ALKEMIA (2019)

clarinet (bass in 4th mvt), violin, piano

A synesthetic collaboration with Alkemia Perfumes for the Oasi Trio

A 19th-century Symbolist atmosphere blends with more contemporary synesthesia-influenced styles. Each movement is a miniature fantasy world that evokes a different experimental perfume: Deus Ex Machina, Book of Shadows, Center of the Universe, Cyanide, and Stag Moon. (Corresponding scents and images available for performance)

20'

BOOK OF SPELLS (2014)

FLUTE AND CLARINET (bass in 3rd mvt.)

Commissioned by The Magic Deuce

A fun, nostalgic piece of four short movements, each representing a different spell. Perfect for Halloween and for children’s concerts (adults will enjoy it, too!).

10’

TERATOMA, ODRADEK (2014)

Flute and piano

Commissioned by Geoffrey Wilson

Teratoma /ter·a·to·ma/[Gr. teraton, or monster] n. A tumor made up of different types of tissue, none of which is native to the area in which it occurs. Teratomas have been reported to contain hair, teeth, bone, eyes, and limbs.

Odradek /Od·ra·dek/ At first glance it looks like a flat star-shaped spool for thread, wound with old, broken-off bits of thread, knotted and tangled together. He lurks by turns in the garret, the stairway, the lobbies, the entrance hall. "Well, what's your name?" you ask him. "Odradek," he says. "And where do you live?" "No fixed abode," he says and laughs; but it is only the kind of laughter that has no lungs behind it. (Kafka, "Die Sorge des Hausvaters")

A dramatic, unsettling piece which brings to life these two monsters which should not logically exist. Heavy use of distorted historical idioms, strange playing techniques, and uncanny Victorian macabre.

13’

NARROW ARE THE BROKEN SPINES (2014)

soprano, violin, viola, cello

For the 2014 Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival

A darkly elegant piece inspired by Tim Burton. The images in the text and music evoke musty old books, raspy willows, bones, and porcelain dolls.

7’

CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (2016-17)

woodwind quintet

For the Curtis Institute of Music; “Automaton” (2017) commissioned by the Rock School for Dance Education

Each of four movements represents a different creature or item from the Cabinet. The use of various historical idioms in a strange, “taxidermied” way captures a Victorian uncanniness with a touch of the macabre, though not without plenty of whimsy. Closes with “Automaton,” a fun movement with memorable melodies written for ballet dancers at the Rock School in Philadelphia.

14’

LES FANTASMES D’UN ENFANT (The fantasies of a child, 2014)

solo piano

For Geoffrey Wilson

Whimsical three-movement work telling a narrative story, inspired by my own childhood fancies. In the first movement, “l’horloge dans le couloir” (The Clock in the Corridor), the child is both captivated and frightened by an old grandfather clock. This is a model composition, bar-for-bar, on Debussy’s “Des pas sur la neige,” with the music transformed to evoke the old clock. In the second movement, “le rêve,” (The Dream), the clock and other creatures come alive in wonderful, frightening dreams. In the final movement, “To Sea, to Sail!” the child wakes and runs outside for a day of play and make-believe.

14’

LE VOYAGE (2013)

soprano, mezzo-soprano, baritone, flute (picc.), bassoon, piano, percussion

For the Pendulum New Music Series, Boulder, Colorado

19th-century Romantic and Symbolist allusions abound in this smoky, absinthe-infused setting of portions of “Le Voyage” from “Les Fleurs du Mal” (The Flowers of Evil) by French Symbolist poet Charles Baudelaire (1861). The first section, “La Réalité,” reveals the vanity and pointlessness of the voyage of life, and the second section, “La Mort,” offers a dazzling macabre hymn to Death.

11’

MOON AND MOSS (2019)

TENOR, clarinet, piano

Commissioned by Erinn Komschlies

A dreamlike, wet, writhing forest at night. The singer’s simple text and square rhythms sound like a children’s folk rhyme, but uncanny visual descriptions lend the piece a dark quality, rife with the scent of rich, wet earth and slow decay by fungal bodies. The piano undulates in damp arabesques and gong-like repetitive figures while the clarinet bursts out of the texture with quarter-tone inflected special effects. Faux folk melodies have been left to decay on the forest floor, becoming transformed and strange.

6’

THE HOUSE FROM THE DREAM (2013)

bass clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, piano

For the 2013 Atlantic Music Festival

A fun and spooky Tim-Burton-inspired piece depicting a too-colorful, too-elaborate, disproportionate Victorian house which is filled with clocks and furniture, yet no one lives there. The ticking and chiming of clocks features throughout, as well as demented carousel music and a touch of Victorian elegance.

8’30

WE’RE ALL MAD HERE! (2015)

3 or more high winds and actor/narrator

For Dan Cox

Buckle up for this over-the-top weird and wild cabaret! All sorts of different Lewis Carroll poems have been chopped up, interleaved with each other, and made into a deliciously slithy, mimsy oyster stew. The narrator begins as the Schoolmaster teaching today’s lesson, but it quickly becomes clear he is not quite all there! Written especially for my good friend and fellow composer Dan Cox.

10’