Music Video - The Penitent

Last year, the Salty Cricket Composers Collective (SC3) held a concert of organ music. We were talking to the Cathedral of the Madeline about hosting, but for some reason that fell through. We ended up holding it at my alma matter, the University of Utah. When the call for scores went out, I was so taken with the idea of having my work performed at the Cathedral, I wrote something inspired by their namesake, Mary Magdalene, aka Mary of Madeline. She is the Catholic Saint of the Penitent. Although I am not a Catholic, as one who often needs to repent, I could relate.

In order to honor her, I took her name, Mary of Magdalene, and used an old composer trick to create the theme. I extended the letter names of the notes, A, B, C … and so on, to create the pitches for the melody. In this case, m = F, a=A, r = D, y = D, and so on.

The piece turned out to be more “in your face” than you might expect for a work on repentance, but true repentance can come with a great deal of soul searching, spiritually gut wrenching “in your face” moments, so I’m okay with it.

Music Video - Thanksgiving Partita

A minimalist viola and cello duet. Writing this, I tried to capture that calm, together feeling we all hope for when family gets together, even if we rarely get it. I was blessed to get the performers I did. Both are regular players with the Utah Symphony.

Getting Ready for Salty Cricket 2011

I recently submitted two works for the upcoming 2011 Salty Cricket Composer's Collective (SC3) concert series, and one for next year's series, so I thought I'd tell you a bit about them. I don't know if they will be selected or not, but I'm hoping they will. I feel pretty good about them, in any case.

The Penitent, for solo organ

The Penitent is a minimalist piece. It was created by using and old technique of coming up with themes by transposing letters of the alphabet into musical notes. A through G are pretty straight forward. After that, you start over with A again so that H = A, I = B, J = C, and so on. In this case, the theme comes from the name of Mary Magdeline, considered to be the Saint of those who repent of their sins in Catholicism. I'm not Catholic, but like most people I've got a lot to repent for.

Caprice Atomique, for Perriot Ensemble

A caprice (or capriccio) describes pieces of free, or unconventional form. They are distinguished by originality in harmony and/or rhythm. This piece is, again, mostly minimalist, with a highly syncopated groove running throughout. The “atomique” part comes from the fact that is was inspired, in part, by the music of Battlestar Galactica. What can I say? I'm a sci-fi fan.

A Perriot ensemble is named for the ensemble Arnold Schoenberg used in Perriot Lunaire. It has become a popular modern chamber ensemble in it's own right, consisting of flute, clarinet, piano, violin, cello, percussion, and optional vocalist. In this case, there is no vocalist. The percussion is limited to one player on both snare drum and vibraphone.

I did some experimenting in this piece, using instruments that are normally used in melodic and harmonic ways as if they were part of the rhythm section. I think it could be expanded in several directions, but I ran out of time before the deadline. Expanding the piece and creating more variations will have to wait for another day.

What Manner of Man Is This?, for SATB choir

I wrote this several years ago when I was asked by my friend Mark Hansen to write something for his church choir. A mutual friend, Bruce Forbes, wrote the lyrics. The text is based on scripture:

Matt. 8:27 But the men marvelled, saying What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?

It takes it's musical cues from a combination of early 20th century music and Medieval liturgical traditions. The voices alternate between the men and women in almost chant-like fashion, entering a canonical section toward the end. I'm quite happy with it and I hope Bruce is, too.

I originally envisioned this as a work for choir and organ. I had wanted to orchestrate it for choir and string orchestra as well, but I had quite a bit of difficulty with the instrumental parts. I didn't want to just duplicate the vocal lines, but their own lines kept cluttering things up. In the end, it became a work for SATB without accompaniment. Unfortunately, it also ended up being too difficult for an amateur church choir and was never performed.

Upcoming ...

I'm also working on an aleatoric multi-media piece, performed on an iPad, for SC3's yearly Melange concert this year, but submissions aren't due until August. It's a good thing, too. I've got some technical issues to work out and I'll likely have to borrow an iPad 2 for performance. It will do video mirroring, where my first edition iPad will not.