Small Ensemble

Year: 2025
Duration: 6 minutes
Instrumentation: percussion quartet

Performed by Sandbox Percussion
Victor Caccese, triangles
Jonathan Allen, metal pipes
Terry Sweeney, wood blocks
Ian Rosenbaum, drums

Recorded 2/8/2025
Stude Concert Hall
The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University
Houston, TX, U.S.A.

Program Note
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Just as three kids can endlessly entertain themselves with a ball, I sought to play with my own limited setup: four players, each with one type of instrument in three sizes. Like the game "Monkey in the Middle," the players initially exchange one-on-one with the occasional mediator, and the low and high pitches (within each player's setup) hog the metaphorical ball from the middle pitch. The music intensifies until the middle pitch takes hold and runs with it, starting a series of more abstract games and permutations of pitches and players.

Year: 2023
Duration: 12 minutes
Instrumentation: violin I, violin II, viola, cello

Program Note: Around the time this string quartet was written, I found it difficult to feel a connection to my work because of the unhealthy workload I had lined up for myself. In an attempt to get over this and speak on American work culture in general, I decided to use the "4-7-8" breathing technique as the impetus for this piece, since deep breathing is one of the most basic ways to resist overexertion and its negative effects. To start, the first measure—a "stressor"—is followed by a literal orchestration of "4-7-8" breathing. Early on, the numbers 4-7-8 are also used motivically as pitch classes. Throughout the piece, a couple other goals I had were to overcome my aversion to triple meters (it worked!) and to create a language of semantic relationships—such as the the "instigating" jeté technique—and use this language in service of narrative and dramatic tension. The ending brings together many different ideas from the piece, attempting to make sense of it all as one entity. While the work may have strayed from its initial inspiration, I hope there's still a kernel in there that some can find relatable.

Year: 2021
Duration: 10 minutes
Instrumentation: flute (picc), clarinet (b. cl), violin, cello, piano, percussion

Emily Nixon, flute + picc.
Keyvar Smith-Herold, clarinet + bs. cl.
Emir Efe, violin
Stefan Westerberg, cello
Orson Abram, percussion
Immanuel Mykyta-Chomsky, piano
Jake Berran, conductor

The original program note for Overthrow the Conductor was about hierarchy, power, empires, and revolutions. Since that first iteration, I have stopped thinking of the piece as any sort of grand statement, whether social, political, or musical, and started appreciating the joy it brought to both the ensemble and the audience in the first performance. The piece was also an exercise in weaving aleatory, harmonic tropes, and dialogue to make a complete musical structure that is simultaneously a narrative. Finally, the whole thing is hypocritical: the players are resisting the authority of the conductor and composer in a highly prescribed manner.

Year: 2021
Duration: 10 minutes
Instrumentation: Bb clarinet, horn, bassoon, percussion (marimba, two suspended cymbals, two toms), violin, viola, cello

Year: 2020
Duration: 14 minutes
Instrumentation: flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, cello

I have the "Buy" button set up for future use; if you want to buy it go ahead otherwise contactme and I will gladly send score and parts to you for free!

Year: 2020
Duration: 6 minutes
Instrumentation: soprano, alto, flute, alto sax, vibes, piano, timpani