Ice-Nine

On April 29, the Frost Clarinet Choir will be playing my new piece, Ice-Nine.  The title is a reference to the book Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.  In Cat’s Cradle, ice-nine is an alternate crystal structure of H2O which ends up causing the world to freeze over.  In my piece I tried to create a semi narrative structure that chronicles the creation of ice-nine through the time that the world freezes over.  The piece is divided into three sections, the first of which consists of melodic fragments mixed in with bubbling minimalist textures.  I call this section “genesis”  The second section is extremely slow with dissonant clusters fading in and out of the upper voices which eventually accompany an otherworldly contrabass clarinet solo.  This section is titled “Collateral Damage”.  The final section begins with quick fragments in a 12/8 feel weaving in and out of each other which turn into a quirky yet demented melodic figure.  The section finishes out with a juxtaposition of the melody from the first section accompanied by the 12/8 figures at the beginning of the third section finally breaking down and rushing to a somewhat ambiguous finish.  This final section is titled “End Game”.

But enough explanation here’s the pdf of the score and an mp3 rendering which hopefully will be replaced by a live recording in a few weeks.

Ice-Nine.mp3

Ice-Nine.pdf

Playlist of the day

So I’ve decided to start letting Itunes decide my music for me so I’m generating Genius playlists.  And I have to say the first try was literally…genius.  I chose Jupiter by Gustav Holst and here’s what I got.

Jupiter-Gustav Holst
Symphony No. 5, Mvt 1-Ludwig van Beethoven
Carmina Burana: 1. O Fortuna-Carl Orff
Koyaanisqatsi-Philip Glass
Symphony No. 5, Mvt. 4-Gustav Mahler
Red Line Tango-John Mackey
Rocky Point Holiday-Ron Nelson
Metamorphosis, 1. Metamorphosis-Philip Glass
Serenada Schizophrana, 3. A Brass Thing-Danny Elfman
Shenandoah-Frank Ticheli
Kingfishers Catch Fire, 2. ” “-John Mackey
Symphony No. 3, IV-Philip Glass
Carmina Burana: 2. Fortune plango vulnera
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Scherzo-Felix Mendelssohn
Symphony No. 3- Mvt. 1-Ludwig van Beethoven
St. Paul’s Suite, Finale-Gustav Holst
Organic-Philip Glass
Symphony No. 1, V. Hobbits-Johan de Meij
Flight of the Bumble Bee-Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Metamorphosis, 4.-Philip Glass
Courtly Airs and Dances: Allemande-Ron Nelson
Symphonic Poem “Hope”, 3.-Yuji Toriyama
Symphony No. 2: Apollo Unleashed-Frank Ticheli
Carmina Burana: 25. O Fortuna-Carl Orff
Serenada Schizophrana, 4. The Quadruped Patrol-Danny Elfman

 

So anyways, I think I’m just going to start posting these playlists every once in a while when they’re really awesome.  I really like who Genius was almost capable of creating a playlist with cyclic form by putting “O Fortuna” third and second to last.

In other news, my life has gotten so dull that I have nothing better to post than what I’m listening to.

Upcoming Performances!!!

Yes that’s right two University of Miami ensembles are actually crazy enough to agree to play my music.  I have no idea what they are thinking, but who cares.

On April 27 at 8:00 P.M. the Frost Trombone Choir will be premiering a new work, “Of Moments and Visions” on their Spring Concert.  The concert is in Gusman concert hall and the ensemble is sounding great so everybody should be there.

Then on April 29 at 7:30 P.M. the Frost Clarinet Choir will be performing another new work, “Ice-9″, on their Clarinet Day Concert.  The concert will be in Clarke Recital Hall and since I am also in clarinet choir and will be playing on the concert that’s all the more reason for people to come out.

So the music.  I’ll start with “Of Moments and Visions”.  I began writing this piece back home in Dallas over my winter break.  Its very introspective, even meditative, a very winter piece of music.  It contains obvious minimalist influences, building to a gigantic climax which quickly dies down, ending without really resolving.  After finishing this piece I spent months trying to find a title, and finally I came across a poem by Octavio Paz titled “El Mismo Tiempo” or in English “Identical Time”.  Sadly I cannot use an excerpt of the poem for the program note of this piece.  But I’ll go ahead and post the excerpt of the english translation that inspired the title.

As I write I hear the river go by
not this
that which is this
The back and forth of moments and visions
blackbird on a grey stone
in the clarity of March
black
center of clarities
Not the marvelous presented
but the present sensed
the presence with nothing more
nothing more full and abundant
It is not memory
nothing thought nor desired
Not the same hours
others
are always others and are the same
they enter and expel us from ourselves
they see with our eyes what eyes do not see
There is another time within time
still
with no hours no weight no shadow
without past or future
only alive

 

So anyways heres a .pdf file and an mp3 (only listen to if you really don’t want to wait for the concert, since this is being performed in a month and I’ll get a recording so that will be posted eventually)

Of Moments and Visions.pdf

Of Moments and Visions.mp3

I’ll post info about the clarinet choir piece in a day or two so stay tuned.

Cleveland Orchestra Reading Session No. 1

So sadly despite what the title of this post would lead you to believe this was not an orchestral reading.  But it was a reading of piano trios consisting of musicians from the Cleveland Orchestra, and I have to say it was amazing.  Getting to hear the trio I’m working on played by such a high caliber of musicians was a pretty ridiculous experience.  They gave a lot of constructive criticism that is really going to help me finish the piece.

The piece by the way is a work for piano trio called “A Mad Tea Party”.  Obviously its inspired by Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” and I’m currently working on the first movement titled “No Room”.

The trio will be coming back in April to read the pieces again after we finish them.  And I will probably get a recording of that but I don’t think I will be allowed to post it on here.  But not to worry I already have a potential performance of the piece lined up for next year.  I’ll post a score and midi when the piece is finished but in the meantime here is a link to a slideshow of photos from the session

 

The past 8 months of my life

So I had a piece premiered in October by some phenomenal musicians here at UMiami.  I’ve been working on it since April and just got the recording today.  So basically this piece is the equivalent of the most recent 8 months of my life. (see below for score and recording)  Its called “High Society” performed by Flute-Sarah Haymore; Clarinet-Megan Knox; French Horn-Blair Hamrick; Cello-Chris Yong; Piano-Jamila Tekalli; Conductor-Chris Cicconi.

They gave a great performance but sadly the balance on the recording is slightly off, so I’m going to make some small revisions and try to have a proper recording session next semester, but in the meantime here is “High Society”

 

High Society pdf

High Society audio

I survived!!!!!!

So the first year of college is over and I survived!  Actually I did more than survive, I did rather well.  Now that summer is here its time to start on new projects and post the recording of my clarinet choir piece which was performed by University of Miami’s clarinet choir last month.  There are only a few minor mistakes in the performance as this recording is live and unedited.  So without further ado here is “Don’t Gotta Rhyme”

Don’t Gotta Rhyme

Don’t Gotta Rhyme.pdf

Lot’s of new things!

So I kind of took a bit of break from updating this blog, but I’m back in full force and have a lot of pieces that I’m going to unveil soon, maybe some even with real recordings.  Just to give a teaser, I had a reading session today with symphonic winds today on my most recent wind ensemble effort, and a piece “played” by The Other Music Ensemble which is in the revision process at the moment.

I also just finished the first of my “Landscapes” for piano, which was written for Lizzie, whom I love dearly.  I’m definitely going to have a recording of that mostly because I can play it, simultaneously I am working on “Landscapes” for piano and oboe which has the same source material as the solo piano piece but is a very different piece all together.  Finally I’m about to start writing “Cosmopolitan” for solo clarinet, which is basically going to be insane.

So all in all I’ve been being very productive and music is coming soon!!

Why I hate 99.9999999% of politicians

Ok let me explain  few things…in our government we have this great idea called a system of checks and balances…so the legislative branch (a.k.a the senate and the house) are in charge of drafting legislation.  The president (currently Obama) has the ability to veto a bill if he doesn’t like it, but he cannot actually write and submit bills to the senate and house to be passed.  Finally the supreme court can overturn laws as being unconstitutional.

Now that we’re up to speed, I would like to pose a question.

Why are the current democrats in the senate complete ignorant of the way our government was intended to be run?  And honestly its not just the democrats, its the republicans and the independents as well.

Well senator Dianne Feinstein of California…I will explain why Obama has not became totally involved in domestic policy and has only called for a bill rather than sending a bill to you dumbfucks himself.  He has not sent a bill because it is not in his power to submit bills to senate and ask they be passed.  He can write a bill and get a specific senator to represent it and submit it to congress.  But that was not the intention of the system of checks and balances.  Its your job to write the bill and pass it…its Obama’s job to call for a bill to be passed in congress so he can sign it into law.  So stop complaining and actually do the job you ran for.

Also to republicans…the filibuster was not intended to be something you use all the time.  Cool it a little bit on the filibustering…if you’re not talking about the law you shouldn’t  be allowed to filibuster.  You can read the law to the senate…but a fucking cookbook…what the hell!

Finally politics should not be about who can we blame our problems on.  When I read about democrats or republicans celebrating because something has happened that will allow then to cast the other party in a bad light and point fingers I just lose what little faith I have left in humanity.

Politicians…stop worrying so much about getting reelected. I mean half of you have been in the house or senate for an eternity…Start taking care of the needs of the American people or if you prefer me to put it more bluntly…do your fucking job.

Darkened Chambers

I finally got the recording of my piece from the SCI (Society of Composers Inc.) concert last semester.   “Darkened Chambers” is scored for prepared piano, 2 french horns, 2 clarinets, and narrator.  In this piece I wanted to create the feeling of a space bigger than it really is, so I placed the clarinets to the sides of the audience, which caused them not to pick up very well on the recording.  And I placed the french horns on either side of the stage in the wings, most of the time they pick up on the recording pretty well.  The piano was center stage and the narrator was behind the piano.  And the best part is the piece is intended to be played with all the lights in the theater off…ideal conditions would be pitch black but that wasn’t possible because nobody had the music memorized.

So what I did was turn off all the lights in the theater and I sent the music in a .pdf file to everybody and we used our laptops to see the music during performance.  I took the text from “House of Leaves”

That’s essentially what the program notes and performance conditions were…basically I just wanted to write a fairly trippy piece just to prove I could.  All in all I would say mission accomplished.  I had my first live performance at college last semester with this piece and while it was completely more stressful than it really needed to be in the end it was fun and a very good experience.

Lots of thanks to Evelyn, Ashley, Blair, Ryan, and Alyssa for working with me and learning the piece.  Its a little bizarre, but give it a listen anyways, I think you’ll enjoy it.

Darkened Chambers

Clarinet Choir!!!!!!

So I just finished my big project for the break! I think the tile of the post makes it obvious enough but it was a clarinet choir piece!!!!

I wanted to write something jazz influenced but not necessarily a swing chart or anything.  So the piece actually only has very short swing section near the end.  The title is “Don’t Gotta Rhyme”, which comes from a few different things.  First was the fact that I didn’t want to write a typical jazzy piece and “Don’t Gotta Swing” was a little too obvious.  Second, I was reading “Push” by Sapphire, probably better known as the movie “Precious” while I was writing this.  One of the main character’s poems has a line that read DON’T HAFTA RHYME. Gotta felt better to me than hafta did but that’s where the actual title comes from.  The last reason for the title was I was going through all my old things and looking back through high school, and I realized another inspiration for the song was my belief that there is more than one path to take in life and still reach success, “Don’t Gotta Rhyme” is that idea of we don’t have to fall into the norm to succeed.

I’m back at school now and the University of Miami clarinet choir will be reading this piece in rehearsal tomorrow, and there is a good chance we will play it at our spring concert.  So hopefully I will have a recording by the end of the semester…but until then I present the score and midi rendering of “Don’t Gotta Rhyme”

Don’t Gotta Rhyme.pdf

Don’t Gotta Rhyme.mp3