This is Collect/Project premiering my new work for them "Essay 1: Mater" in February 2019 as part of their Road Trip Tour. For voice, flute, accordion and electronics, this piece will continue to evolve as we revise and refine it, but I'm incredibly excited about our first foray into the collaboration. Many warm thanks to my talented collaborators, Shanna, Frauke, Eva, and Francisco, for their thoughtful engagement with this material and their help in shaping this work.
The Space Between - Workshop Showing
Please click on the above link to see a workshop performance of my current large-scale work - a collaborative piece with director, choreographer, and designer Mark DeChiazza for the Spektral Quartet. The completed piece will be fully spektralquartet.comchoreographed and staged and will premiere at the Court Theater in Chicago in early 2020. I am including this work-in-progress not because it is finished (there are many things we are changing from this performance), but because it is most indicative of my current vocabulary and project ambitions.
Please click on the above link to see a workshop performance of my current large-scale work - a collaborative piece with director, choreographer, and designer Mark DeChiazza for the Spektral Quartet. The completed piece will be fully spektralquartet.comchoreographed and staged and will premiere at the Court Theater in Chicago in early 2020. I am including this work-in-progress not because it is finished (there are many things we are changing from this performance), but because it is most indicative of my current vocabulary and project ambitions.
Vera’s Ghosts was commissioned by the American Composers' Orchestra for their Orchestra Underground Series at Carnegie Hall. It is a spatial work, performed with the performers standing in an arc around the conductor (rather than seated in rows as is convention). This work about mental illness and dementia uses as a point of departure the idea of the conductor as protagonist. The spatialized sounds (and extended techniques) that are passed quickly around him are part of that implied narrative—they start with moments of clarity, triggered by his physical gestures, but slip out of his control and spiral around him. The piece gradually moves from organized textures and noise, to glitching attempts at melody where the protagonist tries to hold on to what is real, to a sort of quiet hymn of remembrance at the end—an idealized (but melancholy) portrait of someone lost. My sincere thanks to the American Composers Orchestra and George Manahan for allowing me this opportunity to collaborate and take chances - this is a recording of the premiere performance in February 2014.
This harp installation was commissioned by the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, the oldest music festival in the country. A collaboration with the incredibly talented Steven Pierce, this 7-foot sounding sculpture is amplified with recessed speakers in the base. Using a pentatonic scale, the piece invites multiple participants to play simultaneously, as the limited pitches create traditionally consonant sonorities. There is no paint; all of the colors on the body of the harp are patinas created by Pierce.
Many thanks to Reach, Teach, Play and the Ravinia Festival for commissioning this work. And to Aaron Good for his initial drawing.
Many thanks to Reach, Teach, Play and the Ravinia Festival for commissioning this work. And to Aaron Good for his initial drawing.