Schizo Psycho is based entirely on material from Bernard Herrmann’s score to Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Psycho. A 40-second clip of the movie plays repeatedly, with the ensemble providing different “personalities” on each repetition. All material is taken from the original…
Blog Archives
Halo Ballet (Bipolar Disorder NOS)
Credit for the idea of a Halo ballet goes to Gregory Oh, who commissioned the piece and arranged for me to work with choreographer Julia Aplin. To complement the unusual dance environment of the piece, I chose an unusual musical…
Tagged with: chamber, dance, drums, electric bass, electric guitar, halo, harp, keyboards, percussion, piano, video
Posted in Music
Posted in Music
Kiss Around the World
Kiss Around the World was commissioned by New Works Calgary and the Canada Council for the Arts for Ensemble Resonance. It is the second Around the World piece that I have written, taking a single word—in this case kiss—and presenting…
Tagged with: chamber, clarinet, collage, ensemble resonance, new works calgary, piano, soprano, violin, voice
Posted in Music
Posted in Music
Culture no.2 (or, Shoot Like a Film Star)
This is the middle piece in my Culture series, which is an exploration of the effects that today’s cultural context has on making our music what it is. The text for the piece is taken from a junk e-mail message—certainly…
Recycled 80s Live
Recycled 80s Live is a collage of small fragments of ‘80s pop songs, recomposed and recontextualized into a new, larger work. I chose this approach because artists have always borrowed material from one another, but copyright is increasingly being abused…
Community-Normed
Only a small part of music is actually about sound. The majority of music-making has to do with social interactions more than anything else. Music fulfills certain functions (usually pre-determined) within certain social situations, or serves as a replacement for…
Tagged with: cello, chamber, clarinet, community-normed, continuum ensemble, flute, percussion, piano, violin
Posted in Music
Posted in Music
Jackhammer Lullaby
Jackhammer Lullaby is an arrangement of Community-Normed, which was commissioned by the Continuum Ensemble in Toronto in 2008. I’ve become increasingly interested in presenting pieces in multiple versions and combinations. Jackhammer Lullaby, with a few changes, is also the middle…
Tagged with: cello, chamber, clarinet, community-normed, continuum ensemble, flute, jackhammer lullaby, percussion, piano, violin
Posted in Music
Posted in Music
Four Stills on Evaporation in Thirty-One Fragments
This piece reflects my ongoing interests in sectional forms, doing away with transitional material, and the challenging of aesthetic assumptions. There is no attempt to relate any of the materials of the piece over the large scale. Instead, I have…
Tagged with: arditti quartet, cello, chamber, four stills on evaporation, string quartet, viola, violin
Posted in Music
Posted in Music
Five Reflective Fragments
Five Reflective Fragments is based on a sequence of very brief text fragments extracted from a much longer poetic work, entitled I Lost Everything by poet Sarah Lang. The piece always presents this series of word-units in order and without…
Tagged with: cello, chamber, five reflective fragments, percussion, piano, speaking, string quartet, viola, violin
Posted in Music
Posted in Music
Short/Long
Two years’ distance and fresh ears have made me decide to rename this piece, orginally called Quartet, to Short/Long. These are the titles of the two movements and reflect the kinds of articulations and phrasing that I employed.
- @elcush Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!
- My response to @elcush's The Bacon-Wrapped Economy http://t.co/PFKEL7p9eH
- My latest blog post, looking at the difference between crowdfunding and traditional philanthropy:http://t.co/PFKEL7p9eH
- My latest article: Working for Free: Helpful or Harmful? http://t.co/TvNqXlxT54 a composer's response to @tanehisi Atlantic piece
- Composition Lessons: The Dirty Projector’s “Police Story” and on how to write for voice http://t.co/1ze2kTuBF0
- A friendly review of my premiere at Other Minds last weekend: http://t.co/d1EspIr1Q9
- The @OtherMindsSF Festival was pretty great this year, thanks to all involved.
- Soundcheck for @OtherMindsSF complete, come check out the show tonight, premiere of my piece.
- Apparently my "Machiavellian Guide" now ranks for the search term "iconoclast composer". ;-) http://t.co/tRwTLccA7R
- I will be interviewed by Sarah Cahill on @kalw_radio tonight for the @OtherMindsSF Festival, 8:00pm PST, check it out.
