Month: July 2018

Tomorrow I will depart for my three week residency at Copland House, the former home of the acclaimed American composer, Aaron Copland, north of New York City. While in residence, I have a number of projects to pursue. Initially, I plan to make final revisions—some small, others rather significant—to three works that are among those to be recorded next month for my first portrait CD for Albany Records. Two of these works—They Say, for guitar, and Inner Truth, for piano —are very recent, having been premiered in April and June, respectively. The other work I will revise is much older.

Noticing, for clarinet and violin, was commissioned with support of a Subito Grant from American Composers Forum and premiered ages ago…way back in 2010! It is one of a number of works of mine to have connections with Korean traditional music.  In this case, the work was inspired by a specific performance I heard in New York. I tried to apply some of the techniques I observed in the music in my own Western instrument piece.  Although the piece has been performed successfully a number of times, there have always been a few spots that I wanted to tidy up in order to bring the piece to full maturity.  Now seems like the right time.

Revision is a tricky matter that I pursue with caution. One doesn’t want to get overly involved in changing an existing work, because it can lead one down a very long—perhaps never-ending—path. Still, after a work is premiered, I have often found a measure here or a beat there that require some fine tuning. While these changes may seem small on the surface, they often help to stabilize the work on a number of levels. Let us hope these modifications help the piece to “stand the test of time.”

Besides the preparatory work for my Albany recording, the main project I will pursue at Copland House is an orchestral work with which I have had what might be called an on-again, off-again relationship for a number of years. The details of this affair will have to wait for a future post. For now, I must pack my bags (again!) and prepare for tomorrow’s travels.

The busy summer season continues unabated! Following the recent premieres of Inner Truth in Chicago and City Lights in Valencia, Spain, I am pleased to share news of the premiere of my latest work, Resonant Memories, for carillon, by University of Michigan faculty carillonist, Tiffany Ng. Tiffany will premiere the work on July 27 at Middlebury College, with subsequent performances at Norwich University and Albany City Hall. As always, full information about upcoming performances and other activities can be found here.

In imagining my first composition for carillon, I found myself returning again and again to the the ephemeral quality of the instrument’s sound.  No matter how large or powerful the initial attack–whether single note or complex chord–it instantly began to fade away.  There was an aspect of inevitable disappearance that I found intriguing and that suggested a certain musical character I wanted to explore.

The work is cast in three broad sections, opening with a declamatory statement that quickly becomes more introspective as it moves to the instrument’s high register.  The contrasting middle section, marked energico, is characterized by continuous rhythmic activity, a series of accelerando phrases, and prominent use of the instrument’s low register.  The final section returns to the opening material, but it is here–quietly–that the “memories” part of the title presents itself, as slow, fading versions of the opening mix with brief interjections of the middle material.  Despite this generally hazy, dreamlike character, the work concludes with a grand, defiant gesture, spanning the instrument’s whole range and dynamic potential.

Because of my upcoming residency at Copland House, I will not be able to attend these performances. However, I eagerly await the recording and would like to thank Tiffany for her tireless support of my music and the music of numerous living composers.  Resonant Memories is dedicated to her.

Last night the Mivos Quartet gave the premiere of my new quartet, City Lights here at the VIPA Festival in Valencia, Spain. The performance was excellent, and I am grateful to Mivos for their commitment and musicality. One of the joys of chamber music, especially the string quartet, is the way individual musical personalities come together to form a cohesive unit. Mivos took full advantage of this potential while learning and performing my work, never shying away from their personal voices while making music together. It was a pleasure to hear and to see.

In high school I had a choice of learning a minimum of two years of either Spanish or French. Believing French to be more difficult, I opted for Spanish and stuck with it for four years. Little did I know that twenty years later I would find myself in beautiful Valencia, Spain struggling to remember any of what I had learned while trying to order food and drink! ¡Ayúdame!

I have travelled here for the VIPA Festival and to hear the premiere of my new string quartet, City Lights, for the Mivos Quartet. VIPA is run by composer Jorge Grossmann, faculty at Ithaca College and previously at UNLV, where—long ago—I met him while attending and later being commissioned by the Nevada Encounters of New Music Festival. In addition to Jorge, the faculty include Lei Liang from UCSD and Stefano Gervasoni from the Paris Conservatory. Mivos Quartet, of course, needs no introduction. As one of the most active string quartets in the US with a contemporary music focus, I am thrilled to hear what they make of my new work.

I arrived at the title City Lights partway through composition of the piece. In this work, I wanted to capture some of the frenzied energy of great urban centers, especially the way sights and sounds change in rapid and unpredictable succession. The work is cast in two broad sections, the first highly rhythmic—often syncopated—and the second more introspective. One might think of these musical sections as two aspects of the same idea, image, or place: the city up close with its bustling crowds and the city from a distance, its lights a sparkling blur of colors.

I have written before about how place affects my work, so it comes as no surprise to me that after two years of working in Hong Kong I am creating music with a connection to urban landscapes. I hope to explore aspects of this experience in more detail in a number of upcoming projects. For now, however, I look forward to City Lights, both in my music and in beautiful Valencia.

Just a quick note of thanks to pianist Daniel Pesca for his fantastic premiere of my new piano work, Inner Truth, last night at PianoForte Chicago. Daniel played with confidence through the work’s intricate passagework and brought a careful attention to detail and color throughout the more introspective opening passages. It was a pleasure to work with him, and I am very much looking forward to our continued collaboration this August in recording this and other chamber works as part of my first CD for Albany Records.

A composer himself, Daniel also premiered a piano etude on the program. His brief work offered a mix of playfulness and trouble-making with recollections of Messiaen, which I think offered a nice balance with the rest of the evening’s works: classics by Berg and Janacek, and local premieres of music of Augusta Read Thomas and Bernard Rands.

Next up on the nonstop summer tour of 2018 will be travel to Valencia, Spain for the VIPA Festival and a premiere by the marvelous Mivos Quartet. More from the other side of the pond!