premiered at Bang on a Can Summer Festival, July 2021

Clarinet: Luke Ellard
Violin: Raina Arnett
Viola: Emma Antonides
Cello: Nick Photinos

"haven’t yet" (2019) is a deeply personal work for me about relationships, thought life, and patience. For myself and many other queer people, the kind of relationships and openness cisgender, straight people experience is often delayed (if we’re lucky to experience it at all). There is a pervasive feeling of being behind, having such formative experiences occur later in life. Yet it is difficult to convey these circumstances in a meaningful way to those in more relationally privileged positions. This piece is about how the longing to find that “someone,” even if you have never met, can quickly turn toward negativity and doubt. “What if I never meet ‘the one?’” “Am I just being ridiculous?” In our most vulnerable spaces, insecurities can take over and sometimes it is hard to come down from that ledge. I have felt this. From daydream to self-deprecation, frustration to repentance and patience. It’ll happen.

"haven't yet" for clarinet and string trio (2019)

commissioned & premiered by the JACK Quartet during TIME:SPANS 2021

note| mayu: the great river is inspired by Andean (South American Indigenous) cosmology & iconography through the lens of queerness, diaspora, and separation. The score works as an ecosystem for connecting living constellations, musical materials, and the individual/collective experience of time. The piece is a reflection on the multiple temporalities experienced and harnessed by displaced, erased, and structurally excluded peoples. These layers of time, the material and immaterial, are sources of joy | resilience | survival, and perhaps, future.

mayu: the great river [2021] | JACK Quartet

for mezzo-soprano + amplified ensemble; ~20min
written for Contemporaneous with poetry by Bailey Cohen-Vera

~~~

Articulated Objects is a fragmented setting of poetry by writer and jiujitsero Bailey Cohen-Vera, and partially inspired by the artwork from MoMA's Sur Moderno exhibit (2019-20) which featured abstract art made from everyday materials by 20th century South American artists. It is the second piece of an "Objects trilogy," following my 2020 string quartet Neutral Objects, which focused on the policitization of quotidian items (like hats, face masks, and mailboxes) in periods of unrest. Articulated Objects meditates on themes of anti-US immigration policy, youthfulness, and complacency in a highly complicated period of American and global history.

~~~

Elisa Sutherland, voice
Finnegan Shanahan, violin
Sarah Haines, viola
Amanda Gookin, cello
Colin Davin, electric guitar
Paul Kerekes, piano
Amy Garapic, vibraphone
David Bloom, conductor

~~~

recorded at Scholes Street Studio by René Pierre Allain
*dress rehearsal for Contemporaneous' "After the Storm" program in June 2021

*[upload artwork by Gego]

Articulated Objects - II. Dibujo sin papel

In part, this piece is an homage to a reality that no longer exists. Almost all of these recordings were taken with my ex-partner present. The whistles, the cigarette drags, the hair clippers, all belong to them. A wistful, fading sweetness, I can’t deny that this impacted the way that I built this piece. I wanted to claim the fulfilling moments and remember fondness, rather than wallow in pain that I’ve already processed and moved through. This piece challenges the permanence of our built environment, including relationships, location, objects, all of it. We have the capacity for fathomless change. Hopefully it is a little peek inside of once was, that hopefully leaves you questioning what is now, and what will be?

a wistful fading sweetness

“‘SPINNING, TOUCHED, UNDREAMT; SNOW-’ explores the very complexities of womanhood and their subsequent layers of falsified dreams and expectations. The piece is a large frisky, melted spiciness and drunken distorted song composed of a teenage fatigue and self-realization. ‘SPINNING…’ formed itself around my deep interest in soap TV shows from Korea. Korean Dramas have been my fiercest companion over the last thirteen years despite all the changes, twirls and growth that happened to me. I rely on my immense love for them to create sonic textures between acoustic and analog sounds. No second lead character or secret inheritor have been forgotten in the process of making this piece.”

Written for Hypercube ensemble (https://www.hypercubemusic.org/) and performed at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City (2022)

Saxophone : Erin Rogers
Electric Guitar : Jay Sorce
Piano : Andrea Lodge 
Percussion : Chris Graham

SPINNING, TOUCHED, UNDREAMT; SNOW-

that the shadows cast on your Face will never be the same

Solo electric guitar with effects and live looping. Written for and performed by Giacomo Baldelli.

ugly god pretty lights

Duration: 5.21 minutes
for String Quartet
Read on 01.25.2019, Haddock Performance Hall, Moscow, ID, University of Idaho Lionel Hampton School of Music
Read by the JACK Quartet

to my messenger:

Duration: 3.00 minutes
for solo violin
Performed on 11.01.2018, Haddock Performance Hall, Moscow, ID, University of Idaho Lionel Hampton School of Music
Performed by Avery Reuneau

Scratch, Slide, Stop

For 2 electric guitars, 2 ebows, 1 microphone and electronics (Max/MSP). 1 performer.

Performed by Ryan Garvey in late winter 2019.

rsh [s01]

transdisciplinary artist / local friend / ☭
they-them pronouns

yeehawyaz@gmail.com for inquiries

Articulated Objects - II. Dibujo sin papel

yaz lancaster

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