Sounds

recording, score, and note forthcoming.

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“The [Mississippi] river is always switching direction as it seeks the path of least resistance, and the ocean is always fighting it, eating away at the sedimentary land… This watery maze is called ‘the bayou,’ and the individual streams in the maze are also called ‘bayous,’ as though each small waterway contained the complexity of the swampy whole. ”

—Jake Bittle, The Great Displacement

Since 2019 I’ve lived two miles from the Mississippi River as it meanders around New Orleans. Nowhere in my life have I been more aware of the local climate, how the environment around me behaves and how it responds to humans. The Mississippi has always navigated its own way through the lower delta and into the Gulf of Mexico, leaving a meandering wake through the swamp. This structured meandering fascinates me, a singular entity pulling water from the entire country splitting and churning through its last inexorable motion. It’s a model that resonates with my sense of sonic material, a mass of content moving through itself and responding to its boundaries, dredging up a path in the process. In dredge ii the performers navigate fragile material through such a journey. The score encourages new movement and uncovers novel sonic behavior, letting the performers dwell with their sounds and the complex environment in which they find themselves, each sound simultaneously independent and part of the swampy whole.

Written for Hypercube.

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This piece was inspired by the foundational work of Bernie Krause in acoustic ecology. Acoustic ecology is the study of sound in nature, often with practical applications. In his TedTalk, Krause gives illustrative examples of how visual analysis of an ecosystem or habitat can often misdiagnose a natural problem; recordings of a bird population, for instance, more reliably indicate wildlife health than simply looking for visual signs of birdlife.

What is fundamentally at stake in acoustic ecology is an acknowledgement of the important role sound plays in the natural world and, more concerningly, how foreign manipulation of an environment (sonic or otherwise), soundscape, and ecosystem health intertwine.

Because this field deals itself with sound, there are a number of ways it can be represented in a musical piece. However, what was important to me about this is how sonically interactive and responsive nature is, especially in comparison to our human tendency to focus on visual information. We may take it for granted, but the rhythmic, melodic, timbral, and textural interplay of the sounds of a park are extraordinarily intricate by any musical standards.

anthrophony thus asks performers to bring themselves into this sonically interactive space by improvising the piece, going so far as choosing what instruments they use. I provide graphics, some notation, and occasional text in order to suggest a soundworld—the performers must then interact with and listen to one another to generate the piece. Further, there are a number of sonic cues that directly mirror the kind of aural information exchange measured by Krause in his work. While not attempting to directly mimic nature, the performers generate a meditative, complex soundscape that reflects the way that sound exists and interacts in our world.

anthrophony was commissioned by Adam Groh for the Western Carolina University Percussion Studio.

The Sculpture series is a set of “compositional etudes” for myself. Whenever a writing opportunity aligns with a particular stylistic idea I want to explore, I do so here. However, what began as an interest in different composing aesthetics has, over time, taken on some of the philosophical ideas I’m thinking through as a creator and musician. sculpture vii takes on the heady task of incorporating my interest in improvisation, alternative notation, and performer freedom.

I began this piece by recording myself performing a free extended vocal improvisation, then transcribing the results to whatever degree of accuracy I could. I then orchestrated this loose transcription to the instrumentation of the ensemble, maintaining the sense of gestural freedom with a combination of free and fixed notation styles. However, this was not an exercise in accurate transcription or ear-training; beginning with improv was an attempt to change my process for material generation and letting go my need to control everything in my works, which produced a totally different set of ideas than I would normally develop. Even further, the format of sculpture vii suggests that there is no “correct” interpretation, instead demanding that each ensemble bring their own identity to it—a relationship that, as a composer, now excites me more than simply expecting groups to play the same thing every time. The result is a timbrally complex and temporally fluid score that brings together a number of my sonic and social interests.

sculpture vii was commissioned by Laura Nygren and TROMPO.

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The Sculpture series is a collection of “compositional etudes” that allow me to explore new sonic worlds and ideas through small chamber works. Sculpture VI, written for a reading session with JACK Quartet at New Music On the Point, had two main aesthetic goals: the creation of very tactile yet amorphous textures, and the purposeful reconsideration of how I use harmony in my work. Heightened rhythmic complexity creates a kaleidoscoping sense of stillness, which masks an otherwise straightforward harmonic progression, all shaded in with hints of overtones and noise. The piece is not about something—which, of course, means it can be about anything. For me, it’s about color and memory.

Radio Silence reacts to the 2017–2018 resurgence of Turana Burke’s #MeToo movement and the saturation of apology letters that entered the public sphere. Amidst the evolution of the movement, these letters took on a homogenous, insincere quality that did little to make amends. Radio Silence incorporates text by friend, musician, and writer Mickey Osthimer in response to the movement, as well as muttered material culled from excerpts of various apologies. The piece then uses textural and timbral modifications to exaggerate the “social noise” these letters created as they continued to accumulate, and further criticizes the manipulation of power inherent in the culture of sexual abuse.

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The Sculpture series is a collection of “compositional etudes” that allow me to explore new sounds and ideas through small chamber works. Sculpture V, which is also my first string quartet, was incredibly exciting because of the immense sonic possibilities of string instruments. The piece explores noise-based performance techniques such as bowing different parts of the instruments or multiphonic production, and gave me an opportunity to apply compositional procedures beyond the scope of familiar elements like melody, harmony, or rhythm.

Written for Aion String Quartet.

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My first interactions with music were almost exclusively non-classical. I grew up listening to loud, screamy bands who loosely fall under the punk/alternative rock categories. I spent a lot of time playing guitar, going to concerts, and collecting records from my favorite artists. I still find something incredibly satisfying about the sonic experience of that music: the stereo field of a vinyl record; the crackling energy from microphones, amplifiers, and distortion/feedback; how your listening experience can change depending on if your turntable needle skips or if the vocalist jumps into the crowd for the last song. Even after years of academic training, these are the musical qualities that most viscerally affect me, qualities that I’ve been slowly trying to incorporate into my composition. LP explores ideas of stereo field, of distortion, of acoustic phenomena, of “heaviness,” and the agonizing frustration of a skipping record player.

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In/Out is inspired by the opening moments of The Beatles’ “Within You Without You” from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, incorporating soundscapes produced by the Indian instruments on the track and the opening melodic material. For much of this work the two instruments play in a gestural counterpoint, constantly trading focus until briefly joining together near the end. As such, the title both references the original song name and characterizes the relationship of this short duet.

This piece was written for Beo String Quartet as part of the Charlotte New Music Festival 2017.

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I began writing the Sculpture works because I was very self-conscious about whether my compositions actually reflected my musical interests. This series was initially a way to purposefully explore the writing styles of specific composers or “schools” that I found intriguing—each piece was for a different chamber group, and each piece was focused on one specific aesthetic.

Sculpture IV is not quite the same as the first three. I was fortunate enough to write a lot of music in between III and IV, and my writing style began to take on more of an individual voice. Sculpture IV is thus the culmination of my interests over a six-month period of writing. Since I tend to respond to introspection with sarcasm, there is a level of irony in these four miniatures (a form that can be sarcastic in and of itself) that gave me even more freedom to take my interests to extremes.

Sculpture IV was written for Charlotte New Music Festival 2017 and Out of Bounds Ensemble.

I wrote this piece as a graduate student grappling with how to address ongoing political and humanitarian crises from my position as a cis-gendered white male. At the time, I was consumed by news of the ongoing protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline and sought out text by a Sioux writer that spoke to the ongoing atrocities. My intention was to amplify the words of Zitkála-Šá and draw attention to the crisis.

I’m no longer convinced this was the proper method to express my solidarity with Indigenous struggles; as such, I’ve removed the public recording of my piece. Instead, I encourage you to listen to the work of Indigenous composers whose art speaks to such concerns by their relationship between heritage and creative practice—I recommend Raven Chacon, inti figgis-vizueta, and Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate.

[Original Program Note]

Text by Zitkála-Šá

The history of the United States has been unfortunately marred by numerous clashes—physical and political—with Native American communities. In 2016 another such conflict developed at Standing Rock Reservation, North Dakota, where members and allies of the Great Sioux Nation protested construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The pipeline, designed to carry nearly half-a-million barrels of crude oil, was planned to run through Sioux land including through sacred religious sites and in close proximity to Standing Rock’s main water sources, the Missouri River and Lake Oahe. Protests erupted over the situation, and were met consistently with aggressive reaction on part of the construction companies and government forces. This was an unfortunate reflection on the relationship between U.S. power structures and indigenous peoples, a relationship embroiled in contentions as old as European colonists have been on this continent.

This piece reflects and comments on these conflicts. The text is from American Indian Stories by Zitkála-Šá, a Sioux Native American musician and author. The collection, published in 1921, contains a series of original short stories that beautifully display the vibrant culture of the Great Sioux Nation, and I thought it appropriate to use these Sioux texts as a foundation for a piece inspired by Standing Rock. I chose two short excerpts—one about the fictional character Blue-Star Woman, one an excerpt from Zitkála-Šá’s closing essay—to stand as contrasting commentaries. The first excerpt introduces Blue-Star Woman and her “name” which, as is explained, holds a unique sense of agency in Native American cultures, while the second excerpt is a scathing condemnation of the exploitation of Native American resources. The title Mni Wiconi means “Water is Life” in the Lakota language, simultaneously referencing the situation at Standing Rock and the broader philosophical considerations of the text.

Unfortunately, the vehemence with which Zitkála-Šá wrote describes a situation that has not seemed to change in almost a century. Her multi-dimensional themes of agency, power, oppression, and reclamation all influenced my writing process, and though the piece was initially inspired by events at Standing Rock I hope my work speaks to a larger societal issue at hand. I do not and cannot speak on behalf of the Sioux people, and would never want listeners to confuse my interpretation of events and text as representing the opinions of oppressed peoples. I do, however, hope that my music provokes some action or concern on their behalf.

To learn more about the Standing Rock, the Great Sioux Nation, and DAPL, please visit:

Homepage

http://standwithstandingrock.net/history/

http://sacredstonecamp.org/

Text by Dora Sigerson Shorter

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In 1916, a group of Irish men (and women) began a rebellion that came to be known as the “Easter Rising.” It was a multi-day, bloody affair that ultimately resulted in the death of many and—for the moment—no further indepence from the rule of England. However, the Easter Rising is widely accepted as one, if not the, lynchpin that set into play following years of rebellion against the Crown, which ultimately resulted in Ireland’s independence.

Ireland has historically maintained an incredibly rich literary culture—figures such as James Joyce, W.B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde, and Seamus Heaney dominate the English-language canon. Unsurprisingly the effects of the 1916 rebellion were etched into poems and novels by nearly anybody alive at the time or alive since—among them, a poet named Dora Sigerson Shorter (1866 – 1918). Shorter was profoundly affected by the events of the Easter Rising and, by all accounts, passed away from the heartbreak and strain of the war. Her poem “Sixteen Dead Men” (which shares its title with a poem on the same subject by Yeats) was published posthumously, and pays homage to the leaders of the Easter Rising who were executed for their involvement in the event.

I’m deeply invested in Irish history and culture. My grandparents were from Ireland, and I’ve been fortunate enough to study there. I wanted to somehow bring that investment into my compositional output, and this poem presented the perfect opportunity. However, rather than set every line, I have only given those lines spoken by the poem’s narrator to the vocalist; the words of the “dead men” are rhythmically articulated by the English horn and bassoon, but otherwise go unspoken (perhaps similar to the suggested poetic scene).

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The Sculpture series is a collection of “compositional etudes” that allow me to explore new sounds and ideas through small chamber works. When I started writing this third installment, Bon Iver’s 22, A Million had recently been released and I was listening to “creeks,” a track that made heavy use of auto-tune and vocoding techniques. I loved this texture of a “lead” melody being cushioned in a harmonic texture, and wanted to translate that to a chamber ensemble setting.

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The Sculpture series is a collection of “compositional etudes” that allow me to explore new sounds and ideas through small chamber works. This work in particular was inspired by Nico Muhly’s work, particularly his orchestra piece Control, which shifts from churning minimalist rhythms to tight blasts of homophony in a remarkably effective way.

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The Sculpture series is a collection of “compositional etudes” that allow me to explore new sounds and ideas through small chamber works. This first installation in the “series” was my first composition assignment in my master’s program; take an ensemble of instruments you aren’t comfortable writing for, and learn to write for them. Simultaneously, I recognized that I was listening to a lot of music that I loved but never bothered exploring compositionally—in particular, spectral and microtonal music à la Georg Friedrich Haas.