“Stephen closed his eyes to hear his boots crush crackling wrack and shells. You are walking through it howsomever. I am, a stride at a time. A very short space of time through very short times of space. Five, six: the Nacheinander. Exactly: and that is the ineluctable modality of the audible. Open your eyes. No. Jesus! If I fell over a cliff that beetles o’er her base, fell through the Nebeneinander ineluctably! I am getting on nicely in the dark.”
-- James Joyce, Ulysses ("Proteus")

Taking its starting place from that excerpt of Stephen Dedalus’ stream of consciousness, "A very short space of time through very short times of space" is concerned with the development and reflections of musical materials in different sonic spaces that accumulate, rupture, and otherwise transform. I am most interested in volatile and fragile materials that are thus seemingly contradictory. These materials may oppose each other (dense versus sparse, dark versus bright, short versus sustained, etc.) but do not categorically conflict. Instead of seeking resolution, they strive for alchemical transcendence.

James Joyce's poetic prose in Ulysses embraces the inherent volatility of life and moves rapidly from the interior to the exterior, from the sacred to the profane, and from the masculine to the feminine, catching glimpses of everything possible between these extremes. Materials in the piece are, like Stephen Dedalus’ thoughts, mutable and constantly decontextualized, fragmented, and recombined.

This piece was composed for Flannau Duo in early 2024 and came to life through collaborative exploration with Jonathan and Kyle at various stages. I hope performers and listeners each find something surprising in this space of time.

Flannau Duo
Jonathan Hannau, prepared piano
Kyle Flens, percussion
World Premiere, 9.6.2024
Constellation Chicago

A very short space of time through very short times of space (2024, world premiere)

And now for something completely different. Solo guitar rendition/interpretation/whatever of the venerable Ellington/Strayhorn chestnut (largely taking after Mary Halvorson's playing on the Trevor Dunn's Trio-Convulsant version from "Sister Phantom Owl Fish"). It was late and I was bored and melancholic. Maybe there will be more where this came from.

Please forgive the 60-cycle hum.

The Single Petal of a Rose

Isaac Shieh: Pulsar (2025)
For natural horn and harp

Audio from the world premiere performance in the Angela Burgess Recital Hall, Royal Academy of Music on 24th June, 2025

Natural Horn: Isaac Shieh
Harp: Hannah Runting

Shieh: Pulsar (2025)

Live recording from Radio Hall Bucharest- Alexandru Tomescu -violin, Radio Chamber Orchestra, conductor Marijn Simons
Compoziția Black Shirt and Blue Soap (2024) are la baza ritualul spălării, prezent în toate culturile lumii sub diferite forme, legat de momente importante ale existenței. Apa, în diverse forme de agregare, abur, gheață, apă curgătoare, ploaie, și în diverse stadii de  "curățenie" - ape limpezi, ape poluate industrial, ape murdărite de clătirea hainelor- va fi elementul unificator al lucrării, memoria dezvoltărilor anterioare cristalizându-se diferit în secțiunile piesei.
Forma	
Configurația piesei se va desfășura determinist pe parcursul a cinci secțiuni: trei părți principale și două secțiuni cadențiale, cu  rol de punte.
Prima parte- Abur are în prim plan instrumentele de coarde și percuția, cu  rol determinist, în scopul nașterii unei teme. 
A doua secțiune, Râul sau prima punte, expune tema solistică astfel „câștigată”  în secțiunea anterioară și varierea ei continuă, la vioară. 
Partea a treia - Spălarea cămășii negre, va reprezenta punctul nodal al piesei, ca dezvoltarea unei sonate, cu ansamblul tratat ca un instrument amplu în prim plan, în dialog cu vioara solistă ce expune ascuns, direct variată, tema de Passcagliei în do minor de Bach, dezvoltând-o prin  contrast ritmice și dinamice, operând în finalul secțiunii  cu ideea de pregnanță. Impactul afectiv al secțiunii este unul  tensionat, dureros, pe alocuri șocant. 
A patra secțiune - Furtuna reprezintă o a doua cadență într-o secțiune de mare virtuozitate instrumentală, Este și momentul în care alte tipuri de muzici se inserează în întreg, cu accente pronunțate techno și heavy metal, dar derivate organic din micro motivele secțiunii a treia.
Partea a cincea -  Gheața readuce starea din incipit-ul lucrării, Vioara nu mai este nevoită să „nască” o temă, ci va  folosi mijloacele deja expuse anterior, dezvoltate pe parcursul lucrării, împreună cu tot ansamblul pînă la audiția unei teme surpriză,  ce extrage receptorul din timpul și spațiul fizic, concret.     


Black Shirt and Blue Soap

World Premiere, 7.17.25
Jennifer Gersten, violin
Hannah A. Barnes, electronics
Scholes Street Studio, Brooklyn

“Caminante, no hay caminos, hay que caminar.”
—anonymous inscription on a Spanish monastery
“In my beginning is my end.... In my end is my beginning. —T.S. Eliot, “East Coker”
The paths one takes are rarely, if ever, clear and straightforward. clouded winding paths reflects upon the above mantra, which has guided me for several years, as well upon as the circumstances surrounding the composition of the piece and the physical recovery of both myself (before the composition) and my collaborator, Jennifer Gersten. After an injury necessitated a drastic change in how Jennifer played the violin (taking up an improvisation practice with the violin on her lap), creating uncertainty around performance possibilities, I was eager to continue this collaborative project, finding a connection between her situation and my own years of chronic scoliosis-related back pain as a young woman.
Before intensive physical therapy, which led to significant and lasting positive change, I had to adapt and limit certain activities for years as a teenager and young adult. In clouded winding paths, I took an adaptive approach to violin writing, which led to certain discoveries in our collaboration that I would not have found otherwise—wispy harmonic sounds that come from inserting a knitting needle between the strings; or different approaches to overpressure or molto sul tasto bowing that are only possible with the violin positioned horizontally; and so on. As Jennifer was able to return to playing in the “traditional” position, in the finished piece, these adaptive materials are present in the electronics, which augment or contrast with what takes place in the live violin. This adaptive playing also influenced materials and development in the “traditional” position, which is modulated by the filtering and delays within the live electronics.
At the heart of the piece is a complex network of material and textural relationships, which includes polyphony between the solo violin and its fixed electronic counterpart. Materials and structures that are created and used in rigorous manners (including a thirteen-note microtonal tone row) come into contact with messy, unpredictable materials and processes. While some of these paths were determined at the outset, many were illuminated along the compositional process and could not have been anticipated at the origin of the journey.
clouded winding paths, which pays homage to Luigi Nono, was composed for and is dedicated to Jennifer Gersten. It is a cousin to my piece for electric guitar, Negative Capability (2020).
— HAB

Poster/thumbnail design by Jennifer Gersten.
All fixed media recordings by Jennifer Gersten.

clouded winding paths (2025, world premiere)

Notebook for Piano Vol. 1 (2024)
Composed by Liam Ross Gibson

Performed by Gabriel Stossel
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Gabriel Stossel and Liam Ross Gibson

0:00 I - Reverie: Sunlight on Waves
1:43 II - Basalt 
3:33 III - Alluvial
5:32 IV - Monotropeae
7:20 V - Říjnový les

This set of miniatures draws inspiration from the natural world, as well as music and musicians which have had an impact on me. There is no overarching scheme uniting them, and though they are numbered below, they can be played in any order and independently from one another.

I - Reverie: Sunlight on Waves 
Summer afternoons by the Salish Sea can take on a dreamlike atmosphere, with the heat and ever-shifting webs of reflected sunlight on the waves inducing a trance in which time seems to stand still.

II - Basalt 
Much of Vancouver Island is formed of volcanic basalt that erupted under the ocean during the late Triassic some 200 million years ago. Subsequent forces of glaciation, wind, rain, and waves have carved this igneous rock into a dizzying variety of forms.

III - Alluvial
I am fascinated by hydrology, and the water cycle is a recurring theme in my work. This piece is in part an hommage to the Armenian pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan.

IV - Monotropeae 
Monotropeae is a tribe of flowering plants which are distinguished by a reliance on parasitism of mycorrhizal networks rather than photosynthesis. This lack of chlorophyll means that, instead of green, Monotropes are often a ghostly white, or varying shades of yellow, orange, red, pink, and purple. Musically, this piece is an hommage to the great jazz pianist Brad Mehldau.

V - Říjnový les
Czech for October forest, Říjnový les is dedicated to my former piano teacher, Eva Solar-Kinderman. Her teaching had a profound impact on me not just as a pianist, but on my overall thinking about music. Musically, the piece is an hommage to Czech composer Leoš Janáček.

Notebook for Piano Vol. 1

"Selenetrope" is a short study on bow nuance and timbral shading. Composed over three days during the 2025 Darmstadt Summer Courses in close collaboration with violinist Karl Jõrgi, the miniature explores fragile, unstable materials at the threshold of sounding. I want to express my gratitude to Karl for his fantastic collaboration and sensitive playing, and to mentors Rebecca Saunders and Sarah Saviet for both creating the environment for this collaboration as well as providing guidance on detail and notation.
A “selenetrope” is a mythical plant which blooms in the presence of moonlight.
-- HAB

*Headphones recommended; any background noise is part of the Darmstadt Experience.

31 July 2025
Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany
Karl Jõgi, violin

Selenetrope (2025, world premiere)

Moveable Frames (2025)
excerpt of premiere concert recording
DiMenna Center, New York
May 25th, 2025

Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble
Charlotte Mundy, soprano
Elisa Sutherland, mezzo
Timothy Parsons, countertenor
Tomás Cruz, tenor
Jeffrey Gavett, baritone and director
Steven Hrycelak, bass

Moveable Frames (excerpt) 2025

Hannah A. Barnes (b. 1997) is a Montréal-based composer and conductor. Her work centres on crafting structured yet dynamic, multi-faceted musical worlds characterized by mercurial, off-kilter, and seemingly incompatible materials. These works straddle tension and expression for both performers and listeners. Barnes' main concerns are (re)defining Modernism in the twenty-first century, investigating manifestations of complexity and polyphony, and addressing questions of syntax and semantics within a non-narrative musical language that encompasses both pitch- and noise-based materials. Having been described by a performer as composing “alien music,” she embraces the strange, unpredictable and mysterious in art of all kinds.

Currently a DMus student at McGill University studying composition with Prof. Philippe Leroux, Hannah completed degrees in composition (MMus w/Distinction ’21, BMus High Honours ’19) from DePaul University, with additional studies in conducting. Collaboration is central to Barnes’s compositional practice. She has worked closely with soloists, including oboist Kyle Bruckmann, guitarist Jesse Langen, hornist Tarre Nelson, vocalist Joanna Mieleszko, percussionist Alexandre Garde, pianist Ian Pace, violinists Bailey Wantuch and Jennifer Gersten, duos Garden Unit and Flannau Duo, and the brass musicians of Ensemble Musikfabrik to develop new works. As composer-in-residence, she composed a large ensemble work for McGill’s Contemporary Music Ensemble in 2024. Upcoming commissions include new works for Boston-based Lamnth (violin + cimbalom), Montréal-based Quatuor Memoire (string quartet + mezzo-soprano), saxophonist Greg Bruce (feedback tenor saxophone), guitarist Jamie Monck and electric guitarist Matt Sargent.

Her work has been performed in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Australia, in programs including the DePaul and Dal Niente Summer Residence for New Music (2020), the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (2021), the Yarn/Wire Summer Institute (2022), Omaha Under the Radar Festival (2022), the Darmstadt Summer Courses (2023, 2025), the Musikfabrik Virtual Brass Academy (2025), and Impuls Academy (2025) and at schools of music including DePaul University, McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, the Eastman School of Music, UC Davis, UC Berkeley (CNMAT), the New England Conservatory, the University of Arkansas, Florida State University, Benedictine College, and the City University of London.

Barnes’ work for oboe and electronics, “Dis/inte/gration” (2019, rev. 2020) was recorded by Kyle Bruckmann and included on his album of rivers, released March 2024. Her debut album, Negative Capability: Works by Hannah A. Barnes, was released in December 2024, and includes performances by Ensemble Dal Niente, Kyle Flens, Jesse Langen, Garden Unit, and DePaul University’s Ensemble 20+. Her work has been acknowledged in the Chicago Reader and “Best of Bandcamp,” selected in calls for scores in the United States, Canada and Austria, played on impulsradio (Graz/Helsinki), and awarded an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer’s Awards honourable mention for her work “five images.”

Hannah founded the "rhythm is image" new music initiative after being struck by the inexplicable and insatiable desire to perform Stockhausen’s Mikrophonie I in 2019. She has a special interest in organizing, conducting, and performing in concerts, focusing on experimental performance practice and advocating for “difficult” music. rhythm is image has performed as parts of concert series and festivals in Chicago, Montréal, Omaha (Nebraska), and Fayetteville (Arkansas).

Hannah is also a devoted educator. She has taught theory and aural skills to high schoolers at the Chicago Music Academy (2022-23) and students at DePaul University (as Lecturer of Music Theory from 2021-23), and McGill University (as Lecturer of Music Theory, 2024). While at McGill, she served as president of Le Vivier InterUniversitaire and the McGill Association of Student Composers, and Vice President of the Music Graduate Student Society. She was a Writing Fellow through the Graduate Writing Centre in 2024-25, where she developed and implemented initiatives to support Schulich School of Music graduate students with their written academic milestones.

Barnes lives in Montréal with her terrier, Kaylee, and maintains a strong connection to her roots in Chicago. Her compositional practice is fuelled by strong coffee, postmodern literature, the study of Irish mythology and tradition, and Pilates.

A very short space of time through very short times of space (2024, world premiere)

Hannah A. Barnes

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