Here’s the recording for The Rarer Action, which I wrote for my teacher Augusta Read Thomas’ new composition class at the U of C. Performed by: Julia Bentley, mezzo-soprano Constance Volk, flutes Austin Wulliman, violin Alison Attar, harp Greg Beyer, vibraphone Amy Briggs, piano ————————- Program Notes: Shakespeare’s The Tempest finds Prospero, the rightful Duke of [...]
Archive for the ‘Program Notes’ Category
Recording of “The Rarer Action”
Posted: May 15, 2012 in News, Program NotesTags: alison attar, amy briggs, austin wulliman, constance volk, flute, greg beyer, harp, julia bentley, percussion, piano, Program Notes, Shakespeare, University of Chicago, violin
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“Orbits” at the University of Chicago New Music Ensemble Concert
Posted: November 11, 2010 in News, Program NotesI’ll be premiering “Orbits” with the wonderful pianist Amy Briggs this Saturday, Nov 13 at 8:00pm in Fulton Recital Hall at the University of Chicago! I wrote the piece back in June and July of 2009 (and wrote two posts on it back then), so I’m very excited to finally be performing it. Here’s the [...]
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
“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 [...]
“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 [...]
“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. [...]
Program Notes for “Taibhse” (2008)
Posted: August 11, 2009 in Program NotesTags: electronic, stereo, taibhse
“Taibhse” is a Gaelic word meaning “ghost” or “phantom”. This piece, created with Csound, explores interactions between three distinct instruments, all of which take pure sine waves as their source material. The first is a combination amplitude- and frequency-modulation instrument with vowel formant filters and a complex combination of reverb, delay and rapid panning. The [...]
Notes on “Identity”
Posted: June 20, 2009 in Program NotesTags: composer institute, identity, minnesota orchestra, orchestra, Program Notes
Identity is a work of questioning, circuitous introspection marked by irresolvable conflicts between opposing musical elements. Tensions between triadic tonality and serialized atonality have a single governing 12-tone row as their framework, while incredibly dense, diffuse orchestral textures are pitted against moments of clarity. In addition, the rhythmically unclear conflicts with the mechanical. But with [...]
Notes on “Finnegan’s Logic”
Posted: June 19, 2009 in Program NotesTags: eastman, finnegans wake, joyce, sinfonietta
Any given sentence in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake is a puzzle with its own internal network of possible meanings, which may or may not “make sense” in the context of anything else in the work. There are two ways of understanding Joyce’s language; we can either meticulously extract the meaning of each sentence from annotation [...]
