Compositions
Woven by Memory
Composed March 2025
16m30s
for viola and cello
Commissioned by Art League RI for their Symphony in Fiber Exhibition. Premiered at the opening reception on May 3, 2025.
Program Notes:
When I saw that Art League Rhode Island was putting on an exhibition of fiber art inspired by music, I thought it would be fun to bring the idea full circle and create music inspired by fiber art. But this music is more than simply inspired by the art of Norma Smayda and Laurie Carlson Steger: I actually created the rhythms in the piece from patterns I found in their works. Out of these rhythms I “weave” my piece of music using a wide array of colors, textures, and scales.
Recording coming soon…
Lúcaro
Composed Feb 2025
7m30s
for solo double bass
Program Notes:
Lúcaro was written for the Venezuelan Double Bassist Alondra Abas based on a her own personal story. It’s an emotional and dramatic journey for a beautiful and dramatic instrument.
Recording coming soon…
Fallout
Composed Jan 2025
5m45s
for solo violin
Program Notes:
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Although both of my grandfathers fought in the war, when I wrote this piece I was mainly thinking about a story I read in elementary school. It was about a girl in Japan who was dying of the radiation from the nuclear bombs. She was trying to make 1000 paper cranes, which would make her wish to stay alive come true. There are countless heartrending stories like this — from both sides of the war, and this piece is both a lament for of the suffering and a reminder that war is never the answer.
Program Notes:
I got the idea for this piece when looking through a book about butterflies with my children. I knew that the patterns on butterflies’ wings were beautiful, but I hadn’t realized how caterpillars were covered in stripes, spines, and designs of all kinds, or that chrysalises could look like gems, or delicate leaves. They were all beautiful, and they were all covered in intricate patterns. I knew then that I wanted to use them for a piece of music, so, as is my practice, I notated some of the patterns I found in those images and they became the basis for this piece. I combined these rhythms with the story of the amazing journey of transformation that the caterpillar undergoes during metamorphosis to create the emotional arc of the work. However, for me the story is just as much a human one of upheaval giving way to something completely different, as it is the story of what goes on before, during, and after the chrysalis.
Chrysalis
Composed Oct - Dec 2024
6 min
for orchestra
Re-emerge
Composed Aug-Sept 2024
11min
for string quartet & double bass
Program Notes:
Re-emerge examines ideas of beauty and disaster and asks what it looks like to re-emerge after destruction. Based on lived experiences of climate disaster in New England and imaged conversations between trees along the fungal networks that connect them, this piece is an engaging emotional journey that draws on the full range of colors available from the strings.
Let It Sound
Composed Jun-July 2024
6min
for flute, violin, & bassoon
Premiered: August 9, 2024 at the Night Market in Peterborough, NH
Program Notes:
Let It Sound was a commission for the Night Market in Peterborough, NH on the theme of the 90s mixtape. I have fond memories of making and receiving mixtapes in the 90s, and still have some buried away in boxes in our barn. This trio captures the spirit of excitement, adventure, and connection that was at the heart of my mixtape experiences.
Program Notes:
Before the Hapless Stars is based on the poems of Wildfred Owen, a British officer in WWI. Owen sought to document the horrors of the war in his poetry as a deterrent to future armed conflicts, and this piece seeks to do the same. We start by joining Owen in the trenches where he’s scribbling poetry whilst bombs drop. Then we delve into his mind as he is haunted by a scene he witnessed on the battlefield — a man seeming to drown in air because he couldn’t get his gas mask on in time. Owen and the other soldiers press on, but they cannot shake the ghost of this scene. And although the inexorable march of war cannot be stopped, it is the sound of the poet’s witnessing that rings in our ears in the end.
Before the Hapless Stars
Composed Feb-Jun 2024
6 min
for clarinet, violin, cello, & piano