“The rain was invisible in the darkness of the streets, but it hung like the sparkling fringe of a lampshade under the corner light…There was a thin gruel of mud on the pavements; he felt a gluey suction under his shoe soles and a chill slipping down past his collar.” (256) “The silhouette of a [...]
Archive for the ‘Current Projects’ Category
Ayn Rand’s Objectivist Imagery, for string quartet
Posted: July 14, 2010 in Current Projects, News, Program NotesTags: Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, objectivism, string quartet
0
“The Generator”: the apotheosis of Atlas Shrugged
Posted: April 4, 2010 in Current Projects, News, Program NotesTags: Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, clarinet, piano, viola
“The crash of sound – the screeching crash of ripped metal and of pressures colliding on conflicting circuits, the sound of a monster turning upon itself – was heard only inside the structure. No sound was heard outside. Outside, the structure merely rose into the air, suddenly and silently, cracked open into a few large [...]
“The Concerto of Deliverance”: degrees of musical separation
Posted: December 26, 2009 in Current Projects, Program NotesTags: Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, string orchestra
“He saw his mills rising in the darkness, as a black silhouette against a breathing glow. The glow was the color of burning gold, and ‘Rearden Steel’ stood written across the sky in the cool, white fire of crystal. He looked at the long silhouette, the curves of blast furnaces standing like triumphal arches, the [...]
Finished up the piece already! Here’s a score excerpt. The ending sort of synthesizes the two sides of what I talk about below – check out the last bit with even quarter notes in the winds against the piano’s “rational” rhythmic material from the beginning. The winds also add a few “wrong” notes to the piano’s [...]
“The Face without Pain or Fear or Guilt”: More from “Atlas Shrugged”
Posted: December 13, 2009 in Current Projects, News, Program NotesTags: Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, chamber music
Been a while since my last update! Had a busy but very rewarding first quarter at UChicago and took a little break from writing, but I’m finally back into it. Last year I wrote The Immovable Movers, a short piece for chamber ensemble that takes its title from a chapter of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. [...]
I just completed “Orbits”, the viola and piano piece I described in my previous post. Check out a score sample here! The tempo sequence (in beats per minute) is 100-120-80. The transitions for the first two are: 100 to 120: eighth note quintuplets become eighths (page 3) 120 to 80: dotted quarters become quarters (pages [...]
Nancarrow meets the Discovery Channel?
Posted: July 12, 2009 in Current ProjectsTags: nancarrow, orbits
I was watching some astronomy show on the Discovery Channel recently, and suddenly a bunch of ideas popped into my mind for a viola and piano piece I’m working on. First was the obvious: slow, expansive lines and open, sonorous harmonies from a distance. That was the easy part. The show was actually about the [...]
