A masterful work filled with lots of energy and color!

Proceed, Moon for orchestra

A sassy, badass, fun piece composed for the Grossman Ensemble

Limbic Fragments

For Orchestra (2222/221/2Perc/Pn/Hp/Strings)
Year of Composition: 2008
Score available at:
http://www.katiagocs.com

Requiem Fragments (Orchestra)

For Ten Musicians: Three Female Singers, Three Percussionists, Piano, Harp, Violin, and Cello 
From the album: 'The Debrecen Passion'
Boston Modern Orchestra Project
Sonja Tengblad, Margot Rood, and Katherine Growdon, vocal soloists
Year of Composition: 2011
Commissioned by Meet the Composer for Metropolis Ensemble, New York
Score available at:
https://www.tfront.com/p-474121-vessel-for-ten-musicians-2011.aspx#474121

A recording of Vessel is featured on "The Debrecen Passion", an album released on the BMOP/Sound Label in January 2016.

Vessel's three female voices each embody different sides of a lover addressing her beloved. The result is a polytextual motet -- in the spirit of Renaissance macaronic motets that used simultaneous settings of texts in multiple languages, often to mask hidden meanings. Each voice sings a distinct text in a distinct language, and each text is a different manifestation of the idea of a Vessel.  Let us imagine that the beloved is from another culture; in an attempt to forge a rapprochement, one adopts the beloved’s language, or learns to speak in his tongue. The three poems in Hebrew, English, and Latin each complement each other and enlarge each other’s resonances. The setting of each text has its own rhythmic metabolism and intervallic palette. In the well-known Cummings text ‘i carry your heart(i carry it in)’ the poet becomes a physical vessel; the Jehuda Halevi text functions as a vessel itself, rhapsodically enticing the beloved into a garden, and culminating in a Song of Songs quote (‘my beloved is mine, and I am his’). The Latin text, a fragment from a Catullus poem, boasts about the speed and reliability of a sea vessel - a boat which can be viewed as a symbol of love and prowess as it carries the man back from faraway foreign lands.  

-Kati Agócs

Vessel (Ten Musicians)

seven dreams about my body (2023/24) for sextet
i. dream in which i float on a black sea (for toru takemitsu)
ii. dream in which my body is a flock of birds (for ben johnston) 
iii. wasps’ – nest – dream (for gyorgy ligeti)
iv. dream in which my body is a constellation (for kaija saariaho) 
v. dream in which my body is clockwork (for unsuk chin)
vi. teeth – falling – out – dream (for andrew norman)
vii. dream in which i cannot walk (for anthony cheung)


Performed at University of Chicago Tea Time Series
Justin Weiss, conductor
Paul Novak, flute
Michael Tran, clarinet
Blaise Magniere, violin
Isidora Nojkovic, cello
Winston Choi, piano
John Corkill, percussion

Image: Salvador Dalí, "Archeological Reminiscence of Millet's Angelus"

seven dreams about my body (2023/24) for sextet

Metamorphoses [9 players]: Mvt 1.  Preliminaries

Recorded by Lydian Quartet

I – NODE: Tuning Knot  00:00-03:22
II – Recently Found Fragments: Chant Loop  03:28-11:38
III – Striding Rituals: Nocturnal Gatherings for Mass Wooing  11:44-17:30
III.5 or 5.IV – Optional habits  17:43-18:40
IV – CODEX: I know I know this (…almost remembering…)  18:44-25:04
V – Turn the Corner: Post-Rapture Celebration  25:08-28:04
VI - NODE: Ex nihilo…In nihil [-for Mary Ruth-]  28:05-35:30

Treatises for an Unrecovered Past is dedicated to the Lydian String Quartet and was composed as part of their Composition Commission Award, which was made possible by the generosity and vision of Marjorie B. and Martin Cohn. It was composed in San Francisco and Cambridge and is 35 minutes long.

Treatises for an Unrecovered Past (2013-14/rev. 2017) for string quartet

Tyson J. Davis (b. 2000): String Quartet No.1 (2017)

1. Moderate
2. Agitated

Performed by the Attacca Quartet

String Quartet No.1

“Still Here” explores the idea of trespassing from the perspective of emotionally abusive relationships where there’s an intrusion of personal space and a boundary violation within a complex loving relationship. It considers contradictory feelings of loss, love, frustration, desperation, guilt and codependency and the role of trauma in people’s lives. - AN

Still Here - Angélica Negrón

STEVEN MACKEY A Different Drummer - Timpani Concerto

A Different Drummer

Tyson Gholston Davis (b.2000) is an American composer studying at The Juilliard School where is a recipient of the Jerome L. Greene Fellowship. Davis began composing at the age of eight years old and entered the University North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) as a high school freshman, studying with Lawrence Dillon. In the summer of 2019, Davis worked with the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA) and Antonio Pappano to premiere his work, Delicate Tension, a piece that was commissioned by the American Embassy in Berlin for the 30th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The work was performed in Berlin, Edinburgh, and Hamburg. 

Since then, Davis has been a leading desired composer to be performed and commissioned by leading ensembles. He has been the recipient of more than 22 commissions by organizations such as; The Juilliard String Quartet, the Albany Symphony, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Eighth Blackbird, WQXR (New York Public Radio), New York New Music Ensemble, Metropolis Ensemble, and various other groups and soloist. 

His recently finished work, Amorphous Figures (String Quartet No. 2) was commissioned by Da Camera Society of Houston, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Chamber Music Cincinnati for the Juilliard String Quartet. The work will be premiered in April of 2023. Currently, Davis is backed up with commissions until mid-2024 with works for soprano saxophone and piano (for Robert Young), wind quintet (for Zephyros winds), solo piano (Jonathan Biss), and several others. 

Tyson’s favorite classical composers include Beethoven, Elliott Carter, Henri Dutilleux, Unsuk Chin, and Jacob Druckman. He also loves the pop music of Marvin Gaye, John Denver, Simon and Garfunkel, and many others. He lives in Washington Heights, NYC, and enjoys frequent walks in Fort Tryon Park.

String Quartet No.1

Tyson Gholston Davis

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