Stone in Hand

I just finished my work Stone in Hand: A Dramatized Parable for Oboe, Clarinet, and Chimes, a commission for Julia Lougheed, an amazing clarinetist currently attending Virginia Commonwealth University.  Julia asked me to focus on the topic of forgiveness, and since then, my mind has been constantly thinking about how forgiveness works.  Though the piece contains many layers of symbolism--from the number of movements in total (seven) and the number of pitch centers in the first clarinet section (six), and the characterization of the instruments and interplay--most important in the piece is the transformation in texture and mood.  I believe this is the most complex work I have written yet, both in terms of utilizing the full capacities of the instruments (nobody writes for chimes when doing chamber music!)  and in its architecture.  Also, being 13 minutes, this will be my longest continuous piece (even though there are seven movements, there are no breaks).  I am very excited to hear this work performed and hope it is an uplifting experience for both musicians and non-musicians, performers and audience.

The exact date of the premiere of the piece is still TBD, but we are planning on it being premiered in either December or January, and because she is originally from Florida, we hope to have it premiered in Miami.  I look forward to working with the performers as we take this next step in the music-making process.  

P.S.- This piece is a consortium commission, so if you would like to join the group of premieres of this piece, you can!  We have had several generous donors already, but by joining the commission, you will be able to fund my efforts to bring inspiring music to life!  All commissioners will be considered the commissioners of the work and be able to premiere it in their city or state, being mentioned in the music.  Email me if you would like to join this commission, or if you would like to commission a new work!

Hello from Miami!

I have the special opportunity to study under Lansing McLoskey while receiving my Masters in Music Composition at the University of Miami.  UM has been a unique experience so far, and I feel like musicians can learn a lot from how the musicianship/aural skills coursework is set up here.  I'd like to share what I find intriguing about this system and then share a little bit about what has happened with me musically since my last post.

Aural skills traditionally consists of a sight singing course and a dictation course.  They are typically separated in teaching, even if they are found under the same class name and run back to back in a day.  Students usually will not bring their instruments to class, and because of the nature of the course, many students find these courses to be irrelevant and have little motivation to do well.  When will a classical performer ever want to dictate a melody?  And when will an instrumentalist ever need to sing solfege (other than in Michael Hicks's The Idea of Domes found on his album Felt Hammers, except the solfege syllables are on the same pitch as an allusion of sorts).  

Now, the UM way is exciting to me.  I help teach students this same coursework, but it is organized with an element of improvisation that I believe makes the experience much more musical.  But some may ask, "Why improvisation?  Is the school wanting everyone to learn jazz?"  Yet to ignore improvisation as a part of any music history is to cater to a less than 200 year tradition from Europe.  Every time period in Western music up to the Romantic period allowed for improvisation, so why did we let that part of music slip?  And this is not to mention other traditions around the world like Indian raga, where improvisation is so important it takes a lifetime to become an expert in the style.  So jazz, rock, pop, raga, Beethoven, Mozart, Leonin, etc., we should definitely include at least a little improvisation in our abilities.  

But pedagogically, I don't believe there is a better way to develop the ear than by exercises in imitation.  Instead of telling the students the "rules" of voice leading, they are allowed to experiment with these principles in small groups.  The students at UM mix sight singing with their instruments; they learn how to apply the abilities of audiating (sounding out the music in one's head before playing) that are inherent in sight singing to their performance, a confidence booster to wind players especially who need to hit into different registers with a nice sound and on pitch.  Plus, it's fun.  We do not need to restrict ourselves to strictly classical music or jazz; there is room in the curriculum for experiments and grooves.  

By the end of the two years, students will be able to improvise through all the types of music covered in the first three semesters of the theory curriculum with some extra knowledge about jazz harmonies.  I am grateful to be learning with the students this year; this will first and foremost open our ears to be more sensitive and precise, and secondly, open a lot of doors for future gigs/inspiration and so forth all of us.  I recommend this method to anywhere that has a faculty dedicated to trying something radical and new.  

Since my last post, I wrote a small jazz chart for the wedding anniversary of two good friends in my hometown.  I have improvised with Table Nine, a local jazz group in Provo, but I had never had the opportunity to write a number like this before.  I wish I were there to hear it, but they shared the video with me, and I'm glad it worked out.  Happy 30th anniversary to the Nelsons!  

I am currently writing a piece for chimes, oboe, and clarinet for my friend Julia Lougheed.  It's great to be able to write this piece for her and take advantage of the sound capabilities of these instruments, especially the chimes.  Today I was able to meet with a percussionist and try out different techniques on the instrument.  Different mallets, bowing, harmonics, and hitting different parts of the chime gave interesting sounds that will help the piece.  Of course, the techniques are to add to the piece, not to become the piece.  So I hope to use these techniques as part of the symbolic nature of the work.  But I'll put more details about the work when I'm finished (by my next blog post).  Enjoy this wonderful month of September!

Summer Time

With some help from my brother Michael at Blue Stripe Studios, I was finally able to design this personal website!  For those who don't know me, my biography tells all.  But I wanted to share the neat opportunities that I have had since graduation from Brigham Young University. 

The week following graduation, I left with the Brigham Young University Wind Symphony to a tour in Mongolia, South Korea, and Japan.  The tour impacted me.  It helped me understand the power of music, feel important in both what I have chosen to do as a career and as part of a group of good-hearted people who love to serve others, and gave me life-long friends.  The opportunity to have gone to Asia now for the second time leaves me in awe; how could I be this fortunate?  I hope to live up to these opportunities.

When I returned, I needed to write three pieces within two weeks.  I immediately began Horas serenas del ocaso breve, a setting of a poem by Miguel de Unamuno.  This poem in particular struck me because of its focus on the liminality found at the moment before death.  For me, I constantly find my inspiration in the moments in the expression of moments that transcend tangibility.  And this piece fits into this recurring theme.  My friends Zane Harker (tenor and fellow composer) and Chris Morrison (piano), with the tech help from Daniel Nash (composer) and Robert Willes (cellist), helped me with a rough recording of the piece.

The next two pieces I needed to write were for the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival.  I first wrote Oh, That Light! for the Imani Winds.  It was going to have, again, the theme of transcendence, but my ear took me a different and more scientific route.  I was overlaying rhythmic patterns and realized that I could control the pacing of the piece by only changing the density of my materials.  I had planned to do this, but not to the extremes that I felt like using in the end.  It also lent itself to a humorous ending, another aspect of music that I think studying Mozart and Beethoven has inspired me to do.

The final piece I wrote was Terelj, a work based on aspects of Mongolian culture, an homage of sorts to the Wind Symphony tour to Asia.  I wanted to create music that reflected the feelings I felt there without being too Mongolian.  Yet I still wanted to pay tribute to the musical styles I heard while there.  I first gave tribute to the morin khuur or horsehead fiddle with Camel's Tear.  The piece used a drone centered around the fifth of the original tonal center like I heard in some horsehead fiddle music. The next movement, Shagai, gave tribute to the ankle bone shooting game enjoyed by Mongolians.  The middle contains a theme largely inspired by the Mongolian National Hymn.  The last movement, Ger, evokes the feeling of home.  I wanted to see how the phrasing of long lines of grace notes in regards to fluidity, and I provided these lines to every instrument.  I also tried to make a smooth yet brief transition to double-time and back as another experiment.

Finishing these pieces just in time for the festival (well, Ger was actually finished at the festival), I left for NYC.  I was lucky enough to find a private room in a so-called hotel in a Chinese neighborhood in Brooklyn for $48 a night.  Just down the block was a wonderful fruit market and grocery store.  And across the street from the fruit market, I had my first NYC food--a big and delicious sub sandwich.  The Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival was an excellent experience; I recommend it to all my woodwind player friends and fellow emerging composers.  The Imani Winds performed Oh, That Light! with their awesome enthusiasm and precision, and I am excited for them to premiere the work.  Woodwind Quintet Emoji Winds, comprised of Julia Barnett, Zack Borowiec, Ruth Aguirre, Amanda Ray, and Martin Van Klompenberg, spent hours of diligent practice refining my piece Terelj.  They rocked the piece and the Visionaries concert, and I am grateful for all their hard work on the piece.  I'm excited to hopefully continue working with each of these excellent musicians on future projects.

Additionally at the festival, I was able to learn a lot from composers and music business experts.  Eric Ewazen served as our main mentor, and I was able to have two masterclasses with him.  We first looked at some of my earlier works and discussed them, and then we talked about my future plans and works.  I also had a lot of interaction with Mohammed Fairouz, who writes excellent music.  Mohammed's vocal writing is inspirational, and I was lucky enough to get feedback on Horas serenas del ocaso breve from him.  Other notable guests included Jason Moran, who told us that we need to "dig up the soil" and liven up the music scene, and Cliff Colnot, who taught excellent intonation rules and music notation guidelines for efficient readings (it saves a lot of time to have clear notation).  I should also mention my fellow composers at the program, Sequoia Sellinger, Devon Yasamune Toyotomi, Jake Walsh, and Ray Fields.  In the end, the festival gave me energy and excitement to write music for great performers, and I have a lot of great people who would be happy to play my music.

Once I returned from NYC, I began writing my first post-festival commission for Marcus Moore.  He needed a closer for a recital in Atlanta, Georgia, and he wanted it to be fast and flashy.  Being a clarinetist, it is a sin that I haven't written too much clarinet music (no solo music for over two years).  I readily took the opportunity to write for the instrument I know best.  The story for the emotional content of the piece is slightly goofy.  Right before the composers Visionary concert at the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, I felt nervous to introduce my piece.  I happened to be by Marcus and told him that the piece would be about that nervous feeling.  And then I told him about this creepy millipede-like creature I saw in my hotel.  So combining those two, I created a light-hearted piece that thrives off of what I thought of as "nervous energy."  I made use of chromatic lines and unusual arpeggios while making sure that everything felt nice to the fingers.  Marcus performed the piece last week, and he said it went well.  In July he plans to record it!  This was a lengthy post, but I'll be on top of updates!  Feel free to leave comments and/or questions!