Instrumentation: 2 trpt, hn, tbn, tuba and 2 trpt, hn, tbn, tuba (6:15)
Commissioned and premiered in 1998 by The Tuolumne Brass, a San Francisco brass quintet active in the 1990s.
This new version for two brass quintets (2023) plays off the antiphonal nature of the Renaissance brass music of Giovanni Gabrieli that he composed for the architecture of the Cathedral of San Marco in Venice.
A song cycle / mini - chamber opera for soprano and piano about a woman struggling through COVID, mental health, family, isolation and a new normal.
Instrumentation: mezzo-soprano and piano
Time: 11:00
Three songs with a text by Stuart Rojstaczer
1. When Will This End (November 2020)
2. With My Vaccine (March 2021)
3. A New Normal (November 2022)
Instrumentation: 2 vns, vla, vc
Duration: 23:40
Quartet in nine parts: I. Disorientation II. Anxiety III. Grieving IV. Racing Thoughts V. Depression VI. Solitude VII. Disconnection VIII. Pressure Cooker IX. Get Going
View excerpts of the score below:
This piece draws on California's diverse and beautiful natural landscape with dazzling computer-generated art images by mathematician and artist Frank Farris. The orchestra performs with these fantastical symmetric creations projected overhead in a fusion of music and vibrant animated mathematical imagery. Commissioned by the San Jose Chamber Orchestra
Fordlandia is a family drama about the struggle between Henry Ford and his son, Edsel, over the leadership and future of Ford Motor Company. It sheds light on the tragic and dysfunctional family life of the most transgressive businessman of the 20th century and America’s first true business disruptor. Henry's inability to relinquish the control of his company to a son he loves dearly destroys Edsel emotionally and physically. The tragedy between father and son is only mitigated by the strength and actions of their wives.
Commissioned by the University of Michigan Music Department and Joseph Gramley for the duo Organized Rhythm: Joseph Gramley, marimba and Clive Driskill-Smith, organ.
There are three sections in this piece that merge into each other. They are titled, “an ethereal bright light”, “converge and accelerate”, and, “gliding to infinity”.
Aria is lifted from a larger work, an opera-in-progress, called Fordlandia, about the struggle for succession of power between Henry and his son Edsel at the Ford Motor Company. Evangeline, the secretary and mistress of Henry Ford, sings the aria. In this five-part work for violin and piano, we hear Evangeline’s Aria, an expression of love and triumph, at the end in the fifth and final section. The four sections that lead up to the finale imagine a dialogue and interaction about their complicated relationship.
Instrumentation: 2 vns, vla, vc
Duration: 21:30
Quartet in four sections: I. Into Air; Falling Ascent II. Leaping; Constant Pressure III. Levitate; Taking Flight IV. Floating Over; Droplets to Waves. View excerpts of the score below:
Instrumentation: 2 vns, vla, vc
Duration: 9:30
To the forgotten of Hurricane Katrina.
Zydeco is Creole-based music indigenous to Louisiana. The lead instrument of a Zydeco band is accordion and the music itself over the years has integrated a wide variety of popular music forms. Rather than trying to copy the sound or instrumentation of a Zydeco band, the emphasis is on rhythm.
Instrumentation: piano trio: violin, cello and piano (14:30)
Clouds and Flames is a piano trio in seven movements. The title Clouds and Flames and the names of the movements come from moments in Colum McCann's novel Let the Great World Spin. The movements, inspired by events in the novel, are a set of impressions on loss and rebirth, and, a meditation on the tightrope wire walk of Philippe Petit between the World Trade Center towers on August 7, 1974.