Completed July 29, 2024
Premiered December 4, 2024 by the Attacca Quartet

Dedicated to the Attacca Quartet, whose omnivorous enthusiasm for music was as infectious as it was inspiring

When preparing to write a new piece for the incredible Attacca Quartet, I had to reformulate my attitudes toward music. Where other ensembles would specialize, Attacca approached a stunningly wide repertoire with wit, joy, and open-mindedness. For them, there could be no music too high or too low, too silly or serious, too old or new. Instead, any music could serve as its own justification. 

Loosely inspired by William Blake’s parallel poetry collections ‘Songs of Innocence & Experience,’ this piece is structured in two halves that correspond roughly to the titular themes. Blake completed Songs of Experience six years after Songs of Innocence, and he originally intended the former to be exclusively centered on adulthood while the latter concentrated on youth. By the time he finished the collections, however, neither half was purely innocent nor experienced. The two contained poems of the same subject matter, the same titles, and in some cases, the same content - Blake actually moved some of the poems in 'Innocence' to 'Experience' upon completion, suggesting a complex relationship between the halves. 

I reflected on the soundworld I had developed over the six years or so since I started composing: a music of rushing motion, extended techniques, and mischievous self-awareness. This style stood in stark contrast to the first few pieces I had written: pop-like chord progressions, simple melodies, emotional transparency to the point of embarrassment. I decided I would set these old, ‘naive’ ideas in conversation with my current musical language. 

I hope that by juxtaposing and interweaving these musics that I can cast some doubt upon the linear narratives of growth we often feed ourselves. Sometimes, perhaps, one must double back to go forward.

Music of Innocence & Experience, for string quartet

(2024-2025)
for mezzo-soprano, violin, clarinet, piano, and tape

(first) live performance given by H.T., Laura Hussey, Kathryn Titcomb, and Anna Reiley
05.02.2025 at St. Michael's Church Highgate

italianish music

NOTE: This is meant to be an audiovisual work! To see the video, please follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wim23zFLpLo

Completed April 1, 2025
Premiered July 26, 2025 by Alan Pierson (cond.) and Alarm Will Sound
Recorded live, mixed, and mastered by Rob Boullion

This piece was conceived when a good friend of mine, Elicia Neo, mentioned to me that she was learning Blender, a free animation software that, for whatever reason, seemed singularly donut-obsessed. For reasons still unclear to me, animating a donut was the Blender equivalent of ‘Hello, World!’, and the more I thought about this, the more amusing yet existential the implications became. The donut seemed a perfect metaphor for the superficiality of the digital world, distinguished as much by its immediate appeal as by its fundamental emptiness. I wondered how many digital donuts existed by virtue of Blender, and I wondered how many were used as assets in video games, films, images, memes, and beyond. 

It occurred to me that even prior to the onslaught of open-source generative AI models, there were probably more digital replicas of objects than there were actual objects in the world. Between photos, drawings, animations, emoji, and derivatives thereof, the digital realm - the virtual world, the ‘metaverse,’ or whatever dystopic buzzword is next - was ever-growing and ever-deepening in its expansive, cannibalistic project of cataloguing every conceivable thought, symbol, and idea its screen-addled users could provide. And again, this was happening at a wildly uncontrolled rate even before the likes of ChatGPT were unleashed. 

You Are a Topological Donut recounts, by way of its corny meditation stylings, a history of donut imagery. The piece begins with old-timey photos and moves through increasingly surreal animations, growing more and more nightmarish and bizarre as simulation, simulacra, and self become subsumed into a digital soup of hollow pixels. Even as it sinks into apocalyptic incomprehensibility, the music remains foolishly optimistic and bright-eyed to the very end. 

This piece was written in collaboration with Elicia, who created and storyboarded all the animations in Blender. Many thanks to her and the brilliant musicians of Alarm Will Sound, whose daring and technical craft gave me the confidence to write something so enthusiastically absurd.

You Are A Topological Donut, for Alarm Will Sound

Full  track: https://crashensemble.bandcamp.com/album/friendly-piece


Friendly Piece: Excerpt

National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland conducted by Hannu Lintu

The True Truths (2012)

In response to Toni Berger's painting, 'Brooklyn Harbor.'

IV. Brooklyn Harbor

Original texts from Dúchas collection            https://www.duchas.ie/en

English translations

All three singers:

"This is the place of your resurrection"

Soprano 1:

Once upon a time a body of soldiers launched a furious raid on Baile Bhuirne and they were busily plundering about them until Saint Gobnait stopped them. She had bees and she sent them after the army. She made soldiers of the bees and they launched a wholesale slaughter on the plunderers.

Informant: Micheál Ó Loingsigh Collector: Seán Ó Cróinín
Location: Ballyvourney, Co. Cork, 1928


Soprano 2:

Once upon a time thieves came to steal the cattle of Baile Bhuirne. The thieves found the animals, gathered them together and were ready to drive them westwards. When Gobnait found out, she sent the bees in pursuit of the thieves. The bees attacked them. Injured and scarred the thieves escaped without so much as a single cow. Every cow and calf was brought back to their rightful owners.

Gaelscoil Uí Ríordáin's Art Project 

Mezzo-soprano:
Finín Ó Donnchadha of the Glen and his soldiers went to Baile Bhuirne once on a cattle raid. They reached Baile Bhuirne in the dead of night and immediately started gathering all the animals. It so happened that the locals woke up and they countered the raiders. Finín and his men were too strong for them so they took the animals with them westwards towards the Glen.
The people of Baile Bhuirne put their heads together to find a solution and finally they decided to ask Saint Gobnait to rescue them because at that time she was creating wondrous things with the blessed bees.
Their chief was a pagan and he didn’t want to seek her help but he had no choice. Saint Gobnait promised to return their animals to them on condition that he became a Catholic, which he did. Saint Gobnait went westwards in pursuit of the raiders, barefoot with the beehive in her hand. She caught up with them on the border of the two counties, she shook the beehive in the air and the bees came out. She made soldiers of them. There was a terrible fight between the two groups and in the end the raiders were chased away.
The bees then went back into the beehive and Saint Gobnait went back to Baile Bhuirne with the plunder.

Informant: Pádruig Ó hÉaluigh
Location: Cluain Chaoin, Gleann Fleisce, Cill Airne, Co Chiarraí

Íocón Beiche  (Bee Icon)  - workshop recording

REGRETS (from Dancehall by Emma Martin, music /lyrics by Andrew Hamilton)

Moi Singe - Théâtre Musicale
Soprano, Baryton, Ensemble instrumental et Électronique
Françoise KUBLER - Soprano
Thill MANTERO - Baryton
Ensemble Hanatsu Miroir et Ensemble Accroche Note
Ayako OKUBO - Flûtes
Armand ANGSTER et Thomas MONOD - Clarinettes 
Remy REBER - Guitare Électrique
Jean-Daniel HEGE - Contrebasse
Olivier MAUREL - Percussion
Dionysios PAPANICOLAOU - RIM

Moi Singe - Scène 3

Quatuor Bozzini (https://quatuorbozzini.ca/fr/)
recorded live at
Time:Spans Festival (https://timespans.org/)
NYC, August 2019

string quartet no 4 (2019)

Michael Oesterle

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