Lilacs is a piece for orchestra. Probably will get used in another larger project because I sort of like it a little bit or something.

Lilacs

String Quartet No. 3, "waking dreams"

II - 0:00
V - 1:15
I - 3:32
IV - 9:09
III - 11:36
VI - 14:36

"waking dreams" is the result of inspiration from two primary sources; the first is a sculpture of six figures by Christopher Cairns, titled "Recognition/Remembrance." Cairns' work deals principally with the exploration of the human condition and our shared experiences; emotions like love, loss, rage, and violence. The six movements of the quartet roughly parallel these emotions and figures, though none are directly tied to any specific figure.

The second work is Marcel Proust's novel "In Search of Lost Time" which is focused on the core idea of memory and its fragility. This is reflected in the substance of the work, namely in the projection of a series of six hexachords, and the gradual mutations and omissions of this series throughout the piece. The indeterminate order mirrors our own experiences with the stories we tell ourselves; we don't remember all of the events leading up to a specific point, our stories exist in more of a temporally disconnected space where they're allowed to rearrange themselves in any number of orders and relationships independent of any causal links that did exist between them.

The six movements of the work are indeterminately ordered, and an ideal performance would see this order randomized each time. This particular realization uses the order:

II V I IV III VI

As mentioned previously, this work follows a series of six hexachords. This series is iterated across two structural levels; the first, a background level, dictates the starting position of the middleground iterations of the series. This middleground then fills out the remainder of the series at a lower level within the movement, though many omissions and mutations are used to convey the failures of both encoding and decoding memory.

The internal structure of each movement, as well as their relation to the movements around, are explored as a picaresque narrative; while ideas do pervade and are developed through temporally displaced structures, they are largely disconnected from one another, instead offering brief glimpses into the unknown life of an unknown mind. My goal was to create flashes of intensely personal moments surface uncontrolled washes of sound and color driven by involuntary triggers and are often washed away just as quickly into a subtle but ever-changing miasma.

The work was composed in one sitting on December 31st, 2023 under the watchful eye of a handful of colleagues. A notable composer, Elisabeth Lutyens, had done a similar single sitting work with her sixth string quartet, and I was curious as to what such a feat would feel like.

Title: dredge i
Year: 2024
Performers: Versipel New Music + Byron Asher, Alexandria Smith, Chris Alford

dredge i [violin, cello, clarinet, piano + b. clarinet, trumpet, e. guitar]

for rubber gloves 10/15/2024
some ryoji ikeda idm ambient type shit idk it sounds fun!!!

swallow&saynothing

Made for the 8bmt discord weekly composition competition.

Some *ZANY* intro music for a spooky saturday morning cartoon!

Saturday Morning Dracula

the woods’ insatiate silence

Aurorae For La Monte Young’s 89th Birthday is composed in an alternative tuning system called Just Intonation, where all pitches are chosen from the naturally occurring harmonic series, rather than the twelve notes from a piano. A lot of the pitches of this piece may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable for listeners at times. Focusing on the way these different notes create new sonorities, Aurorae asks the listener to sit with slow harmonic movement to get accustomed to them. Much like how photos taken with long exposures show a much more vibrant color from the northern lights, the complexities of these harmonies are easier to hear when held for longer durations. Aurorae’s score requires the Lydian String Quartet to move through the composition according to their own collective internal clock, rather than following  traditional rhythmic notation. It asks them to measure entrances and exits by focusing on the entire ensemble at once, reading from a score that features every musician’s parts. As a consequence, all performances and rehearsals will most likely be different durations, and highlights the ensemble’s communication and comradery as an integral part of the performance.

Aurorae For La Monte Young's 89th Birthday

Title: burrow
Year: 2025
Performers: Russell Greenberg (percussion), James May (electronics)

burrow [improvising percussion and electronics]

Little Warbler sleeps in the maple tree, but is visited by a mysterious black bird in its dream.

Warbler Dreams

Hello I am a composer and sometimes I like to pretend I know what I'm doing.

the woods’ insatiate silence

Kevin Mah