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Touché

Touché is a single movement duo-concertante in a toccata style. Two clarinet soloists are united in a musical contest, between themselves and together in opposition to an ensemble of synthetic clarinets automated from computer software. The toccata paradigm emphasizes the immediacy of touch upon the instruments, which traditionally serves to allow idioms of virtuosic performance to take the lead in determining musical form. Touché also takes the idea of musical touch to a yet more detailed level, that of articulation, the specific qualities of attack upon and the subsequent shaping of the musical tones. Here, therefore, the emphasis is on how the tones themselves are touched. The synthetic clarinets in particular emphasize these articulations, being made artificially sharp and separated, or more rarely, artificially dulled. There are also important shaping gestures, such as sudden swellings of tone with pointed conclusions, that suggest the rhythmic interchange of swordplay, notably fencing—en-garde.

The Animus Winds

The Animus Winds is a composition for flute and electroacoustic sound. Thematically, the composition explores an opposition of two perceptions: the sensual experience of wind against a personification of wind as a supernatural force. The electroacoustic sound recolors and reshapes recordings of wind and flutes, such that flutes take on characteristics of the wind, and wind takes on both musical and vocal qualities. There is also a dramatic schema, in which the flute takes the role of a person who is at times drawn into the natural spirit of the wind, and at other times strongly confronts its more hostile animus.

Sediment

terminal loop

Separate Realities

Inspired by the spiritual visions of five individuals

Premonitions, Landscape at Twilight for electronic fixed media

Premonitions, Landscape at Twilight for electronic fixed media (2017) is based upon Salvador Dali’s pastoral, Spider of the Evening (1940). In this work we see the painter’s signature depiction of misshapen figures: a stretched female nude, a molten cello, and a softened airplane; each of which have lost their familiar rigidity, existing beyond the boundaries of conscious reality. These are cast before long shadows in an arid landscape at sundown. Amidst the leafless olive tree, the weeping cherub, and the two lonesome figures dancing a dispirited Spanish sardana, we are witness to a scene that is both apocalyptic and tragic. Salvador Dali drew from French peasant folklore which claims that the sight of a spider in the evening was auspicious, a sign that must have filled the artist with the hope for a speedy end to armed conflict. However, history shows that the war was still to proceed for another five tumultuous years, the worst of the devastation yet to unfold.

In our time, the U.S. has been at war continuously for numerous years. Although much has been done to dominate and suppress our adversaries to preserve our way of life, much has also been spent in the cost to life, limb, peace of mind, and property for an incalculable many along the way. In our time, there is talk of endless war. In our time, there are those who wield great power and influence to profit from the pursuit of war at the expense of untold others. There are never any easy solutions to dire political conflicts, but there are arguably far fewer persuasive justifications for the scale of terror and destruction that affects innocent, vulnerable lives as a consequence of war.

The recorded cello samples featured in Premonitions, Landscape at Twilight were drawn from an improvisation by Noah Johnson at the Dancz Center of New Music, Hugh Hogdson School of Music, University of Georgia, Athens, on 08MAY17.

Note: It is recommended, but not required, to project an image of Dali’s Spider of the Evening during playback of the work in a darkened hall.

El Perdido

Art song for voice and electronics in Spanish
As there are not many pieces for solo voice and electronic media, I wanted to take the opportunity to work toward making a contribution in this medium. “El Perdido” is my title for the setting of Alejo Valdés Pica’s poem, “El Amor de los Amores,” which is about a rejected lover so traumatized by a failed romance that his entire vision of reality has become lost to him: his world is falling apart around him. Everything has become an eternal wasteland to him with only a faint reminiscence to momentarily alleviate the pains that lie within. The sandstorm that envelopes him at the end of the song is therefore appropriate; it reflects the inner turmoil that has lead him to yearn to be free of his life, a yearning that becomes as infinite as all the grains of sand lost in the desert. Pica’s work is representative of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth century Filipino poets who incorporated contemporary Symbolist imagery in an overwrought style of Spanish writing.

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