Other Conducted Ensembles
Achieving Sprezzatura (2017)
Flex Instrumentation for Large Ensemble 7:00 Achieving Sprezzatura explores the tension between a carefully constructed external nonchalance and an internal, private reality.
Arc (2016)
Flute Choir 5:30 Flute ensemble was the last thing I thought I would ever write for, but the opportunity to write for an ensemble that included a contrabass flute (as low as a cello!) pushed aside my bias and led to Arc. Arc celebrates the lovely range of the ensemble, from the low of the contra to the highs of the piccolo, by tracing through a series of arcs, and intermixes those with percussive homorhythms, sustained lines, and monophony.
Hestia Climbs Down Off Her Pedestal (2022)
8 trumpets (picc, C, 5 Bb, flugelhorn) 4:30 Hestia Climbs Down Off Her Pedestal was commissioned by Trompettes Soniques in 2022. In Greek mythology Hestia was the goddess of the hearth, domesticity, sacrifice, and hospitality. In this modern-day retelling, we see Hestia on her pedestal, she climbs down from the pedestal and has several adventures, then she pauses to reflect on the pedestal from afar. Finally, she returns to the pedestal but on somewhat different terms. Hestia was one of the awarded compositions in 2022 in a collaborative call for scores by Diversify the Stand ( @diversifythestand ) and the Trumpeter's Multi-Track Competition ( @TrumpetMTC )
Nature's Chopsticks (2011)
Flex Instrumentation 4:45 A striking picture of a sandhill crane using its astoundingly long beak to eat a worm, along with its caption of “Nature’s Chopsticks” released a riot of musings about chicken-egg and life-imitating-art relationships. How odd to use chopsticks as a metaphor for this long beak! Surely Nature did not design the beak in the image of the chopsticks! If anything it would be the other way around. But what if we know far more about chopsticks (or art!) than sandhill crane beaks (or life!), so that we come by this kind of reverse metaphor honestly? Nature’s Chopsticks intermixes materials from “real” life (phone numbers, current quotations from newspapers and Facebook statuses) with indeterminate musical materials (high-as-possible pitches and clusters), and minimalist textures, pitches, and rhythms. It was written especially for the JFCA Composers Orchestra with its eclectic and changeable instrumentation. It is a piece that can be performed by a group as small as a dozen or so and as big as a large orchestra or band.
Ockeghem Today (2015)
Brass Ensemble (3 Trumpet, 4 Horn, 3 Trombone, 1 Tuba) 3:45 Ockeghem Today was originally the first of three movements but is now freestanding. It was inspired by a lovely description in an early edition of Grout's The History of Western Music: "Ockeghem gives us a dense texture, without any clear phrase breaks, where all the free voices weave complex arabesques of sound around the cantus firmus and around each other. The music becomes an endless flow of melodies, seamless and seemingly beyond rational analysis reinforced by the character of Ockeghem's melodic lines, which are spun out in long-breathed phrases, in an extremely flexible rhythmic flow much like that of melismatic plainchant, with infrequent cadences and few rests." I wrote a kind of music which seemed to fit Grout's description of the music, without attempting to replicate Ockeghem's pitch or rhythmic procedures. Commissioned and premiered by the Walker Chapel Brass in Evanston, Illinois, Don Lovejoy, conductor.
Reach beyond Grasp (2014)
3 Trios (Vla, Bass, Perc; Oboe, Alto Sax, Perc; Flute, Trumpet, Perc) 8:00 The piece is based on the idea that "our reach should exceed our grasp." There are 3 trio groups (vla/bass/perc, ob/alto sax/perc, and fl/tp/perc), and the trios are grouped spatially so music moves around the stage. Each trio has a unique collection of a 7-note scale, so the trios are closely related but differ on specific scale degrees. All percussion is treated as contoured pitches, rather than specific pitches, including the roto-toms and the single multiple pitch steel pan. Written for the Akron New Music Festival, completed in November 2014, premiered by conductor Guy Bordo and student performers.
Trumpet Calls (2012)
20 C Trumpets in 5 separated groups 5:15 Trumpet Calls is written for twenty C trumpets in five separated groups, each with a unique character and an associated name: Fat n' Sassy, Agitated, Heroic, Bellows, and Echo. The five characters are released, one at a time, into the same space, and then things get interesting. Of special note, the group called Bellows is directed to play with “Clang/Buzz” mutes. These are made by folding the edges of an aluminum pie tin over the edges of the trumpet bell. When played, they rattle and buzz with a sound that is as unforgettable as it is difficult to describe. Needless to say, this is not your grandfather’s trumpet ensemble.