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I had a great time speaking to composition student’s at Peabody’s Summer Composition Intensive, part of the Low-Residency M.M. degree, organized by my colleague, Sky Macklay. I’m always impressed by the depth and breadth of questions students (and listeners more broadly) pose, often pointing out aspects of my work I wasn’t (consciously) aware of. As we hit mid-summer, it’s great to stay connected with activities like this, as well as my ongoing teaching in the Toolbox International Composition Collaborative.

I’m very happy that my proposal to the 2025 College Music Society (CMS) National Conference has been accepted and look forward to presenting my work in Spokane, Washington this November. My presentation, titled “Neon Sounds: Building Community Through Music and Historic Preservation”, centers on my most recent premiere, a multimedia project from last March in Hong Kong. In addition to my presentation, I’m looking forward to connecting with colleagues. I’ve participated in a number of regional, national, and international CMS conferences and have always left feeling better about the field and with several new friends. Here’s the abstract to my presentation:

This presentation provides an overview of Neon Sounds, a recent interdisciplinary arts collaboration in Hong Kong, and explores a global perspective on how music can help to preserve cultural memory amid social change. The multi-year project was built around decommissioned historic neon signs from Hong Kong businesses and how they could be given new life and new meaning by staging them with site-specific music compositions. The broader goal of this project was to seek new ways to form meaningful social connections between arts organizations and local grassroots communities. In this way, the collaboration brought together local composers, performers, architects, historic preservationists, lighting designers, neon craftsmen, and small business owners and produced four world premiere multi-media compositions at Hong Kong Arts Centre in 2024. The staging included a neon choreography, in which the neon lights reacted to the music in real time. The presentation will discuss the project’s background and key personnel, approaches to artistic collaboration, challenges encountered, and possible future directions, and will include video excerpts from the premiere performances.

Patrick Yim’s latest CD, One: New Music for Unaccompanied Violin, is now out on New Focus Recordings, available here. Patrick’s disc features the premiere recording of my solo work, Fragile Remembrance, which he premiered at Duke University last November and has since performed throughout the US and in China. I was at Notre Dame for the recording session and helped to edit the CD, and I couldn’t be more please with how this project has turned out. Besides my work, the recording also features new music of Ilari Kaila, Juri Seo, Takuma Itoh, Páll Ragnar Pálsson, and John Liberatore. 

I’m thrilled to share that I have joined the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory. At Peabody, I’ll be teaching courses in twentieth century and contemporary analysis, as well as a new special topics course I’m developing called Musical Quotation from a Cross-Cultural Perspective. I’m very much looking forward to working with the excellent students and faculty of this renowned institution—the oldest conservatory in the US—and (re-)connecting with Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, and so many dear friends in music and art!

Hello from the University of Notre Dame! I’m here with faculty violinist, Patrick Yim, as he records my solo work, Fragile Remembrance, for his upcoming New Focus Recordings CD release. While I’m here, I’ll also be sharing my work with music students of composer John Liberatore. Many thanks to John and Patrick for making this all possible.

The last two days have seen the premiere of my most recent work, Neon Sounds, for string quartet and 2 vibraphones, by members of Hong Kong New Music Ensemble and Toolbox Percussion at the Shouson Theatre of Hong Kong Arts Centre. What a fantastic and inspiring experience this has been! This is the largest–in terms of personnel and complexity of planning–project I’ve produced to date, involving musicians, architects and historic preservationists, lighting designers, stage crew, and numerous administrators behind the scenes. Along with my work, I was privileged to be able to commission new chamber works by three excellent local composers–Chan Hing-yan, Fung Lam, and Kai-Young Chan–and I was blown away by the depth and breadth of what they produced. These were truly site-specific creations that honored Hong Kong’s beautiful neon heritage.

We had an excellent audience turnout for both our evening and afternoon performances, which also included a post-concert question and answer session, allowing audiences to learn more about the background and process of our multimedia works, combining music and neon lights. I am so grateful for everyone who made this project a success, starting with the Project Grant I was awarded by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, and including every member of the artistic and technical crew.

Neon Sounds is the number one cultural event “not to be missed” this month in Hong Kong, according to Tatler Asia. Get your tickets now!

Patrick Yim will continue has performances of my recent solo violin work, Fragile Remembrance, with events on his home turf in South Bend, Indiana at the University of Notre Dame on December 7 and again at the Zhejiang Conservatory in Hangzhou, China on December 28. I will attend the performance in South Bend. Thanks again to Patrick for his brilliant playing!

Bravo to Patrick Yim for his outstanding premiere of my solo violin work, Fragile Remembrance, at Duke University!  My work is a big one, not just in length but in scope.  Patrick brought out the drama and also the nuance of this memory-inspired music.  Also on his varied program were works by friends and colleagues: Chen Yi, Lei Liang, John Liebertore, Austin Yip, and Zhou Long, as well as Kaija Saariaho.  Patrick will repeat the program at UNC Greensboro tomorrow. 

Choosing a title for a work is an interesting process.  In some cases a title comes easily, in other cases with difficulty; in some cases before composing starts, in others after the last note is written.  When I started jotting down ideas for my current solo violin work for Patrick Yim, I first wrote “Memorial” at the top of the page.  I think the backdrop of the pandemic was still on my mind.  Likely because of this, my work has a long middle section marked “Lamentoso.”  Soon into the process, however, I realized this was not just a memorial work, crossed out that title, and replaced it with “Memory.”  This, in turn, shifted to “Remembrance,” something a bit more poetic or affecting.  Finally, I settled on “Fragile Remembrance.”

My finished work, around 16 minutes in length, does have something to do with remembering and with memories and things that fade away.  But these memories are unstable, always shifting, and often interrupted.  They are the memories of every emotion—both tender and bitter—and also perhaps the memories of certain great solo violin works of the near and distant past.  But are these memories reliable?  I am very much looking forward  to sharing this work with the audience at Duke through the diligent work of my dear friend, Patrick.  

Neon Sounds, my latest composition for string quartet and 2 vibraphones, will receive its premiere at the Hong Kong Arts Centre‘s Shouson Theatre, with performances on March 1 (8pm) and March 2 (3pm). Featuring the intrepid musicians of Hong Kong New Music Ensemble and Toolbox Percussion, this multimedia project will bring together neon lights from Hong Kong’s historic neon signs in a sound-light choreography that honors Hong Kong’s rich streetscape heritage in a contemporary way. As we progress closer to the premiere, elements of the staging are coming into focus, with the staff of Hong Kong Arts Centre, the lighting designers of Jones Productions, and the preservationists and architects from @streetsignhk joining forces to bring the project to life. Along with my work, I’ve commissioned three other local composers–Chan Hing-yan, Fung Lam, and Kai-Young Chan–to create new chamber music pairing neon lights and sound. Great thanks to the Hong Kong Arts Development Council for supporting our work through my Project Grant.

The title of this post is not the newest Bond flick, but rather an announcement (with pleasure) of an upcoming performances of my solo violin work, Passions, at CAMPGround23 in St. Petersburg, FL this March.  CAMPGround is the annual festival portion of pianist Eunmi Ko’s Contemporary Art Music Project in Tampa and surrounding cities.  As in the premiere last August in Finland, violinist Sini Virtanen will perform the work.  I’m grateful for the opportunity to hear the piece again, to reconnect with Eunmi (for whom I wrote Inner Truth), and to get to know the music of many excellent colleagues.  Sunshine State, here I come!

My Hong Kong Arts Development Project Grant, Neon Sounds, is making progress, with numerous personnel coming together to bring this interdisciplinary project to life. Starting with the historic preservation side, we have architects Kevin Mak and Ken Fung, founders of @streetsignhk. They’ve been preserving Hong Kong’s decommissioned neon signs and displaying them in compelling ways since 2017. For this particular project, we’ve selected a few beautiful Chinese characters, excerpted from their collection of signs, to serve as inspiration for a set of new compositions by myself and three other local composers: Chan Hing-yan, Fung Lam, and Kai-Young Chan. We are thrilled to be writing chamber music to be premiered by the musicians of the excellent Hong Kong New Music Ensemble and Toolbox Percussion. Stay posted here for more details as the sounds of this blurry neon project come into focus!

It was wonderful to hear Euna Kim and William Lane of Hong Kong New Music Ensemble present the premiere of the revised version of my 2013 violin and viola duo, Incantation, last night at Tai Kwun in Central, Hong Kong.  This performance was part of the “Chilled Steps” series in a unique outdoor space.  Despite some occasional outdoor noise, the audience sat in rapt attention throughout what was a fine and dramatic performance by Euna and William.  What a pleasure!

Due to the setting, this performance was amplified, giving an extra layer of intensity and a haunting timbre within the rather resonant space.  In fact, hearing this amplification has caused some sound ideas to emerge in my mind, and I expect an upcoming project may explore amplification in a larger way.  Look for details on this new work (hint: neon) in an upcoming post.  The HKNME concert also included duos by Hong Kong composers Kai-Young Chan and Stephen Yip.  It was great to experience these colorful works in person.

Following their workshop in February, I’m pleased to share news of an upcoming performance of my violin and viola duo, Incantation, by Euna Kim and William Lane of Hong Kong New Music Ensemble at Tai Kwun in Hong Kong on September 12.

Incantation was premiered in 2013 at the Aspen Music Festival.  The performance at Tai Kwun will be the premiere of its revised version following the HKNME workshop and subsequent edits and conversation.

My work’s title evokes those repeated phrases, spells, and rituals, which have the power to stir emotions and also spirts—for good or for evil.  I’m looking forward to stirring these spirits with fresh ears in an amplified performance at this unique outdoor space in Central next month.

I’ve spent the last eleven days in Helsinki, concluding last evening with the premiere of my solo violin work, Passions, by Sini Virtanen at the Sibelius Music Institute in Hämeenlinna. Finland has offered me a much-needed pause, a calmness and order that isn’t possible in Hong Kong’s dense insistence.

Sini’s performance was captivating and personal, showing all sides of my work and its many expressions: the questioning, the outbursts, the longing introspection, the steady build-up to strident wails…and the afterthoughts—those memories that remain.

I have so enjoyed visiting Sibelius’s birth house, eating delicious food, seeing the beautiful islands of Suomenlinna, breathing fresh, cool air, and, above all, spending time with interesting and creative people.  This is a place I hope soon to return. 

After a multi-year delay due to Covid, I’m so happy to share that my solo violin work, Passions, will be premiered by violinist Sini Virtanen at the Sibelius Music Institute in Hämeenlinna, Finland on August 28.  Hämeenlinna is the birthplace of Sibelius, about an hour from Helsinki by train, and I’m excited to explore both locales, work with Sini, and reconnect with some old friends!

This summer I’m working with a talented group of young composers at the Toolbox Percussion International Creative Academy. Led by percussionist Louis Siu, Toolbox is one of the leading new music groups in Hong Kong, combining performances, educational, and outreach activities. Next week I’ll be giving a talk to the participant composers titled “Translating Words to Music.” In this talk, I’ll discuss some of the relationships between text and music in my recent compositions. I am interested in exploring how we develop music from our initial inspiration, how that relates to our technique, and how words can influence various factors like form, harmony, timbre, and text painting, using three of my works: They Say, for guitar; Inner Truth, for piano; and Sandburg Songs, for soprano and ensemble.

Listeners in Madison, WI can enjoy a broadcast of my clarinet, violin, and piano trio, In Search of Planet X, next Monday, May 30, at 6am on WORT’s Listen Adventurously with Paul Baker. Planet X is one of five works on my 2021 Albany Records portrait CD, Sandburg Songs. The disc spans a decade of creative work and features outstanding new music colleagues soprano Tony Arnold, Zohn Collective, and conductor Tim Weiss.

Tune in to WUSF’s Modern Notebook on May 1 at 8pm EST for a broadcast of my duo, Noticing, as performed by clarinetist Sammy Lesnick and violinist Hanna Hurwitz.  The recording is from my Albany Records portrait CD.

Yesterday concluded my mini college tour with a virtual visit to the University of Central Florida, where I presented two of my works to undergraduate composers under the guidance of my friend, composer Alex Burztos.  Just like my visits to Eastman and Buffalo, I was impressed with these young musical minds.  It’s interesting to observe that when presenting the same compositions to many different people, they often formulate different reactions and questions in response to the work.  This suggests that regardless of what a composer intends, there are infinite ways of “hearing” a work. And beautifully so.  

The last few days have been a whirlwind but a positive one.  It was an absolute pleasure to present my work at Eastman.  What talented and inquisitive young people these students were.  I was also able to spend time with my former teachers, David Liptak and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, as well as Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, whom I last met in Hong Kong.

Yesterday my Upstate tour continued with a masterclass and lecture for the graduate students in composition at SUNY Buffalo.  I was very impressed with the work I saw from all six students.  They represented a variety of styles and all seemed to understand that composition is an individual act with no clear right or wrong way of operating.  Both their work and the quality of the discussion confirmed what I already knew from my experience of twice attending June in Buffalo, which is that this is one of the excellent programs for graduate study, thanks in large part to composer David Felder.  

Over the next week I’ll be doing a small college tour with two in-person and one virtual visit.  The first stop is Rochester, my current locale, where I am presenting my work to the students in the Composition Symposium this Thursday.  Eastman holds a special place in my heart, and my attendance at the school is one of a tiny handful of experiences that changed my life.  What an honor to meet and speak with these talented young people.  

I’ll be presenting three works included in my Albany Records portrait CD: They Say, for guitar; Inner Truth, for piano; and Sandburg Songs, for soprano and ensemble.  Looking back—and in part because of the location—I realize that all three of these works have a connection with Eastman performers.  Small world!

Before Rochester, I had the chance to visit Corning, NY and the Corning Museum of Glass, including various glassmaking demonstrations.  This is one of the most enjoyable museum experiences I’ve had in a while.  Highly recommended!  

“Schreibeis’ notes leap in divergent directions into a mysteriously poignant realm…landscapes that dissolve one into the other…” Thanks to Raul da Gama and The WholeNote in Toronto for this review of Sandburg Songs. Those of you in Ontario can pick up a physical copy of the magazine this month.

It’s always a pleasure to hear one’s work played well but even more so in the continuing era of Covid-19.  Yesterday I enjoyed listening to a rehearsal of my duo, Incantation, by violinist Euna Kim and violist William Lane at the beautiful and historic Haw Par Music.William is the founder and Euna a member of Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, a group doing more than any other to promote contemporary music in Hong Kong.  Yesterday’s gathering was a bit of a test run for what we all hope will be a future performance of this work once the world opens up a bit more.

Incantation was premiered in 2013 at the Aspen Music Festival, where I was one of ten Fellows working with Steve Stucky, George Tsontakis, and a venerable group of visiting faculty composers.  It seems both like yesterday and a lifetime ago.  The title evokes the repeated phrases, spells, rituals—these simple syllables—which have the power to stir emotions and also spirts.  In my music, at first these spirits take the form of repeated gestures and later raging scales and clusters.  Are these perhaps the same thing?

In advance of our rehearsal—and also during and following it—I made some revisions to the piece.  I rarely revise my work beyond a few small details and notations, but in this case I felt the need.  Somehow the several days of work I did a decade after “finishing” the piece—while only about 15% different—seem to make the piece around 30% better.  This is what we call musical math.