COMPOSITIONS
Chamber
and the water tasted of sky for string quartet, ca. 7′ (2023)
While We Seek… for flute, clarinet, violin and cello, ca. 9′ (2020).
Written for and premiered by Hub New Music, February 2021.
In this work I take two American folk songs, Hard Times Come Again No More and Down in the Valley, and set them in an ever changing cloud of sound. Sometimes only whispers of the tunes are audible and at others full sections can be heard clearly.
The Inner Light for wind quintet, ca. 9′ (2019).
2021 Morton Gould Young Composer Award and the 2021 Leo Kaplan Award.
Premiered by Plaza Winds, March 2020.
This work was the result of the residency I had with Plaza Winds in 2019. Right before I started graduate school and just two months before my wedding, my father-in-law had a near fatal motorcycle accident. He suffered significant head trauma and at the time of writing this piece, we did not know if he would ever wake up again, or remember us, or remember who he was himself. At times, the only way we were sure he was alive was the mechanical breath of the ventilator. I used this piece to come to accept the reality that when he did wake up, he would never be the same again outwardly, but I had hope that internally he would still be there; the father who raised my wife and the friend I had come to love.
Wedding Quartet, string quartet, ca. 5′ (2019).
Premiered by Bower String Quartet.
A short string quartet that I wrote for my wedding.
Haystacks, for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano, ca. 9′ (2018).
First prize in the Arnold Salop Memorial Undergraduate Competition.
Premiered in the U. Tobe Recital Hall at the Bower School of Music.
While making my way through The Art Institute of Chicago, I came across a series of paintings by Monet entitled Haystacks. Each painting was a study of haystacks in different lighting, seasons, and times of day. For this piece I took some of my favorites and set them to music.
Momentum, brass quintet, ca. 9′ (2017).
Premiered by the Bower Brass Quintet.
A three movement work that is not about anything in particular.
Electroacoustic
Book of Birds, flute and electronics, ca. 23′ (2021).
A four movement work that that acts as an anthology of folk stories for different birds.
When the River Ran Black, bass clarinet, marimba and fixed media, ca. 9′, (2020)
Written for and premiered by Transient Canvas.
The Sola is a river that flows within meters of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and was often a site where ashes and remains from the camp were disposed of during the Holocaust. Though the river
became a mass grave, its ever-flowing waters dispersed the remains of victims throughout the landscape. This piece serves not only as a lament for those who were so unceremoniously laid to rest the river, but also transports the listener on the same journey that the victims would have had to take, ending within the flowing waters of the Sola.
Book of Trees, fixed media, ca. 6′ (2020).
Premiered in White Hall 2020.
A work that is inspired by the physical form of trees. Starting underground with the roots, up the trunk and to the branches and leaves that catch the sun, wind, and rain.
Solo
Drifting Onwards, for piano, ca. 5′ (2019).
Written for and premiered by Shanshan Song.
This came about as part of a larger project where composers were to write a new worked paired with a Ravel work. I was paired with his Sonatine No. 2, “Mouvement de Menuet”. At the premiere, Shanshan Song played both movements back to back.
If Feet Were Hands We Could Dance on the Piano, for piano ca. 6′ (2019-).
Premiered by Fasbi Usef in 2019.
An ever growing collection of miniatures based off different folk dances. Some are real, some are made up.
Dance for Celestial Bodies, for horn and piano ca. 5′ (2018).
Written for and premiered Manessa Abraham at her senior recital.
Dance music for the orbiting planets and moons in our solar system.
Echoes, for piano ca. 5′ (2017).
Premiered by Somang Shim.
A work exploring the sonic and metaphorical qualities of echoes.
Large Ensemble
of wind and grass and dark, slow waters, wind ensemble ca. 10′ (2022)
Mountain Roads, wind ensemble ca. 7′ (2018).
Premiered by the FGCU Wind Orchestra under the direction of Timothy Yontz.
A reflection of a cross-country trip I took with my wife in the summer of 2018. Within the span of a month, we drove over 3,000 miles from our home in South Florida to South Bend, Indiana and back. This piece attempts to portray the vast array of emotions one feels when driving through the winding roads of the Great Smoky Mountains.