Entomological Recollections is a setting of selections from Jean-Henri Fabre’s writings Souvenirs Entomologiques as translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. The first two movements were premiered on May 1st, 2026 by the Wooster Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, and more are to come!
A Brief Collection of Moments
Commissioned by the Ariel Bybee Endowment Grant, A Brief Collection of Moments is a collaboration with choreographer Vanessa Cook (the grant recipient), poet Darlene Young, visual artists Michelle Nixon and Justin Wheatley, and essayist Isaac Richardson (who wrote the foreword for the piece). The work uniquely features an onstage soprano soloist. The Utah Metropolitan Ballet premiered the work on April 23, 2026 with Rachel Morris as soprano soloist and Marcel Bowman directing the orchestra. Learn more in the mini-doc below.
Sonnet 116
The beloved Shakespeare text that begins with “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments” is decidedly ambiguous in nature. The poet claims that love is ever fixed, never shaken, has a worth unknown, and unassailed by time and even death. However, the poem uses negative words like “no” and “not” throughout, almost as if the poet is implying a contrast between true love and the marriage of the true minds who the poet addresses.
This song views the text as a struggle between idealized love and the imperfect relationships witnessed by the poet. The music dwells in conflict that oscillates between anxiety and bliss. The final line of the sonnet becomes not only a statement of what love is but a question of if “no man ever loved.”
Text:
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Written for Adam Ewing and premiered by Adam Ewing and Toni Shreve on November 7th, 2025.
Tarde del trópico
Setting of Rubén Darío's text of the same name, translating to Tropical Evening. Winner of 2016 New American Voices Composition Competition.
Interested in performing Tarde del trópico?
Perusal Score
Tarde del trópico- Score
Performances:
- April 20th, 2016 [Premiere], New American Voices: A Way of Seeing, Tony Boutté and Jared Peroune.
Horas serenas del ocaso breve
A setting of Miguel de Unamuno's poem of the same name. The poem expresses the moment of a burning of truth in the moment of death.
Interested in performing Horas serenas del ocaso breve?
Contact me for more information.
Thoughtsketches
Thoughtsketches features an open-ended structure that allows for improvisation. This technique is largely explored by Christian Asplund, who I studied with at the time. The first movement, Canonic Perception, has a line of text that is read by the performers at the rhythm of their choice, but within a tapped tempo. It proceeds in a round.
Synesthesia provides a uniquely colored chromatic scale for each performer. The vocalist has a list of colors with associated words to vocalize. The instrumentalists play within the limits of the colored notes according to which color they feel matches the word.
Interested in performing Thoughtsketches?
Contact me for more information.
Performances:
- April 10, 2014 [Premiere], Group for Experimental Music, BYU Group for Experimental Music.
- March 14, 2015, To Another Place and Time, Stuart Wheeler, Matthew Webb, Chris Morrison, Dylan Findley.
- January 15, 2016, Stone in Hand: A Concert of Works by Dylan Findley, Dana Kaufman, Monte Taylor, John Harris, Dylan Findley.
Romance Sonámbulo
A setting of the text of the same name by Federico García Lorca, Romance Sonambulo explores the relationships of words and ideas within the poet's bleak yet beautiful text. Lorca contrasts the joys of nature to the persecutions of the Gypsies shortly before the Spanish Civil War. For this and other poems seeking social change, Lorca was later assassinated.
Interested in performing Romance Sonámbulo?
Contact me for more information.
Performances:
- March 14, 2014 [Premiere], Group for New Music: Student Edition, Monica Bennett, Zane Harker, Charlotte Heiner, Gatelyn Gentry, TJ Smith, Hunter Montgomery, Hannah Cope, Anna Dunford.
- March 14, 2015, To Another Place and Time, Monica Bennett, Zane Harker, Charlotte Heiner, Leslie Sampson, Brad Sampson, Aaron Clark, Lizzie Tutt, Alexandra Brown.
- April 9th, 2016, Denney, Findley, Taylor, Ryan Gardner, Elena Blyskal, Andrew Eshbach, Kevin Gregory, Josh Schwartz, Dana Kaufman, Javier Chacon, Ryan Hecker.