"Love More" is a song and ensemble piece written for and performed with members of Distractfold Ensemble (Alice Purton, Daniel Brew, Roćio Bolaños) at IKLECTIK (London, UK) on September 6, 2023.
"Love Stay" explores love and loss in a composition for soprano and harp involving candles and lamps. Performed by Virginie Tarrete and Jasmine Gonnella on July 15, 2023 at the inaugural Academie de Création Musicale in Dijon, France.
"Fail More" explores themes of failure and self acceptance through a hybridized sound installation turned instrumental composition. The piece aims to renavigate and flatten the set of hierarchical relationships between composer, performer, and audience members, as well as blend the social spaces in and outside the concert venue.
As you enter the space, you are encouraged to walk around, explore, and play with the lighting around the performers; in doing so, you become part of the work. I act as a stand-in for the audience in this recording. Check out a live concert recording of the piece here.
Thank you Nina Guo, Weston Olencki, Madison Greenstone, Max Murray, and Mattie Barbier for making this piece a reality. Thank you Zach Miley for recording and editing.
"to the brim" is a reflection on the theme of fulfillment and a realization of the mantra: "Fill your life up, to the brim."
The piece employs a graphic score that asks the performers to navigate a set of paths through musical space. When paths diverge, they may choose which path to follow. Certain concrete milestones are encountered along the way which ask them to perform a pseudo-randomly selected series of musical or physical gestures, or to perform specific actions (like lighting and extinguishing a candle, or pouring and drinking a glass of water). Every performance is uniqe. Check out an alternative performance of the piece here.
Thank you Haruka Fijii and Ray Furuta for workshopping and performing this piece. Thanks Mark Applebaum for providing the opportunity to compose.
In (not so) Alone, At Home, I add a unique vocal sampling instrument to a short live piano/vocals songwriter set featuring the merging of two songs: 1) The Broad Sunshine of Life (unreleased), and 2) Alone, At Home. The tunes explore the difficult act of making the best of loss and solitude.
The vocal sampling instrument was made with Max is interfaced by a Novation Launchpad and a digital keyboard. The Max patch spatializes the samples using ambisonics (spat5) around the audience via a full 24.8 speaker ring called "The Grail." The instrument allowed me to record (live), re-record, and play back each of 16 vocal samples, modify effects applied to them (mostly reverb), loop them pseudorandomly based on chord changes triggered by notes on the keyboard, and change their location in space. The instrument also played prerecorded and spatialized whisper/vocal samples, and these were gated off by playing the keyboard (that is, the whispers get louder when I don't play many notes on the keyboard, and vice versa).
The performance took place on October 8th, 2022, the second night of this year's annual Transitions concert at CCRMA (Stanford University). Thanks to Constantin Basica, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano, and Matt Wright for your assistance at this concert.
"Gemini" explores the vulnerable act of turning yourself inside out, showcasing your inner world for all the world to see.
The piece was originally composed for a traditional jazz trio context (piano, bass, drums), but here is transmuted in to an live electronic music context.
A newly released single that explores finding peace in (or embracing) being alone.
I recorded the song in a couple live takes at CCRMA and creatively mixed/produced around the result. I wanted to avoid the metronome and I hope this imparted a fluid feel to the track.
I have been fascinated by the idea of making art in and for vernacular contexts: parties, meetings, hallway spaces, lobby spaces, possibly services or classes, social gatherings of all sorts.
Through works like this, I aim to blur the lines between art and life and augment, subvert, or just subtly comment on the meaning or feeling of social space.