Roaring Fork (2010) duration: 6'30" Commissioned by the Tyler Youth Orchestra
There is a page dedicated to Roaring Fork with further information here, including a recording.
The Roaring Fork River is a tributary of the Colorado River and is known for its challenging whitewater rafting opportunities. I spent part of the summer of 2010 in Aspen, one of the cities next to which the river flows, and while I did not go rafting, I spent a lot of time admiring the sheer power of the river as I hiked alongside it. This work reflects upon this power as well as the excitement of whitewater rafting. The opening begins with calm waters but with an angular melody over static harmonies. As the momentum builds, the music starts to speed downstream. The angular melody from the opening returns, but with even more breadth. After a reflective moment featuring a solo violin, the music plunges back into the rapids until the end.
Time Lapse (2009) duration: 15' Commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra
There is a page dedicated to Time Lapse with further information here, including a recording.
As the recipient of the 2008 Underwood Commission from the American Composers Orchestra, I wrote this
single-movement 15-minute work for chamber orchestra. It takes inspiration from the concepts of two kinds of artistic photography: time-lapse photography, in which the motion of slowly moving objects is sped up and large periods of time are reduced to seconds; and high-speed photography, in which the motion of a high-speed object is slowed down to become perceptible to our senses.
The music explores these two kinds of temporal perception, as motivic ideas are developed through expansion and contraction. With numerous distinct sound worlds, the piece utilizes the vibrant spectrum of orchestral colors, featuring an array of suspended cymbals and the unique sound of magnetic tape applied to the strings of the piano and harp. Time is flexible through the use of metric modulation and rhythmic variance. The piece grows from concise motivic ideas to sweeping gestures to give the listener a sense of a vast and timeless expanse.
Time Lapse was premiered in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall on January 29, 2010. Read the press release here and the review from the New York Times.
This work was completed on October 27, 2009.
Aerodynamics (2009) duration: 6'30" Winner of a 2009 BMI Student Composer Award Participant in the 2009 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute Participant in the 2010 Cabrillo Festival Composer/Conductor Workshop
Aerodynamics is a work focused on the continuation of fluid gestures. Every line is echoed and mirrored so that a simple idea expands into a wash of sound. The listener may imagine taking flight throughout this piece, dipping and swooping as the shape of the music weaves its way from high to low and from small to large. This work uses a very limited amount of material, almost entirely consisting of a repetitive two note motive and a fleeting melody. The constant underlying motion builds energy and results in a climax that combines the two ideas in a majestic orchestral tutti.
This work was completed on January 6, 2009.
Aerodynamics was premiered on November 21 by the Minnesota Orchestra, Osmo Vänskä conducting. For the time being, the recording will be available for streaming on MPR.org. For information about the instrumentation and to rent scores and parts, please visit the Aerodynamics page.
Green Flash (2006) duration: 10' Winner of the 2009 ASCAP Foundation Rudolf Nissim Prize Participant in the 2008 American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings and recipient of the Underwood Commission Winner of a 2007 BMI Student Composer Award
Please visit the Green Flash page for more information and to listen to a recording.
Lift-Off (2006) duration: 3' Commissioned by Andrew Lane and the Florida West Coast Symphony Association (Sarasota Orchestra)
At the beginning of summer, 2006, I received a call from the Florida West Coast Symphony Youth Philharmonic conductor, Andrew Lane, commissioning me to write a concert opener for the upcoming November 13 side-by-side concert. “Lift-Off” is a very quick and energetic piece, not quite 3 minutes long. There are very few delicate moments in this piece, and I concentrate more on large gestures and thick orchestration. Highly pointed rhythmic sections give way to richly harmonized melodic sections, with an almost constant rushing of 16th notes throughout the entire piece. The difficulty level is suitable for advanced high school students.
This piece is available for rental. For more information and recordings, visit the Lift-Off page.
I submitted Fog (see below) to the New York Youth Symphony not long after I had completed it in 2004, and a few months later I got a call saying I was to be the 65th First Music composer, and they were commissioning me to write a piece for orchestra for them to premiere in Carnegie Hall. This piece is the product of that commission. I wrote it during the summer of 2005 in about two and a half months, from mid April to July 10, the day before my 20th birthday. This was the last composition that I finished technically as a teenager. For more information and to listen to a recording, please visit The Other Rainbow page.
Started 2001, finished Fall 2004. My first serious work for orchestra. I was fascinated and inspired by the thick fog that I would wake up to occasionally in the Florida winter. I used extended techniques and special effects to evoke the mysterious atmosphere that I found so incredible. I also experimented with some controlled improvisation and box notation. The music opens with a flute solo, floating above a low D pedal and harmonic glissandos in the strings.
When I began writing this piece in my junior year of high school, I wrote about 5 minutes worth before realizing that the music I was coming up with was way ahead of my style and I didn’t know enough about orchestration yet to do it justice. I put it aside for three years and then revisited it during my sophomore year at USC, during which I was taking an orchestration class. I finished it that fall and worked with Geoffrey Pope the following January to put together the Starving Composers’ Ensemble at USC, eventually premiering a reduced orchestration of Fog on February 27, 2005. Later, in the fall of 2005, the USC radio station KUSC picked up the recording from that performance and broadcast it on their Thornton Center Stage show, my radio debut. Most recently, I arranged Fog for the Florida West Coast Symphony Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Leif Bjaland, and it received three performances in February 2006.
I received a Phi Kappa Phi student recognition award and a First Music Commission from the New York Youth Symphony for this work in 2005 and 2006, respectively.
Listen to an excerpt:
