Category: Chamber

Composing a symphonic piece is a lot of work. Paschal, as has been alluded to in the previous post here and here, is a piece that I am immensely proud of and also something I wish I could restart or at least give my 5 year ago self some advice. But when it came time to finish the work, I had several outcomes and outlines that saw the work finish in a number of different ways. Ultimately, I chose a “slow-fast-slow” model for the entire work, which creates a more thoughtful work as it doesn’t end with a bang. Originally, I wanted to end with a bang, but time was not my friend in writing this work and sometimes that benefits the creative process.

Unlike the first two movements, which have a hodge-podge of material that developed over a long period of time, this third movement was created last and free from any revisions of earlier drafts. That allowed me to finish Paschal as a summary of all the things that came before it and look at the first two movements with fresh eyes; namely, only at the material that is actually in the pieces and nothing of the revisions or musical material from earlier drafts. This lead me to a singular thought, if not an obvious one: the last movement should be a summary of the first two.

And then, if the first two were in some part about Spring while using the chants from Easter, then it would make sense that the final movement would be about those voices. The original conceit for the ending involved the Te Deum chant and I decided to include that one idea as all the chants for the day are represented in this final movement. The other thought I had, generally, was to reverse what has happened in the first two movements. The end of the third movement is similar to the beginning of the first movement, the middle of the work includes a high point similar to the second movement and final movement ends where the second left off – again, the last movement is meant to mirror the first two in some sense. I wish I could say this is my idea but it is something I lifted from Kaija Saariaho and my research into Maan Varjot, which has mirror like reflections in its overall form.

The last insight I will offer for this piece is small: I recorded myself singing some of the chants slowly and then used the program Spear to analyze and show the harmonic spectra of my singing. I then approximated it with the symphony at certain points. I never intended to follow a strict, spectralist sense of realizing a harmonic spectra, but it did offer a guiding hand in how to orchestrate the chants in a different way than the previous two movements.

I said it before and I am going to say it again, I am really proud of this work! If it hasn’t come across in my writing here, that surprises me. I may have spend too many years working on it, too many drafts, and as a part of my doctoral studies, there was an inevitability to its creation which led to the general attitude of being done with it. When I actually heard it performed, all that went away and the hard work showed itself. Paschal could use some more editing, but I need to it go and be a piece in the world. I hope to someday return to the symphony for composition.

Obviously, I haven’t posted in about a month or so, partly due to the end of the semester and partly due to defending my research for my doctorate, WHICH I PASSED. Woo! As of this post, I am not done as there are revisions expected. I am, of course, completely fine with that as I and my committee want the best possible outcome. I have plans to escape my home to work on the piece and hopefully make a recording of an upcoming work. Stay tuned for that!

In the mean time, as I scour my recordings to decide what to post next, I thought it would be worth covering a movement that I uploaded a few weeks ago but never wrote about. That would be the second movement of my symphonic work Paschal. I did discuss the first movement some in this post here, but I did not really reveal any information about its composition. I seemed to have spent that post preparing myself for this new, shelter-in-place reality that we are experiencing and may continue to in the coming summer months. (Heck, were not even going to Montana this year!)

Without intending to do so, I am happy that I get to discuss the building blocks in some detail now as the first two movements are really strung together by the development of their composition. I mentioned that the original ORIGINAL version was Messiaen inspired and about 20 minutes long. That version was never read through and when I started my studies, the piece began anew from scratch except one basic element: the chants from Easter. The first two movements were once one movement with it beginning about a minute into the first movement and ending where this movement does. The chants are not obvious in any way, but they are there. If you pay attention to the bass pitches at the end of this second movement, it makes up the beginning of the Victimae paschali laudes, the sequence for Easter. All of the chants before that point are there and in liturgical order up to that point. While the first movement only uses the introit, the second movement incorporates the psalm, the alleluia, and as mentioned, the sequence. The last movement, as might be predictable, uses the offertory and communion. More on that last movement soon (though the video is up at the time of this post).

Listening to the first two movements back to back, it is clear in my mind how they were once a single musical goal and now they are two whole movements. What is interesting to me is how these sorts of things evolve and what was once a 20 minute single movement work to a 7 minute single experiment to a five movement something-or-other becomes a typical slow-fast-slow symphonic work. Everytime I listen to each movement now, it works better than it should based on the journey the musical material took, but that is one of the weird things being a composer. Sometimes things turn out better than expected.

Happy Easter! As the quarantine continues, I won’t have the usual things to present in the blog here because I haven’t really had a chance to record things. The churches that I currently have access are (mostly) closed and with the end of the semester looming I’m not sure I will have a chance to finish recording Sonata No. 1 for a bit. But never avail, I have a few recordings to get through for the time being.

While I have labeled this as “chamber,” it is really full symphony. As a part of my DMA studies I was required to write a large scale work and this is the result of a lot of revisions. A LOT of revisions. I think I put in the video that I worked on the piece from 2015 to 2019 and it may be more accurate to say 2013 to 2019. When I was first accepted into WVU’s DMA composition program, I began work on Paschal, which started off as a single movement, 20 minute work. It was very tonal, very inspired by Messiaen in many ways, and it was generally conservative.

Well, that was then and what the piece has morphed into is a three movement work totaling about 15 minutes. The entire piece uses the chants found for the Easter morning Mass, but that is merely for precompositional purposes. Mostly, I used the term Paschal in the sense that it is about spring. Growing up in Alaska, Spring was an explosive time, usually about two to three weeks where everything buds and grows. And this first movement is that moment early in the morning when the condensation has gathered and that image guided the creation of Ros in lucem.

Obviously, it has been yet another busy time for me since I haven’t made a post in two months. Well, in that time I finished a symphonic work and had it read for my doctorate, subbed at a church and then became interim organist and director, and have been spending every waking moment on writing my dissertation. With all that going on, along with family, it has been a busy time and I unfortunately have neglected the blog. I have had all the intentions in the world to record the two Sonatas – I even had two failed recording sessions! I will try to get back to that soon.

In the mean time, I went through my things and I found a recording of a work that I have not yet published. I was commissioned by Michelle Kardos to write a work for organ and percussion for her graduate recital and I have the premier recording! It was a fun piece to write and one that I hope to edit in a publishable form soon. The percussion part needs some editing to be more accurate to my intentions. Percussion is my Achilles Heel in composing and I was really happy with the result here. From my perspective, I simply went to town with the percussion.

Let me present you with the first problem in my head: the organ is not a percussive instrument and keeping time between the two performers would be incredibly challenging. Let alone the space between the pipes, console and percussion instruments, coordination at the very least is a huge problem. First solution: an ostinato pulse throughout the entire work. Second, the contrast between the instruments need to work together. Next solution: have the percussion move through stations of similar instruments. Third thought and solution: if the percussion is progressing through various “stations,” than the form of the work should reflect that. Five stations and form moments seem correct; divide the work in a “mirror” fashion. As in, the form of the piece would reflect an ABCBA like form. I also had the stations reflect that as well – metallic percussion in the B sections, snare and tom toms in the As and C is something totally different! Final compositional consideration: this is a performance work not a liturgical one. That means I use materials that I might not normally use and in this case it is a tone row and its matrix. I decided to do it a tonal manner similar to the composer Joseph Wilcox Jenkins.

Before presenting the work, I want to give you all who read this an awesome quote. When I interviewed Olivier Latry for my doctorate, I mentioned that I was writing this work, specifically about the challenge of writing the non-percussive organ. His response was something like, “It depends on who the organist is.” So brilliant. I do want to mention the quality of the recording – it’s not perfect. That’s not because of the recording engineer – it’s more to do with the church space. As mentioned earlier, the percussion was physically closer to the mics than the pipes were and the diffusion in the church space was dominated by percussion. Finally, about the title: I wanted to write some heavy metal for the organ. I internet searched “heavy metal” and after the musical genre, it gave me “high density metal.” Sold.

Greetings to the new website! The biggest reason I haven’t posted in two months is because of preparing this new site. And here it is! Besides having the shop for my music and revising a number of works (and I am still revising), it is a pleasure to have something that closer resembles my vision than what the previous site had.

To that point, I present a new work, something I wrote as a complimentary work to a piece I  arranged: Carlotta Ferrari’s Toccata sopra Crux Fidelis. Where the Toccata began the Good Friday service, Scrutari ended it (please note that the video for the Toccata says Palm Sunday, that is incorrect). In between there were many passion themed hymns. Behind the scenes though, we recorded this on Saturday before the Easter Vigil to get something better. We had just enough time to get one solid performance.

And while the recording is not perfect, it captures the aesthetic I was trying to achieve for a Good Friday meditation service. I hope that one day, I will be able to record it again in less time crunched circumstances. That and perhaps write more music for this instrumentation.

 

Happy Easter and greetings from the other side of Holy Week!  It has been quite a month and a half since I last posted.  My work at the Monastery had me quite busy, though not un-enjoyably so.  Along with the usual amounts of work that Lent and Holy Week require, I was asked by my rector to put a program together for Good Friday.  More specifically, he asked that I put together an ensemble (voice, violin, flute, and organ) and perform music under the vague title “Music of the Passion.”  Honestly, it wasn’t too hard to find hymns for that setting, but finding instrumental music was definitely more challenging.

After spending too much time on IMSLP, I discovered a work for organ by the composer Carlotta Ferrari.  I became familiar to her works because of Carson Cooman’s numerous Youtube recordings of her works.  The piece titled, Toccata sopra Crux Fidelis, seemed perfect for the Good Friday program as the opening.  I reached out to her and she loved the idea of the arrangement and I am so happy I did it.  The score is available on the same IMSLP page as the organ version.

Greetings friends!  It has been about two months since I have posted something and much of that has to do with life, the universe, and not getting a good a proper recording done.  It is also coupled with that I am trying to get a recording from another organ and space as I have been becoming increasingly frustrated with the instrument in the Monastery Church.  I have attempted to be as kind as possible about it, but the Möller is a Möller and has limited potential, one that I feel has been realized by the Evening Improvisations.

And now for something completely different…  Earlier this year I ran an improvisation session with a bunch of young students.  It was a blast!  I think there are some fine tuning elements that I will include next time I do it, but the real success of the night was one particular piece I titled, “To be determined…”  It was modeled after modern pop ballads (as I see and hear them), but it was template in which the students would be able to improvise upon.

Well, it was enough of a hit that my violinist friend who sponsored the event wanted the students to have something to take home.  Another friend of mine from CCAC, needed people to record for his Audio Recording course.  I saw this as the perfect opportunity to help both of my friends get things done!  I am happy to announce the result: a fully realized version of the song “To be determined…”  Here is a link to the score:

Here I will note that I have titled this a “composition.”  For me, creating a template for improvisation falls far on the side of composition and less improvisation.  Knowing that improvisation will happen is only a part of the compositional process, not an actual realization of the result.  Writing, planning, and realizing the backing track was truly fun; though the sound of the song is of a pop kind, the process for me was as much like any other composition that I have written, with decidedly different results.

Today, I am pleased to bring you a NON-ORGAN or CHORAL related composition.  Neat!  Or at least that’s what I think.  I haven’t had too many opportunities to write for instruments other than choir or the organ, but last spring I did.  A harpist at Duquesne University, whom I approached with some questions about writing for harp, said that she was always looking for more chamber music for harp.  I asked her what kind of chamber music and this is how the piece was born.  What I can say is that more is coming: I’m turning the work into a three movement Suite which means that the rest of it will show up sometime in the spring.  Enjoy!