Concerto for Percussion and Wind Orchestra (2008) – 23’

written for Gina Ryan and the McGill Wind Symphony, Alan Cazes, cond.

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Gina and Alain approached me in 2007, after I had already worked with the McGill Wind Symphony in Urquitaqtuq. My foot was almost out the door, leaving to California, to study at UCSD, so time was limited. I set to work for most of the summer on the sketches and by early August, had already tried out some material with Gina. Something was sure, she was not afraid of many instruments, and anything was possible! I was allowed to indulge in a large setup, and also included an extended passage for castanets, an instrument on which Gina was a specialist. I had just become aquainted with Max/MSP and live signal processing, so I used this as my compositional basis. The sound of the orchestra is always derived from the sound of the soloist, expanding, contracting, exploding, going on its own way, etc. Gina and the orchestra provided a seriously rock-solid performance, and I’m indeed proud to have worked with her and the orchestra. Gina has since been busy with some videos about the piece. Watch some of the first rehearsals here, here, and a helpful setup video here.

De Sterrenkinderen (2011) - 50’

music theatre for children

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cl, pno, VC. ca. 50’

Text, lyrics, and direction by Annechien Koerselman; Music by Trevor Grahl

A music theatre piece staged and performed in a week during a week long summer workshop in “Het Beauforthuis” in Austerlitz, the Netherlands, summer of 2012.  

The libretto follows an adapted version of each particular Greek myth pertaining to each zodiac sign.  

Eridanus, the child that doesn’t really have the same history as his immortal brothers and sisters, is confronted as to his identity.  Is he a really a star-child?  His story isn’t quite like the others.  After watching a re-enactment of each of his brothers’ and sisters’ myths, and in an attempt to prove that he, too, is just like them, he takes to drive the Sun-Father’s chariot, and in doing so, crashes the entire heavens to earth, and causing the sun never to shine again.  All isn’t lost though, his brothers and sisters reconcile, and sing the sun back into the sky, before going to bed for another day.

Musicians: Trevor Grahl; piano, Anna Voor de Wind, Clarinet, Antonis Pratsinakis, Cello.

Screen Memories (2015) – 17’

written for Bas Wiegers and the Nederlands Studenten Orkest

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3(3=picc), 2+1, ebcl,3(3=bscl), 2+1 / 4,3,3,1 / timp, 5 perc, 2 hp, / strings

Bas approached me with the idea of writing for a student orchestra in 2014 for their national tour in 2016. I had worked with amateurs before, and the result was overwhelmingly positive, so I didn’t hesitate! What followed was indeed an intense period of writing, rehearsing and traveling. I was surprised at every moment at the dedication, energy, and committment these young musicians delivered, concert after concert, 15 in all! I’m truly in their debt, and we even made quite a nice video of the performance in Rotterdam. A programme note follows below. 

A deep, vivid, memory of something you have never experienced, yet, you’re certain of its legitimacy. Its content, often banal, intrudes on our thoughts during the the strangest and most unpredictable of times. A bowl of ice; a lamp burning out; the tail of a bird stuffed in your mouth; such memories, we can feel, are charged with…something.

And what about music? How often does a similar act of unintentional musical ‘graffiti’ occur in our own memories, and who is the perpetrator? Or are we ourselves the perpetrators, but its just that we remember incorrectly? Can we even ‘wrongly’ remember, or does our unconscious know better, veering toward something else that we can’t understand in the moment, leaving a trail of crumbs for us to follow, to somewhere?

The first moment that came to me when setting out on this journey, was a huge dominant thirteenth chord, screaming and shuddering, slamming its way like a train into a scherzo, but weighted down, almost drowning and oversaturated with Pollock-like splashes of colour, the orchestra gradually building into a frenzy, then relaxing, maybe taking a bath, trying to clean itself, with singing whales in the tub. I don’t know when, where, or why this particular moment was born, or even what it means, but certainly, by making it and those like it manifest, surely I can gain even a partial understanding of something that’s underneath.

The title also points to something else: a half-nod to the musically lush film soundscapes from the ‘50s and ‘60’s: undoubtedly subliminal sources of raw material containing moments which, though not explicitly perceived, bear an uncanny familiarity to something deeply felt.

Live recording from the Doelen, Rotterdam with the Dutch Student Orchestra. Bas Wiegers, conductor, Lena Lefringhausen, solo violin.

Nebelstreif (2014) - 12’

for organ solo

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Organ Solo (Verscheuren, certain stops 'prepared' beforehand)

“Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht?” –
“Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht?
Den Erlenkönig mit Kron und Schweif?” –
“Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif.”
from Goethe, Der Erlkönig, 1782

The so-called ‘diminished seventh’ chord has long fascinated composers. In the Romantic era, this chord was particularly popular, with its ‘wild-card’ or ‘shape-shifting’ like behaviour, a symmetrical structure of perfect instability, with the ability to resolve to almost any chord. Also interesting was the particular extra-musical association this chord came to represent: fear, anger, grief, discomfort, heartbreak, pain, etc.

Nebelstreif adopts this chord as its main tonic. Rather like a soundscape of different sound-masses, the sole material used in the work consists of different permutations of the diminished seventh chord. The particular emotion(s) that we associate with this chord, however, remain bound to the structure. The piece becomes therefore not only an exploration of sound, but also an exploration of a particular affect.

The title comes from Goethe's poem Der Erlkönig where, in Schubert’s setting, an almost naked diminished seventh chord serves a particularly important dramatic function at the end of the piece.

Dirk Luijmes, Organ (Verschueren, 3 manual)
Felipe Mora, André Ferreira, assistants.

Recording date: November 13, 2014, Het Orgelpark, Amsterdam.

Splattering Resonance (2009) - 14’

for 2 performers with ‘resobows’, percussion solo, electronics

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2 performers with ‘resobows’, perc. solo (1 player) electronics

The Resobow, engineered and designed by Cooper Baker, is a small, wearable object using a system of induction and resonance to emit a signal, causing metal resonating objects to resonate, without the aid of mallets, or a bow. Sort of like an EBow but then for instruments without strings. Working together in UCSD in 2008, Cooper came up with the idea, and we decided to run with it. I ended up writing a piece for percussionist Brian Archinal, and two extra performers playing resobows, with Cooper doing electronics. The piece is based on three different motives, all which are slightly different from each other. As in Music for Organ Solo, a compositional tool was to explore the idea of letting these musics modulate each other; producing child-variations based on a combination of dfferent parent themes, and so forth. 

Cooper’s patch took the constant ‘screeeeeech’ of the resobows and modulated this according to what Brian was playing, how loud, and how fast. Certain spatialization decisions in Cooper’s patch were also based on the ratios of the planets in orbit. 

Brian Archinal, percussion solo
Ian Power, Trevor Grahl, Resobows
Cooper Baker, Resobow conception and electronics 

Σκουληκομυρμη- γκότρυπα (worm-ant-hole) (2013) - 13’

Vibraphone and Marimba duo (with flexatones)

Written for Joint Venture Percussion Duo

This piece, with its clumsy name, explores the idea of long, worm-like material slithering its way gradually into a dark hole. In order to fit, the chordal material at the beginning has to ‘lose weight’ so to speak, and in its compression, becomes much longer. Dedicated to percussionists Xi Zang and Laurent Warnier, who gave the premiere in Luxembourg, 2014. 

Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra (2016-17) - 33'

written for Jörgen van Rijen and Het Klassiek Collectief

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2(+picc), 2(+eh), 2(+bs cl), 2(+cbsn) / 4.2.3.1 / solo trombone / timp, hp, 3 perc / strings

Written for trombonist Jörgen van Rijen and the young Dutch orchestra Het Klassiek Collectief under the baton of Konradin Herzog. Jörgen’s role here is somewhat akin to a Buster Keaton like figure, always with good intentions, but something always goes amiss, and in his stunningly graceful way, is (almost) always able to sidestep disaster. The piece is cast in a very standard concerto form in an attempt to go for something akin to the modern classic, but yet with a twist. The first and third movements form one overarching epic-like movement, with the second a simple intermezzo that transforms into a dramatic self-confrontation with the other trombonists in the orchestra playing a split-second behind the soloist, like staring into a room full of mirrors. In the end, we have little sense of closure, the soloist is left babbling on one note, perhaps unable to continue. This was also my homage to the wonderful world of trombone and I wanted to write something on a larger scale than the more-or-less standard 20 minute pieces. 

Urquitaqtuq (Sheltered, but with Gusts of Wind) (2007) – 15’

written for Alain Cazes and the McGill Wind Symphony

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For some reason, not just if you’re Canadian, (but it seems to help), we somehow get bitten by the ‘north’ bug. A sudden obsession or cogent curiousity to simply “go north”. Sometimes this is borne out of curiousity. The expanse making up about 70% of our landmass, yet only 20% of our population stretches hundreds, even thousands of kilometers, standing in stark comparison with the busy and replete cities that I've mostly inhabited during my short life. Life up there is so different than what I know, or what I've ever experienced. There is also a painful history there, one of coercion and conformity, of habituation and hardening. It's also something I've never experienced first hand, but have lived, in a way, through literature. This piece reflects my yearning to ‘go north’. It reflects something that is free, a system that has found its own way and can continue, and doesn’t resist when a new system is introduced, changing the very structure of it's identity. A return to the old isn’t possible, but could be garnered, surely, by looking forward as well as backward (this lovely Marshall McLuhan photo comes to mind). I was experimenting with aleatoric techniques I had discovered as a student from the scores of Lutosławski, and found that the application of these techniques for a large wind ensemble could adequately reflect my interest in huge shifting soundmasses, blizzards of cold icy sound, with heavy steely flakes of snow crashing about, or delicate diamond-ice textures, sparkling and gently shimmering.

...From Curious Lands and Places (2014) 18’

written for the International Ensemble Modern Academy, Elena Schwarz, Cond.

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fl/picc, cl/bass cl, alto sax, horn in F, tpt/picc tpt, tmbn, perc (1) pno, vla, vc

With this work, I wanted to create a journey for the listener, similar to that of Saint-Exupéry in his novel Le Petit Prince. In this case, where the novel's little protagonist departs from his own home (the asteroid supposedly believed to be B-612) visiting other asteroids with their own beings and ways of life, so too does the listener witness such a journey from 'home' (the recurring Intermezzi, an imaginary environment perhaps filled with small singing creatures, floating and spinning in little clouds of sound) to witness glimpses of other musics.

Despite what adventures we witness, the ‘creatures’ of the Intermezzi always return, continuing perhaps forever, seemingly indifferent to anything else, except their own way of life. Such instances of unending and seemingly unaware life, like the Turritopsis Dohrnii, the so-called ‘immortal’ jellyfish, gently billowing for an eternity in the waters off the coast of Crete, I find truly terrifying.

The title comes from a reference to Schumann's Von fremden Ländern und Menschen - owing in part to the fact that I composed the piece almost entirely abroad - something very unusual for me.

Hussy (2010) – 7’

written for Orkest de Ereprijs

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picc, fl, clar, sop. sax, bari. sax, tpt, hn, 2 tbn, tuba, elec. guit, bass guit, piano, perc (1)

Hussy is a free transcription of “Shipoopi”, a song and dance number from Meredith Wilson’s American musical comedy The Music Man from 1957. I had a close association with this musical since my childhood, and felt compelled to create this work not only out of an old love for the original music and dance, but also since I’ve recently been re-visiting various musical experiences of my youth in order to ponder possible connections to my musical language and interests today. The transcription incorporates various kinds of material from both Broadway and film versions: direct, unambiguous quotation drawn directly from the source material; material in which the source has been has been used as a basis for transformation into another type of material; and finally, freely composed material inspired by, but not necessarily related to the source. Through these different articulations of material, I wanted to create a dramaturgy which would capture and in some sense, pervert the glorious extravagance and excess gesture so abundant in this number.

I found my creativity remarkably stirred by encouragement from my teacher Richard Ayres, constantly urging students to undergo musical self-examinations and, put simply, to ‘do what they want’, without fuss. Additionally, early discussions about the idea of composition as transcription with Michael Finnissy proved extremely rich, leading to new possibilities affecting my musical thought and the way I perceive musical form. Finally, (and perhaps most importantly), I was intensely stimulated by the sharing of hilarious, albeit serious, observations with Matthew Ricketts on the nature of excess and extravagance inherent in the dramaturgy of Shipoopi. It is to him that I dedicate this work.

Metaxa (2010) – 11’

written for the Ives Ensemble

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fl/picc, ob, clar/bs clar, 2 perc, 2 vlns, 2 vlas, 2 vc, bass, organ

Composed for a performance in the Noorderkerk in Amsterdam. Performers seat themselves spatially around audience and throughout the church, co-ordinated by stopwatches. The acoustic of the church, with its characteristic long reverb time, fuses the hyperactive lines into a texture. Check an article by Dutch journalist Berend Jan Bockting about the piece and its relationship to the space for which it was conceived here (page 100). 

Speelfiets (2011) - 8’

written for ‘Windysizer’ and the Nieuw Ensemble

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fl, cl, ob / mandolin, guit, harp, pno, perc (1), ‘windysizer’ / vln, vla, v.c., bass

This piece was written in late August 2011 for the Eurekafoon! project at the request of the Nieuw Ensemble. I quickly became acquainted with the ‘windsyzer’ and its mode of operation, and the sounds it could produce. The pitches produced by this strange and wonderful instrument are a harmonic series of a slightly flat F. The more power with which one cycles, the higher up the harmonic series the instrument sounds. The eery whistling produced by the instrument carries on through the piece, as a sort of unchanging pedal, amongst all sorts of other events in the ensemble. Sometimes the musics touch, and other times, not. In the end, the visual imagery suggested by the operation of such a musical instrument turned out to be just as important as any of the elements suggested by its pitch: I could imagine someone cycling madly to the finish line in a race (yet going nowhere!) and the instrument as a strange, mechanical music box figure, somehow elegant, but ultimately with a grotesque charm!

Palimpsestic Fancies (2010) - 9’30

written for the Ligeti Academy

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picc, fl, ob, cl, bs. cl, sop sax, hn, perc (1), pno, hp, 2vlns, vla

Upon initial viewing of Rembrandt's famous, albeit, wonderfully corny “De Nachwacht”, most visitors are curiously surprised to learn that the painting's peculiar shape owes to the fact that a considerable amount has been cut away from the original, so as to "properly fit" in its environment, when it was hung a few centuries ago. Even more surprising, numerous people have tried (and succeeded!) to attack the work with various acids, knives, etc., though no lasting damage was incurred. But what if it were, or what if more of the work were simply “cut away” to better accommodate a new location? People who don't know the original seem to spend time pondering in front of the massive work trying to figure out how much of the painting is missing, and what they can't see. It's this “cutting away” or “obscuring”, in a sense, that interests me here. These issues of damage, alteration, eradication, obscuration, and of course, creation, were among those that seemed to recur to me as I wrote this piece. Since, to destroy the painting requires that the painting first exist, we have a balance: the act of destruction depends on creation, which, interestingly, is very much the operating principle of a palimpsest. This piece is akin to my own musical palimpsest, perhaps, but not only because I changed my mind so many times while writing it. 

Sockamagee!! (2009) – 5'

written for het orkest de ereprijs

fl/picc, fl/alt fl, cl, bari sax/sop, sop sax/alto, tpt, hn, 2 tbn, tba, elec guit, bass guit, pno, perc (1)

“Sockamagee!!” is the frequent exclamation of young Robby Reed, a main character in DC Comics’ “Dial H for Hero” series. The work has nothing to do with the comic other than the title; however, the onomatopoeia and subsequent vivid and dynamic illustrations of strange invented words that comic books usually employ to give the impressions of vigorous action were direct inspirations for the vocal writing of this work, the material, and the dramaturgy, among other things.

Strange Desires (2014) - 30’

written for 7090

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For speaking trio (vln, tmbn, pno)

Strange Desires is an interpretation of John Ashbery’s poem Girls on the Run (1999) which itself is a poetic interpretation of the works of Henry Darger, a Chicago-based so-called “outsider artist” best known for his exhaustive illustrations of girls engaged in various bizarre activities and rituals. Here, the trio acts as a group of minstrels, telling stories, acting scenes, and playing music, and games, with text taken from various parts of the poem. This bizarre quasi-cabaret isn’t ritual or narrative per say, but an attempt to give a glimpse into the strange world of Darger via Ashbery (and subsequently via myself and the trio). Under the different layers of distorted reality which emerge, one can (hopefully) catch a glimpse of something very real.

Text excerpts taken from from John Ashbery’s poem Girls on the Run, copyright © 1999 by John Ashbery. All rights reserved. Used by arrangement with Georges Borchardt, Inc. for the author.

Levensliederen (2014) - 23’

written for Musica Vocale

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SATB choir (large enough for a division into 12), offstage soprano, harmonium (with celesta attatchment), speaking pianist

“Levensliederen” is a Dutch term meaning literally “song about life”, and is often referred to as a genre of sentimental popular music. Here, I took four texts by Dutch poet Micha Hamel, all having something to do with dying or death, and assembled them into a cycle, a sort of mini-requiem as it were, to be a companion piece in a concert featuring Reger’s requiem, and also Schubert’s Erlkönig. Micha suggested this title not in an ironic sense, but in the sense that perhaps, songs about dying could also be seen as songs about living. Below follows a short programme note about each of the four movements. 

Codicil takes the idea of the belief in the sanctity of the human body, and the violation of this sanctity as its central conflict. Does one believe that the body is a temple, and therefore, must not be altered in anyway? Would this belief then necessarily prevent one from sharing all or some of his body in order to sustain another? The music reflects this in that it is a re-assemblage of various ‘sewn-together’ fragments (organs!) from other pieces, and styles. Thus, for me, the conflict here is transposed to an attitude toward (musical) creation in general.

Levenslied begins as an esoteric dialogue and slowly devolves into a banal argument.

Zo Laat, a contemporary re-telling of the Goethe poem Der Erlkönig is my own take on the angst-ridden sound environment of Schubert’s setting. Just as the horror of the poetry comes from the father’s casual parental dismissal of the child’s fears, the horror here comes from the immensely and grossly over-characterized nature of this setting. Certain elements of the 19th century have been exploded, others imploded, to create a sort of parodic cartoon-like version of the piece.

Meer is a piece about leaving, but also about arriving. As in Zo Laat, we hear the choir here as a unit, but also as a collection of individual persons and lives. A soft voice in the distance invites the music forward, slowly disappearing, and ‘kissing’, as it were, the music to sleep.

Pierement Parade (2013) – 15’

written for Continuum New Music

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fl/picc, cl/bscl, pno, perc (1), vln, vc

Mechanical musical instruments have always fascinated me, especially mechanical organs with their vast repertoire of marches, gallops, foxtrots, cake-walks, waltzes, overtures, love songs, and even newly-commissioned pieces. My piece, Pierement Parade (Dutch: Barrel Organ or Mechanical Organ Parade) is a tribute to such instruments, and their idiosyncrasies: their characteristic registrations (organ “orchestrations”), harmonic progressions, and of course, repertoire, with particular attention to the idea of the musical march in this case. The sound-world of the piece is designed to reflect the clunky, the raw, and the hooting-fluty-reedy-shuddering voice with which these instruments so beautifully sing - a fact I found ironic during the process of composition as I strove to make a band of real instruments sound like their mimetic air-driven counterparts: an imitated imitation. Watch the video here.

This piece is meant to be the first in a diptych of pieces dealing with marches. The second, Trauermarsch Szenen (link below) should immediately follow Pierement Parade.

Continuum Contemporary Music, Brian Current, Conductor 

Trauermarsch Szenen (2012) – 12’

written for the Looptail sextet

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fl/picc, cl/bscl, pno, perc, vln, vc

The idea of writing a processional, funeral march-like piece had always appealed to me, and it was only until this past winter that the piece sprung to life, amid poor health and a seemingly endless winter. I had intended it to be a large piece for orchestra, but had only a sextet to work with, and found it a rather interesting challenge to make the sextet sound as large and grand as an orchestra. The music unravels as a slow and fantastic procession through funereal-like images and scenes, some recognizable, and some obscured, all the while pulled along by the march idiom of the timpani, omnipresent, constant, and inescapable. In the end, we arrive in a special place, a place not without sadness, but of calmness, and of pensive stillness. Sometimes, but not always, one must just accept the way things are, and be at peace. Trauermarsche Szenen is meant to be the second movement in a diptych about marches, the first movement being Pierement Parade.

Looptail Sextet  

Eleven Short Pieces for Icarus (2011) - 15’

written for the Icarus Ensemble

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fl/picc, cl/bscl, pno, sampler, elec. guit, bass guit, perc (1)

I have often been interested in the dramaturgical and narrative possibilities of musical forms: for me, the establishing and manipulation of a ‘situation’ in whatever form it takes, is one of the most meaningful things to me as a composer and a listener. In the last few years, I’ve been experimenting with trying to create musical identities, characters, and situations, sort of like musical ‘mise-en-scènes’ and the subsequent tensions and dramaturgical stages through which I strive to make them pass. With this piece, I turned my attention to how I could suggest a narrative structure over the course of eleven distinct miniatures, a form which I seldom use. Some elements recur over the course of the work, and some elements are specific only to one small movement. I realized that piece took the form of what was rather like a variety or cabaret show with a few recurring sideshow acts: the performative ‘showing-off’ of certain skills, strange mini-rituals, mimesis (the idea of a ‘cover’ in the pop music world), and even malfunction were all things that emerged in the piece.

In hindsight, after having finished, I realized that I was heavily influenced throughout the composition process by a performance of Michael Finnissy’s cabaret-trio “Bas & Koen & Nora” I had seen last spring. The curious and refreshing mix of musics, the theatricality of the performers and the musical and dramatic possibilities suggested by these elements sat, tucked away within me and appear to have emerged in their own way in this composition. Thus, it is to Michael Finnissy that I dedicate this work in much gratitude.

Icarus Ensemble

We are dreamers, but dreams are what we breathe...(2011) – 9’30

written for the ASKO | Schönberg 9x7 project

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ob, cl/ebcl, tpt, pno, perc (1) vla, vc

This piece was largely inspired by a poem that had been pinned to my wall for a little over a year. A friend wrote it during a week-long workshop in Apeldoorn in 2010. Searching for words, he shared the poem with me during the final stages of its composition, and together, on the last day of our workshop, we completed it. Though I often saw the poem from my desk, pinned to the wall on a scrap piece of paper on which it was originally written, I had never before taken the opportunity to deeply read and reflect on its meanings. It was something that I would come to do in the following weeks.

The idea of a sudden profound change, that of an old world suddenly and unexpectedly giving way to a new, and the resultant nostalgia and sentimentality that often accompanies such changes were constantly on my mind during composition. Several such events seemed to pervade my personal life during this period, along with the tragedy of the earthquake in Japan – an old world suddenly dying with a society struggling to give birth to a new. But as people strive to go forward, sometimes, ironically, it is the act of looking back that sometimes propels us. But what do we see when we look back? Often times, and as time itself passes, we see not what was really there, but rather what we would have dreamed. This piece is my personal musical reflection on the ideas of sudden change, sentimentality, nostalgia, loss, and of course, love.

ASKO|Schönberg Ensemble, Bas Wiegers, cond. 

Mechanical Miniatures (2006) - 11’30

written for the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble

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fl/picc, ob, 2cl(2=bscl+cl), bsn, hn, tpt, tmbn, perc, pno/cel, 2vln, vla, vc, bass

An early student piece, I was interested in drawing musical material from cartoons and developing it in my own way. At the same time, I was also fascinated by mechnical musical instruments, and processes. These five pieces were a first foray into something that would keep me occupied for a few years. Below follows a programme note, for every piece. 

 

I. Asinine Assembly Line (Music for Music Box Dancer) - Imagine that we place the initial theme on a conveyor belt that runs its way through a series of transformation boxes. As it passes through each box, the theme alters accordingly. For example, the first box would seem to contain some sort of mirroring device, the second seems to magnify certain parts of the theme, melody and contour becoming ‘turned off’ in the third by means of rhythm and an increase in resonance. However, many more boxes follow. Every so often the theme resurfaces in its original form, although after passing through so many transformative boxes, it just can't seem to find its original form... .

II – Orchestrion (Rhumba?!)

“The disposition of this Orchestrion allows us to imitate all the different Orchestral instruments in full compass, as used in the original Orchestral compositions, as in Wagner’s “Tannhauser” and Rossini’s “William Tell” Overtures. This enables us to give the original compositions of the great masters, as composed for Grand Orchestra, with perfect correctness”.

These machines originated in Germany in the late 1800s and quickly became popular during the turn-of-the-century in dance halls and wealthy homes all across America. The outer appearance of the orchestrion looked similar to a pipe organ façade; however, the inside of the instrument could contain organ pipes (which it usually did), percussion, violin, saxophone, or most any other popular musical instrument. It worked using a principle similar to the player piano in which a perforated roll of paper fed through the machine allowed air to pass through the mechanism and trigger certain sounds from the organ pipes, violin, saxophone, percussion, or other musical instruments that these machines could ‘play’. The initial rolls punched contained only a narrow stylistic corpus of music, but later, when the instrument was more popular, rolls containing more eclectic styles emerged including arrangements of ‘foreign’ music from other countries. The makers of the above orchestrion claim reproduction with “perfect correctness”, still, the early machines were irregular and clunky, nevertheless giving rise to an impression of tidy sloppiness.

III – Nickelodeon - Similar to the orchestrion, the nickelodeon could also be found in the dance hall, but more often in the saloon. Simply a coin operated player piano, the nickelodeon served as an ancestor to the shellac playing juke-box. We hear both in the piece.

IV – Anémocorde - As far as I know, only one of these mechanical musical instruments have ever existed. Built in France ca. 1780 by a German inventor named Johann Schnell, this instrument contained a keyboard and a set of strings very similar to a piano (one, two or three strings per note) and via bellows pumped by the feet, a steady stream of compressed air blew onto the strings of the piano setting them into vibration. The instrument contained several buttons or levers that modified the intensity and direction of the sound. A quotation from Jean-Georges Kastner’s Traité Général D’Instrumentation (1837) can somewhat elucidate the effect produced:

The instrument has a rare sweetness of sound and the pianissimo sounds light and airy, and as though it is arriving from some far-off place. This instrument is only appropriate for pieces in slow tempos, such as adagios, andantes, and the like. It also makes a very good effect when accompanying song.

Interestingly, there also existed a small switch that, when depressed, enabled the instrument to produce dry percussive sounds, appropriate for faster tempos.

V. Homage to R. Goldberg – “How to pick up the pieces of a broken chord” - Rube Goldberg (1883 - 1970) was a prolific cartoonist famous for his “Rube Goldberg Machines”, exceedingly complex devices that perform extremely simple tasks in a very indirect and convoluted way. His cartoons of these machines often provided solutions to various irritating daily problems. My particular ‘machine’ offers a solution to picking up the pieces of a broken chord. The chord must first be reassembled and moved to an appropriate register before it can be easily removed. A true Rube Goldberg Machine contains at least ten steps. Can you hear all of them?

Nice to Meet You (2010) - 7’

music theatre for soprano, tuba

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sop, tuba

Short music theatre piece for soprano and tuba, exploring the ideas of the true meaning of social pleasantries and conventions, connections with ‘strangers’ and relaxing into one’s own identity. The piece was crafted in a workshop setting taking an interview with Dutch singer Wim Jan van Deuveren as the creative starting point. Click on the link above for a sound impression of the piece. 

Rosemary Carlton-Willis, mezzo
John Banther, Tuba
Sanne Nouws, director

The Road Not Taken (2007-8, rev. 2009-10) - 25’

opera for violin and soprano (plus offstage musicians)

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sop, vln, offstage piano, offstage singer 

This piece was inspired by a Warner Brothers cartoon I watched in my youth (Looney Tunes Duck Amuck, 1953) which remains this day a potent source of inspiration. Wikipedia’s summary of the cartoon is best:

It stars Daffy Duck, who is tormented by a sadistic, unseen animator who constantly changes Daffy’s location, clothing, voice, physical appearance, and even shape. Pandemonium reigns throughout the cartoon as Daffy attempts to steer the action back to some kind of normality, only for the animator to either ignore him or, more frequently, to over-literally interpret his increasingly frantic demands.

In the case of this piece, we have three ‘characters’ – the soprano, rather akin to Daffy’s role in the cartoon, who simply wants to sing Robert Frost’s poetry in some kind of traditional manner; the composer, analogous to the role of the “sadistic unseen animator” who constantly frustrates her efforts, and the violinist who acts as a sort of ‘go-between’ carrying out the wishes of either the composer, singer, or sometimes, both.

As in the cartoon, the piece commences routinely, though as both the composer and violinist interfere with both the process and the soprano, the work spirals out of control – it becomes a tug of war between the three characters, all vying for power.

My thoughts at the time were greatly focused the whole idea of setting a text to music, the how and the why, thoughts which I still frequently experience (when going to a new opera, for example). The piece ends with a solo recitation of the poem from the violinist who, without any ‘artful’ singing, brings the piece to a close in a clear expression of the poetry, perhaps rendering the efforts of the soprano (and the composer, somehow) all in vain. While certain aspects of the piece worked very well, I found others didn’t work at all, and thus the piece is a long-term work in progress.

Stephanie Aston, Soprano
Mark Menzies, Violin

Music for Organ Solo (2008) - 8’

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Written in 2008 for my friend and colleague Alexandra Fol, this work was an investigation in using the organ as a vehicle to explore aspects of writing music in a large space, for a large instrument. In the filter of such a large acoustic, the rapid interchanging figurations (especially the pulsations!), all blur into a non-discrete, yet identifiable soundmass. Given the fact that organs are very much spatial instruments, like an orchestra, with groups of pipes grouped together by timbre, and further, by pitch (organs are frequently separated into two halves, each having 6 whole-tone pitches), the piece also becomes an exploration of illuminating a space with sound.

The form of the piece was inspired by a film which I had just seen at the time: Synecdoche, New York, (hence the graphic). 
One motive meets another, and they together form a new one, which in turn meets another and creates something new, and so on. The ideas of this piece were further explored in Metaxa, from 2010.

Jan Hage, organ
Recording: April 17, 2015, het Orgelpark.
Sauer Organ (1922), with 3-manual digital console, equipped with a MIDI-driven setzer system.
Registrants Felipe Mora and Maarten Havinga

The Road Not Taken (2007-8, rev. 2009-10) - 25’

opera for violin and soprano (plus offstage musicians)

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sop, vln, offstage piano, offstage singer 

This piece was inspired by a Warner Brothers cartoon I watched in my youth (Looney Tunes Duck Amuck, 1953) which remains this day a potent source of inspiration. Wikipedia’s summary of the cartoon is best:

It stars Daffy Duck, who is tormented by a sadistic, unseen animator who constantly changes Daffy's location, clothing, voice, physical appearance, and even shape. Pandemonium reigns throughout the cartoon as Daffy attempts to steer the action back to some kind of normality, only for the animator to either ignore him or, more frequently, to over-literally interpret his increasingly frantic demands.

In the case of this piece, we have three ‘characters’ – the soprano, rather akin to Daffy’s role in the cartoon, who simply wants to sing Robert Frost’s poetry in some kind of traditional manner; the composer, analogous to the role of the “sadistic unseen animator” who constantly frustrates her efforts, and the violinist who acts as a sort of ‘go-between’ carrying out the wishes of either the composer, singer, or sometimes, both.

As in the cartoon, the piece commences routinely, though as both the composer and violinist ‘interfere’ with both the process and the soprano, the work spirals out of control – it becomes a tug of war between the three characters, all vying for power.

My thoughts at the time were greatly focused the whole idea of setting a text to music, the how and the why, thoughts which I still frequently experience (when going to a new opera, for example). The piece ends with a solo recitation of the poem from the violinist who, without any 'artful' singing, brings the piece to a close in a clear expression of the poetry, perhaps rendering the efforts of the soprano (and the composer, somehow) all in vain. While certain aspects of the piece worked very well, I found others didn't work at all, and thus the piece is a long-term work in progress.

Stephanie Aston, Soprano
Mark Menzies, Violin

Sacred Emily (2008) - 25’

chamber opera for soprano, baritone, small ensemble, and electronics

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fl/picc, cl/bs cl, trombone, pno/celesta, perc. (1), vln, vc, sop, baritone, 6-chan electr. 

Always curious about the difficulties I encounter while setting text to music, I decided to explore the poetry of Gertrude Stein, in particular one piece from 1913, Sacred Emily, the most well-known line from the poem being “Rose is a rose is a rose”. I had wanted to explore the challenge of writing a simple chamber opera, something with bare minimum staging, no, scenery, no probs, almost a ‘dressed up’ concert experience, and let the music do the talking, as it were.

Stein’s essentially anti-narrative poetry was really to me a celebration of the knitting together of sounds, shapes, and images and meanings present in the English language, a sort of sound-poem, a forebearer to the work of Dutch artist Jaap Blonk or Canadian author Christian Bök.

Unlike other pieces I had studied as models at the time for electronics, singers, and ensemble, I chose to process the voices, instead of the instruments, giving me a huge range of interpretive possibilities while setting the text. Sometimes I used the electronics as a magnifying glass, a series of filters bringing out a certain vowel or consonant that Stein would settle on in the text. Other times I used a range of processing to totally obscure the text, transforming simple words into long threads of drawn-out sound.

For me, the piece was a huge exploration about the understanding of a text, the sound of a text, and an interpreting of that text through sound. 

Performers from UCSD, La Jolla, California.
​Rand Steiger, conductor.  

Sacred Emily (2008) - 25’

chamber opera for soprano, baritone, small ensemble, and electronics

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fl/picc, cl/bs cl, trombone, pno/celesta, perc. (1), vln, vc, sop, baritone, 6-chan electr. 

Always curious about the difficulties I encounter while setting text to music, I decided to explore the poetry of Gertrude Stein, in particular one piece from 1913, Sacred Emily, the most well-known line from the poem being “Rose is a rose is a rose”. I had wanted to explore the challenge of writing a simple chamber opera, something with bare minimum staging, no, scenery, no probs, almost a ‘dressed up’ concert experience, and let the music do the talking, as it were.

Stein’s essentially anti-narrative poetry was really to me a celebration of the knitting together of sounds, shapes, and images and meanings present in the English language, a sort of sound-poem, a forebearer to the work of Dutch artist Jaap Blonk or Canadian author Christian Bök.

Unlike other pieces I had studied as models at the time for electronics, singers, and ensemble, I chose to process the voices, instead of the instruments, giving me a huge range of interpretive possibilities while setting the text. Sometimes I used the electronics as a magnifying glass, a series of filters bringing out a certain vowel or consonant that Stein would settle on in the text. Other times I used a range of processing to totally obscure the text, transforming simple words into long threads of drawn-out sound.

For me, the piece was a huge exploration about the understanding of a text, the sound of a text, and an interpreting of that text through sound. 

Performers from UCSD, La Jolla, California.
​Rand Steiger, conductor.  

Splattering Resonance (2009) - 14’

for 2 performers with ‘resobows’, percussion solo, electronics

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2 performers with ‘resobows’, perc. solo (1 player) electronics

The Resobow, engineered and designed by Cooper Baker, is a small, wearable object using a system of induction and resonance to emit a signal, causing metal resonating objects to resonate, without the aid of mallets, or a bow. Sort of like an EBow but then for instruments without strings. Working together in UCSD in 2008, Cooper came up with the idea, and we decided to run with it. I ended up writing a piece for percussionist Brian Archinal, and two extra performers playing resobows, with Cooper doing electronics. The piece is based on three different motives, all which are slightly different from each other. As in Music for Organ Solo, a compositional tool was to explore the idea of letting these musics modulate each other; producing child-variations based on a combination of dfferent parent themes, and so forth. 

Cooper’s patch took the constant ‘screeeeeech’ of the resobows and modulated this according to what Brian was playing, how loud, and how fast. Certain spatialization decisions in Cooper’s patch were also based on the ratios of the planets in orbit. 

Brian Archinal, percussion solo
Ian Power, Trevor Grahl, Resobows
Cooper Baker, Resobow conception and electronics 

150TMBNS (2017) - 45’

for ca. 150 Trombones

150TMNS is a piece written for closing concert of the Slide Factory 2017 an international festival for trombone enthousiasts worldwide. Workshops, masterclasses, concerts, and even a ‘trombone market’ are all part of the four-day festival, providing trombonists of all sorts the chance to connect, inspire each other, and share their passion for this interesting instrument. 

 This piece, as the grand finale, is therefore intended to give everyone, no matter age, skill, or ability, the chance to make music as a group, with top professionals of the trombone world alongside children just making contact with the instrument for the first time. Truly a unique project, what was deeply challenging was trying to give interesting material to each group, while slightly pushing their boundaries at the same time. In the end, I found myself ‘trombonifying’ everything from new material to James Brown to Queen to Susato to Ives, to Bach etc., etc., in order to make a unique and challenging experience for the performers, as well as the audience.  

CANIS QUIXOTUS (2017) - 9'

for orchestra

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2(2=picc), 2, 2, 2sax(alto, 2=alt/sop.), 22210; perc., (1) strings

Written for Ricciotti's winter tour, “Beestenbende” (Dutch, “Animal Craziness”). A piece chronicling the mis-adventures of the eponymous “Dog” Quixote, who, like his cousin Wile E., seems to spend his time constantly exploding or falling off cliffs in futile pursuit. The title of each miniature is inspired by the fake latin (also called “Dog Latin”) taxonomies used at the beginning of each Coyote-Roadrunner short. The text shifts near the end of the work and speaks directly to the audience, ending with a Latin riddle that describes an animal and that itself is a palindrome, like most of the material of the piece. Ricciotti is a Dutch street orchestra dedicated to bringing all sorts of music to as wide an audience as possible, often playing in hospitals, animal shelters, prisons, supermarkets, etc. and premieres many new compositions per year.

Κάποτε (2017) - 15’

for RKST21 and Mezzo Soprano

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RKST21 is a project combining players from orkest de ereprijs and Het Gelders Orkest (plus a few others!) in order to make something akin to a hybrid between a large ensemble and an orchestra. The result is a group with many unique sound sound possibilities that isn't too cumbersome: one can work closlely with players as if in an ensemble.

For this project, which features a singer, I chose a text by the Greek poet Cafafy, Φωνές (voices). Cavafy’s text speaks of loss but also remembrance, by listening with our memories to those absent voices which we can still hear in our mind’s ear. The soprano appears embedded in and surrounded by an emulsion of such voices in the orchestra. They are asking, sighing, groaning, calling out, pleading, uttering, or simply being. Among them, she is many characters at once: she appears as a narrator, a storyteller, recounting and communicating. However, she is also the embodiment of the heart of the text and her own voice becomes lost in a great centripetal sound-storm, laying to waste the fragile crystalline texture of the first moments of the piece. Emerging in a new form, she finishes her song which, almost like a benediction, gives birth to a new voice, sounding out its short life in the night, before it too, fades amongst those same voices in which she began.  

Of Ancient Days (2018) - 50’

for two organists

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A creation story, a slow building of a world in seven day-movements, interleaved with Bach’s partita, Sei gegrüßet, forming the ‘nights’, as it were. The new Utopa Organ of the Orgelpark in Amsterdam, a so-called hyperorgan, is the first in a series of slowly proliferating new instruments offering the ability to simply and directly manipulate aspects of the organ’s sound production in brand-new ways.

In Ancient Days, the organ was used in two ways: as an authentic Hildebrandt instrument (for the Bach) and for my piece, performed from a digital console integrating technology developed by the Sinua firm of Düsseldorf, Germany. With the assistance of a Max patch, I was able to automate some parameters via the OSC functionality of the organ, yet all sounds in the organ are not only acoustic, but emanating from pipes with a thoroughly historic 18th century sound concept, a true emancipation of sound.  

Brennendes Geheimnis (2019) - 12’

written for Jeugd Orkest Nederland

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2+picc, 2.2.2 / 4.2.3.1 / 3 perc / str.

Brennendes was composed for the Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands. Some of these players were as young as 14, just starting out their young careers. While dreaming of what the piece should become, I picked up Zweig’s book, Brennendes Geheimnis. I was struck by what a difficult age this can be for youngsters. No longer children, yet not quite adults.

Almost immediately I was taken by the somewhat curiously anachronistic idea to simply retell Zweig’s novella in sound, my take on the old-fashioned tone poem.  

In this case, the restlessness and sudden veering and swerving of the music is an embodiment of the young protagonist’s frame of mind, who suddenly feels his childhood slipping away, yet can’t quite enter into adulthood. The omnipresent ‘secret’ in this case is sounded by the beating of two notes a quarter-tone apart in the brass, continuously interrupting or sending the music off onto a different trajectory.

One of the most beautiful and heart rending moments in Zweig’s work is what happens during the last few pages: a curtain suddenly drops, and Edgar experiences this ubiquitous dissonant secret as a part of a complex natural network, and in an instant, understands its nature. The dissonant, ‘secret’ beating of these two frequencies is likewise neutralized in the grand consonance of a justly-tuned spectral chord.

Music for Malmö (2019) - 12’

organ solo + max/msp control

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The wonderful new ‘hyperorgan’ of Malmö’s St. Petri’s church is the manifestation of years of dreams and searching in organ making. The ability to directly and simply manipulate many aspects of the sound of these instruments in a precise way is placed at the disposal of the performer or composer. Among one of the most special features of Klais’ new instrument is the harmonics division, all pipes tuned justly to the overtone series, including the 11th harmonic.

In Music for Malmö, composed for my friend and colleague Hans-Ola Ericsson, I sought to simply dive in and create three adjacent situations that each explore new sound possibilities offered by these instruments. A gentle cacophony of cuckoo clocks, whizzing harmonic spectra solidifying into greater masses of timbre, and an ominous helicopter were all soundscapes that I encountered, produced entirely with acoustic organ pipes.   

Messer’s Dream (2019) - 5’

piano, violin

Written at the request of Nederlands Vioolconcours, Messer’s Dream is a piece for young violinists partly inspired by the style and playing idiom of Canadian fiddler Don Messer, whose music I also used to play and accompany when young.

Loosely based on Messer’s tune St Anne’s Reel, the music undergoes a few simple transformations creating a dream-like procession of events: a waltz, a rhapsody, a hallucination, and a sudden awakening. The piece teaches young violinists not only about a few special techniques, such as playing col legno and sul ponticello, but also introduces a few very simple microtones.

With older students, Messer’s Dream can function as a showpiece for recitals or, with younger students, a study in new techniques and the stimulating challenge of making a unified performance out of the piece’s stylistic diversity.

Vocal Postcards (2019) - 15’

for double choir + bass, networked music performance

The idea for a joint composition for both the Athens and Gothenburg intercultural choirs started as a dream in late 2017. Each choir is composed of migrants, immigrants, or locals who are united in their passion for communal singing, and was established just after the European migrant crisis in 2015. The project gained traction when network music specialist Rebekah Wilson got on board offering a solution to join the sound and video of both choirs using only commercial internet. The delay was minimal and the sound crystal clear.  

The project began with a series of workshops in sound, music making, and physical expression lead by Tina Glenvik, Vasula Deli, and myself. As well, postcards were sent across Europe from members of one choir to the next which generated inspiration and material for the work. Newly composed music, fragments of workshop exercises, and the text from the postcards were all joined into a work reflecting the theme at hand: Journeys.

As usual with network music performances, the concert was an experience resulting in two perspectives, that from Gothenburg and that from Athens: each with its own unique character. The beauty of this technology was manifold, not only did it enable two choirs to sing with each other across thousands of kilometers, many who simply are unable to travel, but it also enabled a collaboration without a carbon footprint.

Babbelbox (2021) - 6’

for oboe d'amore and trombone (prepared with toy chicken anus)

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Written for trombonist Sebastiaan Kemner and oboist Vincent van Wijk (who form the duo Lonlinoise), this work is a reflection on social media commentary, particularly around the 2020 presidential election of the United States. Babbelbox (Dutch meaning something like a chatroom, or virtual chat space) isn’t only skin-deep, its passages of alternating sensuality with ridiculous extended tropes, interrupted dialogues and non-sequiturs create an energy that hints at some of the darker aspects of the politics and social media.

RUKA (2020) - 30’

for Bass Clarinet solo with small set-up, film, webcams and Qlab

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Ruka (Czech for ‘Hand’) Jiří Trnka's timeless classic, is a burning satire of authoritarian power between creator and tyrant, embodied in the antagonistic relationship of a small helpless puppet and a very large powerful hand. Though Trnka's film was made during and ultimately critiquing an era of Soviet censorship, there are many parallels with our current reality.

In this version of the work, which is more or less an extended fantasy on Trnka’s piece, bass clarinetist Anna voor de Wind's gloved hands become a meta-antagonist transmogrified into film via a series of webcams and computer processing. The audience sees exactly what is presented in this pre-recorded version. The motions of the natural choreography of her hands necessitated by the music she must perform serve as a counterpoint to Trnka’s film, sometimes making a link with the antagonist, and other times, serving as a distraction. Musical interludes punctuate the intense action of the film and infuse the work with a space for reflection and connection. A separate ASMR interlude looks back to the soundscape of children’s crafting television programs of the late ‘80s.

 

Dreams of Machines (2021) - 15’

for small orchestra and pianola

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Written for Pavel Šnajdr and the Brno Contemporary Orchestra - Wolfgang Heisig, pianola

Who can remember seeing a mechanical piano playing itself for the very first time as if possessed by some other-worldly spirit? Though today it might seem rather old-fashioned, when its mechanism begins to stir, it never fails in drawing awe, wonder, and amusement amongst its audience. The pianola plays the central character of my piece, and also many characters at once, its nervous chatter resounding as a grand orchestra, turbulent cyclones, cryptic electronic codes, and even strange empty spaces.

In its sleep amongst crickets and frogs, and ticking clocks, the orchestra dreams that it, too, is a pianola. An expansive sounding board equipped with hundreds of small hammers, it strikes many sounding bodies, bells, clocks, anvils, nails which in turn strike sadness, loneliness, anger, bombast, despair. These sounds summon inert ghosts of musics from the past, resting everywhere around us, resurrecting them, for a moment.

In the second movement, the pianola-orchestra duo awake and, as if by some magical process, transform into a grand mechanical clock powered by a two-stroke chord engine. Gathering speed, the spin and momentum of these cadences propel us far from the night into a new day and new life, however happy, however lonely.

 

Reimagining Mahler / Ives (2021) - (various songs - total duration 25')

for chamber orchestra and baritone

A curious project with the Klangforum Wien and American baritone Thomas Hampson of re-imaginging several song settings of Mahler (Der Schildwache Nachtlied) and Charles Ives (Lincoln, the Great Commoner; Tom Sails Away; Walt Whitman; Thoreau; Sunrise). The original piano accompaniments have been expanded to a small orchestra setting allowing for clarity and transparancy in the sound. My take on Mahler’s Schildwache Nachtlied pits our protagonist against himself in a night forest - is he hearing voices in his head, and is really as grand as he claims to be? The orchestra seems to think otherwise. In Ives’s Lincoln I honours Ives’ original intentions while also taking a cue from the final chord with a nod to Lincoln's assasination. Recordings available on request. 

 

Lachrimæ / Ephemerides - (2021) - 75’ (Ephemerides 30’)

for string quartet and baroque winds (415hz, meantone) as interludes for John Dowland's Lachimæ Pavans (1600)

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For a long time in European thought and education, music was coupled with the disciplines of arithmetic, geometry, and interestingly enough, astrology. This pairing may seem strange now, but it does give a clue in understanding the ethos of renaissance polyphony. When listening to this music, we admire how each voice, like celestial bodies, has its gravitational pull and orbit.

The work begins and ends with star phenomena. A Nova is when a star increases in luminosity and becomes very visible in the sky, and a supernova (first discovered by Tycho Brahe) describes the explosion of a star.

Surrounding Dowland’s Pavans are my six ephemerides, compositions loosely inspired by Kepler’s (Brahe's assistant) theories and observations set out in Harmonices Mundi (1619). Each ephemeris presents a trajectory or set of trajectories through which different material unfolds, sometimes in the form of looping canons or stretti, harmonic or rhythmic periods mimicking a system of bodies in orbit, or a slow unwinding of tempo based on increasingly remote orbital velocities.  

The temperament for the work was also inspired by the Renaissance: a double system of quarter-comma meantone sometimes imposed with a 31-tone equal temperament creates in some passages the impression of chords becoming fluid and passing through many different vibrational planes.

Written for Quatuor Bozzini and Les Boréades de Montréal

Lightweight (2022) - 30'

concerto for two celli and ensemble

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Einmal ist keinmal and muss es sein are two phrases deeply explored in Milan Kundera's 1984 book, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Kundera weaves an almost gossamer fabric out of intertwining characters, each with their own additions, issues, joys, and ways of being. This proved perfect fodder for a concerto for two celli: the soloists don't represent Kundera's characters and their situations and in no way is the piece programmatic (unlike some of my other works!), but rather explores some of the interesting philisophical questions and energies of situation raised by his work. The two soloists in the premiere, Lidy Blijdorp and Sebastiaan van Halsema, play intertwining roles that are both as light as a feather, and as heavy as stone. And of course, stones can be light, and feathers heavy. Repetition, and repetitions of repetitions, clocks (also a kind of reptition) and the constant transformation from one body into the next is the essence of the work. The cello, with its low bass tones, and crystalline, fragile harmonics, was the perfect vehicle for this exploration. 

Folly (2022) - 20'

concerto for percussion and ensemble

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Folly inspired by the art of foley, the artful imitation of sound-events in film tradition. Here, the soloist must play as a foley artist / percussionist providing sound effects to a silent-film era cartoon, a short re-edited episode from Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell series. The soloist has a separate video score containing almost every action in the film must try as hard as possible to synchronize with the film, but not the orchestra. In turn, the orchestra has their own separate backing music to the film and plays independently of the soloist. In a way, the piece fits well into the 'anti-concerto' tradition, the soloist having to ignore more of what the orchestra does but follow their own unique score: the cartoon!

Sostenuto Prelude on Veni Creator Spiritus (2023) - 8'

prelude for organ solo

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Short tutorial prelude for organists as part of the Royal Canadian College of Organists' series, Organist Launchpad. Mail trevorgrahl@gmail.com for score.