piano.  I am asking the question what would Handel have done with this music if composing for a modern flute and piano? Steve Owens arranger/flutist, Rob Frankenberry piano.  Recorded at the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in music composition winter residency at Susquehana University, January 2024.

steve.owens@vcfa.edu

Tormani A Vagheggiar

Tornami a vagheggiar

Dysphoria concerns an experience common to many people who are neurodivergent and or have experienced trauma. It is both an  outgrowth of my personal experience, and my experience as an educator working with students (and adults). When I was an  administrator, I worked multiple times with the psychologist Dave Melnick of the Northeast Families Institute on matters of workforce  development. In one consultation, Dave introduced me to the concept of "working upstream" with behaviors, understanding the  trajectory of the individuals "interiority" so as to be able to identify where that person is in the cascade of inner events and tailor  interventions. 

In the community of autistic people, when this cascade flows into dysregulated behavior, we call it a "meltdown". The meltdown can be  minor, or it can be life changing, resulting in loss of job, home, relationships, or even injury or incarceration. The interior experience  proceeds in five steps, ending in visible behavioral dysregulation: 

1) physiological deregulation (a feeling in the body that demands relief) 
2) an impulse (to do something about it) 
3) emotional dysregulation 
4) cognitive dysregualtion 
5) a behavior 

Dysphoria does not follow this trajectory in a linear fashion. Each of these stages are entangled, and it's more a question of emphasis at  any given moment 

"Shame and regret" is the universal aftermath.... 
steve.owens@vcfa.edu

Dysphoria

A setting of "The Lamb", a poem by William Blake (1757-1827), for SAB chorus and piano. As performed at the Vermont College of Fine Arts music composition residency choral workshop, Rob Frankenberry pianist/conductor.
steve.owens@vcfa.edu

The Lamb

This is my recomposition of Handel's aria from Giulio Ceasare.  The original featured two orchestras, a pit orchestra of the usual strings and continuo, and an on stage seven piece orchestra representing the seven muses.  It was a challenge to boil this down to a viable work for modern flute and piano.  Enjoy, and contact me for the music if you would like to perform it!  Rob Frankenberry is the pianist - he is residency faculty for VCFA.  I am playing on a George Haynes "Master", a vintage flute I played for over 40 years.  Contrast with Tormani a Vaggeghiar, which I preformed on my new (to me) Powell Conservatory flute.

To purchase this music please contact me at steve.owens@vcfa.edu

V'Adoro Pupille

V'adoro, pupille

Something fun - here's an old piece of mine from the 90's.  While its most likely not playable by an individual pianist, it is playable on a disklavier.  More specifically a Yamaha baby grand at Susquehanna University that is equipped to play midi files like an updated player piano!  This is not a Tango in the Argentine sense so much as a highly stylized piece that evokes some of the rhythmic elements.  I built it on what I call an "artificial harmonic series" where each ascending interval is a half step smaller (P5, d5, P4, M3, m3, M2, m2).  I found the complete pencil manuscript in an old notebook the other day.  

At the VCFA Music Composition residency last January, Devin Barone, the assistant program director, was getting into this disklavier in a big way.  I rushed back to my dorm room and managed to dig a version of this piece off my hard drive (probably Finale 3.7.2!) and quickly gussied up a midi file.  Devin got it running on the Yamaha, and my advisor Roger Zahab stuck his IPhone on the piano and grabbed a fast and dirty recording that turned out better than I could have expected.

Never thought I'd ever hear this thing....

"My God! What has sound got to do with music!  Why can't music go out in the same way it comes in to a man, without having to crawl over a fence of sounds, thoraxes, catguts, wire, wood, and brass?"
- Charles Ives

Tango

This is my Spring 2024 project for the VCFA MFA in music composition performed by members of the Playground Ensemble, ensemble in residence on July  18, 2024 at Colorado College. I was exploring what we call the double empathy problem in autism circles.  The fixed media elements are in Bohlen Pierce tuning.  What does it mean to have tuning systems in counterpoint?

Playground Ensemble performers:
David Short, cello
David E. Farrell, laptop
Deborah Marshall, clarinet
Allyson Stibbards, viola
Sarah Whitnah, violin
Sonya Yeager-Meeks, flute

Later does not mean never...

This is the third movement of my Sonata #2, performed by myself and composer/violinist Roger Zahab - also my composition advisor at VCFA. Originally composed for two flutes, like many neo-classical/baroque pieces, the violin substitutes very well for the second flute.

I wrote this Sonata in 2008.  It is in four movements: I.Overture II.Coronache III.Invention IV.Sarabande.  Invention is one of the most difficult thing I've composed.  Two part counterpoint must be perfect - there's no room for error.  Not sure I've met that very high bar, but I did my best.

Invention from Sonata #2

This is the fourth and final movement of my Sonata #2, performed by myself and composer/violinist Roger Zahab - also my composition advisor at VCFA. Originally composed for two flutes, like many neo-classical/baroque pieces, the violin substitutes very well for the second flute.

I wrote this Sonata in 2008. It is in four movements: I.Overture II.Coronache III.Invention IV.Sarabande. Yes, I messed with the structure of the four movement baroque sonata....

Sarabande from Sonata #2

I constructed a Bohlen Pierce ostinato in Ableton Live, went out to my wood shop in the barn, hung a microphone and improvised over it on my flute with reverb and delay.  I hit record and captured a couple of minutes of what was about an hour of improvisations.  I am interested in the idea of different tunings in counterpoint with each other.  This is an early attempt - more to come!

Improvisations over a Bohlen Pierce ostinato

This is part 2 of a work that is a little over ten minutes long, so I'm splitting into two pieces so the SoundCloud algorithm works. Part 1 (heard here) is the explosion, Part 2 is the aftermath. To hear the complete work without interruption: https://soundcloud.com/steve-owens-989781522/dysphoria

Dysphoria concerns an experience common to many people who are neurodivergent and or have experienced trauma. It is both an outgrowth of my personal experience, and my experience as an educator working with students (and adults). When I was an administrator, I worked multiple times with the psychologist Dave Melnick of the Northeast Families Institute on matters of workforce development. In one consultation, Dave introduced me to the concept of "working upstream" with behaviors, understanding the trajectory of the individuals "interiority" so as to be able to identify where that person is in the cascade of inner events and tailor interventions.

In the community of autistic people, when this cascade flows into dysregulated behavior, we call it a "meltdown". The meltdown can be minor, or it can be life changing, resulting in loss of job, home, relationships, or even injury or incarceration. The interior experience proceeds in five steps, ending in visible behavioral dysregulation:

1) physiological deregulation (a feeling in the body that demands relief)
2) an impulse (to do something about it)
3) emotional dysregulation
4) cognitive dysregualtion
5) a behavior

Dysphoria does not follow this trajectory in a linear fashion. Each of these stages are entangled, and it's more a question of emphasis at any given moment.

"Shame and regret" is the universal aftermath....

Performed by the Truberry Duo, Trudy Chan and Rob Frankenberry, pianists.
steve.owens@vcfa.edu


Dysphoria part 2: shame and regret

Steve Owens grew up in upstate NY, and has a bachelor's in musicology, a master’s in Music Education and an MFA in music composition from Vermont College of Fine Arts.  He developed parallel careers as a concert flutist and as an educator in Vermont public schools.  He's published band, choral, and chamber compositions with Hal Leonard and Alry.  Steve has since left academics to pursue composition full time. Recent performances include a woodwind quintet played by City of Tomorrow, and an electro-acoustic sextet performed by The Playground Ensemble. His latest work, "Dysphoria" for the Truberry Duo, explores the inner experience of neurodivergence, drawing on his own experience as an autistic educator.

New tracks tagged #Vermont College of Fine Arts