I see men as trees, walking

In a biblical account (Mark 8:22-25), a blind man is healed by Christ in two stages. After his first blessing, Jesus asks the blind man if he sees anything. The blind person responds: I see men as trees, walking. Then (and only then), Christ finishes healing the blind man to full sight.

This hazy space between petition and the actualization of hoped miracles creates a special tension and yearning I invoke through the music. My work calls attention to a sparse temporal space and atmosphere from which the music drifts in and out of colorful clarity through several textural and contrapuntal soundscapes. Underlying these textures is a strumming refrain, first introduced by the viola. Also notable are open-string harmonies and quick arpeggiating passages that develop and ultimately fuse together in the work.

This work was written for Quarteto L’Arianna with double bassist Pedro Gadelha at the São Paulo Contemporary Composers Festival.

Performances

  • September 24th, 2018 by the Quarteto L’Arianna with double bassist Pedro Gadelha at the Catedral de Sé, São Paulo, Brazil.

Pa-Hay-Okee

Clarinetist: Dylan Findley

Bassoonist: Martin Van Klompenberg (note: electronics are soft in video recording)

Pa-Hay-Okee, written for reeded instrument, refers to the site now known as the Florida Everglades. This word, from the Seminole language, translates to “grassy water,” describing the vast marshes filled with sawgrass and other plants. The sawgrass acts as a symbol for the entire natural region. Fields of sawgrass appear beautiful, but as implied in its name, each blade of grass can cut through flesh. In this complex habitat are both the breathtaking reeds, herons, turtles, and even manatees and flamingos as the glades approach the ocean. Yet, alligators and venomous snakes lurk within this formidable domain. My work captures this paradoxical beautiful danger through a mysterious, lyrical, and volatile interaction between the instrumentalist and the live processing of the instrument’s sound. All electronic sound in the piece derive from live input during the performance.

Performances:

February 21, 2022: Martin Van Klompenberg, Worlds Within the One, Annett Recital Hall, University of Wisconsin La-Crosse, La Crosse, WI.

Inside Out

I wrote Inside Out as a collaboration with Taylor Edwards, a dance choreographer interested in the process of seeking out and finding answers. We worked together throughout the process on music and dance inspired by trap rhythm and groove. I formed the "drum kit" through a variety of household sounds, such as scraping wrappers together, punching pillows, playing a guiro, tapping castanets etc. and created the background sounds with a singing bowl and xun. The clarinet music is improvised within the structure of the dance and includes live electronics triggered at certain time points. 

Performances:

  • May 7th, 2018, 11 Vignettes, Dylan Findley and Taylor Edwards, choreographer

Connect/Disconnect

I seek to expresar the puan 的 conexión sin paʻi, ese moment الذي le horizon pırıltı ile luz dan bentuk suram nehmen Sie Form an. Sin embargo, für die униженный penyangkalan del 幫, الاستمارات oscurecer եւ de disconnect ล้ำลึก para আসা dengan gràdh mòr. 這是ang sitwasyon હુ ઇચ્ચુ છુ لتجنب, 넘다 la espalda juu ya wakimbizi.

Interested in performing Connect/Disconnect?

Perusal Score

Connect/Disconnect- Score (read from score)

Performances:

MARCH

MARCH plays with the definition and purposing of a traditional march, following John Phillip Sousa’s standard march form. Militaristic drum rhythms, iconic bass patterns, declamatory brass calls, flowery woodwind patterns, modal melodies, and Stravinskian primitivism come together to connote ceremony, pageantry, valor, patriotism, entertainment, and calls to arm that have been associated with marches for centuries.

To be premiered.

Swallowed Up

 Swallowed Up is a commission from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, premiered by PULSE Trio. It develops the homonymic properties of the word “swallow.” The work’s overall three-movement form symbolizes: the digestive action, a series of living things, and the Passion story of Jesus Christ.

“Garden of the Innocent Bird” groups together the oral digestive phase, the bird swallow, and Christ’s suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane. The bird swallow is known as the bird of liberty because it dies when captured. Christ wilfully handed Himself over to be killed to liberate those captive in sin. The oral phase of swallowing food softens food and then bites and grinds it into a bolus. Likewise, in the Garden of Olives, Christ suffered to the point that He bled from every pore just as olives are crushed under extreme pressure for their oil.

“Sting” refers to the pharyngeal phase, the sea swallow, and the crucifixion of Christ. This digestive phase prepares for and then catapults the bolus to the stomach. The sea swallow’s sting is lethal. Christ died being nailed to the Cross He carried, after being falsely judged, beat, and betrayed.

“Vincetoxicum hirundae” relates the esophageal phase to the plant swallow-wort and to the Resurrection.  The Latin title comes from the swallow-wort’s scientific name, referring to its properties to cure snake poison. The swallow-wort, in Dacian culture, was known to open any locked door. The esophageal phase pushes the bolus into the stomach, where nutrients are absorbed and taken throughout the body. Christ’s Resurrection announces that “mortality might be swallowed up of life” (2 Corinthians 5:4). It allowed Christ power over sin, conquering the devil, the biblical serpent.

Interested in performing Swallowed Up?

Perusal Score

Swallowed Up- Score and Parts

Performances:

In the Mind of Energy

“This division of energy into actual and potential seems to me to be defective. It prevents the direct comprehension in the mind of energy as being motion and nothing else; it leaves unexplained how a body perfectly at rest can come to move; and further implies the dissipation of energy . . . in a new phase, for, if all the actual energy in the universe were to become potential, all the real and positive motions which constitute life might indefinitely cease.”

- George Iles, The Constancy of Motion, Popular Science Monthly, Volume 10, December 1876

Written for and premiered by Transient Canvas at the ALBA Music Festival.

Interested in performing In the Mind of Energy?

Perusal Score

In the Mind of Energy- Score and Parts

Performances:

Refreshing the Feeling

Commissioned by TransAmerican Duo (Diana Ramirez and Brian McKee), this work for violin and bassoon blends energy, humor, expressiveness, and virtuosity in a strange fashion.

Interested in performing Refreshing the Feeling?

Perusal Score

Refreshing the Feeling- Score and Parts

Performances:

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Improvisations VI: Just, Plane, Natural

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Improvisations VI: Just, Plane, Natural manipulates the improviser's playing to be different partials of harmonic series. Though the performer is free to improvise within the bounds of good judgment, the form is dictated by the order of events in the Pure Data software.

This is a part of a larger Improvisations series.

Improvisations IV: An Appeal to the [SOUND] Masses
Improvisations V: Two-Track Mind
Improvisations 5.2: Two Tracks for Two Minds (free electronics with laptop performer)
Improvisations I: MicroTunes

Interested in performing Improvisations VI: Just, Plane, Natural?

Contact me for more information.

Performances:

strengthen the body/enliven the soul

strengthen the body/enliven the soul

Commissioned by the Atlantic Music Festival, strengthen the body/enliven the soul refers to the scripture: 

"Yea, all things which come of the earth, in the season thereof, are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart; Yea, for food and for raiment, for taste and for smell, to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul." -Doctrine and Covenants 59:18-19.

Interested in performing strengthen the body/enliven the soul?

Perusal Score

strengthen the body/enliven the soul-Score and Parts

Performances:

 

Four Miniatures and a Prelude for a Somewhat Large Chamber Orchestra

Four Miniatures and a Prelude for a Somewhat Large Orchestra features four miniatures based on similar thematic material (and also a prelude). The first movement introduces the motif through claustrophobic shifts between loud and soft.  The second explores juxtaposition in an off-kilter scherzo.  The third explores jazz and boogie woogie styles in a hectic shuffle. It is dedicated to those Louis who get people to dance. The fourth movement develops material from the second movement in a stark, silent, and dissonant close to the miniature set. (Following the miniatures is the prelude. It is a merengue.)

Interested in performing Four Miniatures and a Prelude for a Somewhat Large Chamber Orchestra?

Perusal Score

Rent Score and Parts

Performances:

Wend Your Way

Commissioned by the American Guild of Organists Student Commissioning Project, Wend Your Way is a fantasia on the classic Latter-day Saint hymn tune and text.  It progresses from the depths of sorrow for the martyrdom of the early members of the Latter-day Saint church's prophet, Joseph Smith, through the uncertainties of what lie ahead for the Saints, into the confidence and strength found in everlasting hope, and finally to the glorious joy of reaching a land of refuge and sanctuary, serving as a literal narrative and the personal spiritual journey we all strive to make in life.

Interested in performing Wend Your Way?

Perusal Score

Wend Your Way- Organ Music

Performances

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Improvisations 5.2 Two Tracks for Two Minds

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Free improvisation based on Improvisations V.  For any instrument and laptop performer. Listen to other pieces in the Improvisations series below:

Improvisations IV: An Appeal to the [SOUND] Masses
Improvisations V: Two-Track Mind
Improvisations VI: Just, Plane, Natural
Improvisations I: MicroTunes

Interested in performing Improvisations 5.2: Two Tracks for Two Minds?

Contact me for more information.

Performances

April 15th, 2017 [Premiere], THIS IS THE END: Society of Composers, Inc., Andrew Friedrichs (trombone), Dylan Findley (laptop).

April 28th, 2017, Refreshing the Feeling: A Concert of Works by Dylan Findley, Paige Towsey (violin), Dylan Findley (laptop).

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Improvisations V: Two-Track Mind

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The second piece in my Improvisations set, this piece experiments with randomized, manipulated loops of material produced by the improviser.  These loops inherently create rhythms, and the improviser performs according to the rhythms.  The form is set, making it a unique and identifiable piece. This is part of a larger Improvisations series. See the following links for further examples:


Improvisations IV: An Appeal to the [SOUND] Masses
Improvisations 5.2: Two Tracks for Two Minds (free electronics with laptop performer)
Improvisations VI: Just, Plane, Natural
Improvisations I: MicroTunes

Interested in performing Improvisations V: Two-Track Mind?

Contact me for more information.

Performances:

Stone in Hand

for oboe, clarinet, and chimes

This work was commissioned by clarinetist Julia Lougheed, who premiered the work. It addresses the process of overcoming anger and hate to find feelings of peace, mercy, and forgiveness.

Scenarios

 I.        Let him first cast a stone (John 8:2-11) 
II.       I, the Lord will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men (Doctrine and Covenants 64:9-10)
 III.    And He shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind (Alma 7:11) 
IV.      Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all (Matthew 18:23-35)
 V.       But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings (Malachi 4:2)
 VI.     Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow (Isaiah 1:18)
 VII.     Yea, come unto Christ and be perfected in him (Moroni 10:32)

Interested in Performing Stone in Hand?

Perusal Score

Stone in Hand- Score and Parts

Performances: