for Mixed Chamber Ensemble
Flute, violin, cello, piano, percussion (crotales, vibraphone, and triangle). 
Performed by doctoral students at Bowling Green State University.
Dr. Marilyn Shrude, conductor.


Imagine you are looking up at the sky. Shimmery silver objects that are ethereally blissful, eternally beautiful, reflective, and surprising catch your attention. These objects carry you into the sky to discover clash, clutter, and chaos as you speed faster and faster through the clouds. Just when it becomes too much you are thrown from the sky and end up floating downward in time to see the ethereally blissful, eternally beautiful, reflective, and surprising objects rise out of sight.

Celestial Decorations - for mixed chamber ensemble

Kindred for orchestra was written during a 6 week residency at the Brevard Music Center, and is dedicated to my brother Chris Watson. This recording is a reading from the BMC orchestra, conducted by David Dzubay.

Kindred

Half Dark Blue, Half Dark Grey---For Orchestra, 2017, Yiguo Yan

Black is the Colour (of my True Love's Hair)for Soprano, Flute, Percussion, Violin, Cello and Piano, is the first piece in a collection of classical folk songs inspired by the folk song collections of Berio and George Crumb. This piece was composed during a 6 week residency at the Brevard Music Center, and was premiered August 4th at a New Music Concert featuring:
Soprano - Charlotte Jackson
Flute - Austin Brown
Percussion - Thomas Faulkner 
Violin - Korah Cuff
Cello - Matt Lei 
Piano - Kevin Madison
Conductor - Rob Rankin

Black Is The Colour (of My True Love's Hair)

Composed in three attacca movements, this piece depicts a series of moods and images that flow from one to the other seemingly without reason or sense, as if one is in a series of uneasy dreams. Written for the standard piano quartet instrumentation, the strings (violin, viola, and cello) and piano are often juxtaposed as two separate choirs, yet at other times they are all combined to represent confusion. Nonetheless, there is definite organization present, as themes are used across movements and in contrapuntal textures to create a sense of coherence.

Recorded by Aaron Berofsky, Kathryn Votapek, Nathaniel Pierce, and Charles Berofsky at University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance on November 24, 2017

Uneasy Dreams

So there’s this folk tune called “The Bluebird Song” that is quietly present in many of my childhood memories. Although I haven’t yet narrowed the location of its inception past western NC (probably?), it’s pretty clear that it was popularized by Jean Ritchie in the late sixties (There’s a somewhat creepy/endearing music video on youtube featuring Ritchie playing the song that’s totally worth checking out). As I have always wanted to incorporate elements of music like this  –stuff that has historical/personal meaning to me– into my own music for some time, I thought I’d give it a go in a trio I was writing last semester. Much to my initial confusion though, the piece quickly began to exhibit traits of a more (currently) popular genre as well: Trap music. While I at first assumed this to be a byproduct of my environment (a college campus), I began to wonder whether there were similarities between folk and trap that I was only then becoming aware of. Despite their obvious differences, both genres came to fruition in relative cultural isolation, and each seem to capture some resilient melancholy. While I’m kinda infatuated with sonic areas trap explores, I’m also cautious of taking cooptation too far, and as such uncertain of how trap is often treated as ubiquitous party music. I feel that while the genre is not on the periphery of my life as a millennial, I am on the periphery of it, and that because of this my adoption of it should be characterized by this distance. In the trio (I’m calling it “Quill in the Trap”) I try to begin neutrally, evolve into trap, revisit the neutral state, and then evolve into folk (I quote a bit of “The Bluebird Song” at the end).

Quill In The Trap (rehearsal 12 20 17)

Performed by the New York Youth Symphony Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Adrian Rogers.

Memoirs of Petrichor (2018)

The Wild Iris, for Clarinet, Violin and Cello, was written for the SOLI Chamber Ensemble and premiered at the 2018 Alba Music Festival.

                              

The Wild Iris

conductor, composer, horn player, pianist.

Celestial Decorations - for mixed chamber ensemble

WillRand