title: Everything is named after something lost instrumentation: flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, electronics duration: 15′ written in: 2021–23 text Alex Temple Everything is named after something lost is a multimedia work consisting of music, text and electronic sounds by me, movement and sculpture by Katie C. Doyle, and a concept by both of us. […]
Author Archives: Alex Temple
This Changes Everything! (Tempe, 3.3.23)
November 15, 2022 – 5:58 am
Clarinetists Thomas Sanders and John Harden will perform This Changes Everything!, along with music by Leonard Bernstein, Viet Cuong and Whitney George. 5 PM Friday, March 3, 2023 Katzin Concert Hall, Music Building, Arizona State University 50 E Gammage Pkwy, Tempe, AZ
Dragonflies (Orlando, 3.8.23)
October 27, 2022 – 3:08 am
Keri Lee Pierson will perform Dragonflies, along with work by Cathy Berberian, Susan Botti, Gilda Lyons, Meredith Monk and Kamala Sankaram. 6 PM Wednesday, March 8, 2023 Timucua Arts Foundation 2000 S Summerlin Ave, Orlando, FL
Willingly (Bowling Green, OH, 3.11.23)
October 15, 2022 – 5:51 am
Flutist Shannon Lotti and pianist Stephen Eckert will perform Willingly at the College Music Society Great Lakes Regional Conference. 10:45am Saturday, March 11, 2023 Bowling Green State University 1001 E Wooster St, Bowling Green, OH
Thick Line (NYC, 3.16.23)
October 10, 2022 – 8:03 am
NOVUS NY will perform Thick Line on wind quintet + piano, alongside music by Brad Balliett, Valerie Coleman, Louise Farrenc and Joan Tower. 1 PM Thursday, March 16, 2023 St. Paul’s Chapel 209 Broadway, New York, NY
All we could see… (San Francisco, 3.17.23)
October 1, 2022 – 8:05 pm
Trombonist William Lang and pianist Anne Rainwater will perform All we could see from the window was water, which I wrote for them in 2020. They’ll also be performing music by Amy Beach, Eli Greenhoe, Arvo Pärt and more. 8 PM Friday, March 17, 2023 Old First Presbyterian Church 1751 Sacramento St, San Francisco, CA
Ah yes, the three genders (Sarasota, 3.18.23)
September 20, 2022 – 8:12 am
Queer percussion duo Spectrum Ensemble will perform Ah yes, the three genders, which I wrote for them a few years ago, on a concert called “Friends of Dorothy.” Also on the program: music by Leonard Bernstein, Wes Montgomery, Kevin Rosacia, Darian Donovan Thomas, Derek Tywoniuk, and Spectrum’s own SA Hall. 2 PM Saturday, March 18, […]
TMWHE & Thick Line (Evanston, IL, 4.23.23)
September 16, 2022 – 8:15 pm
I’ll be a guest composer at this year’s Northwestern University New Music Conference (NUNC), along with Julia Wolfe. I’ll be giving a master class and participating in a panel; there will also be two performances of my work: Northwestern’s Contemporary Music Ensemble doing The Man Who Hated Everything (along with pieces by Tania León and […]
Blurry Line
June 2, 2022 – 3:46 pm
title: Blurry Line instrumentation: four or more instruments duration: indeterminate written in: 2022 Blurry Line is a sequel to Thick Line. In the earlier piece, performers were given a score that specified everything but pitch; here, they’re given a score that specifies everything but rhythm. The result is a sort of freeform canon, in which […]
Diadem
December 27, 2021 – 6:22 pm
title: Diadem instrumentation: voice (C#3–B4) + toy glockenspiel, C trumpet, tenor trombone, bass clarinet duration: 4 minutes written in: 2019–21 text: R.A. Briggs Diadem is a song about gay desire in Medieval Europe. The text, by poet R.A. Briggs, tells of the protagonist’s inner conflict as he discovers his longing for another man and has […]
Tactile
September 1, 2021 – 8:41 pm
title: Tactile instrumentation: vocalizing cellist, electronics duration: 9 minutes written in: 2019–21 text: Alex Temple I wrote Tactile for cellist Amanda Gookin‘s Forward Music Project, a commissioning project focused on music by women. The piece explores the erotics of everyday life, the variety of types of physical sensation, and the sometimes blurry line between pleasant […]
Dragonflies
December 9, 2020 – 2:48 pm
title: Dragonflies instrumentation: one or more voices duration: indeterminate written in: 2020 Dragonflies is a very open-ended piece, or maybe a very guided improvisation. The singer(s) — who can be formally trained musicians, informally trained musicians, or non-musicians — are given four collections of words called “MEMORY BANKS,” which represent areas of someone’s mind as […]
The Back of Your Hand
March 22, 2020 – 1:55 am
title: The Back of Your Hand instrumentation: voice, electronics duration: 20 seconds written in: 2020 text: Alex Temple Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, there were a lot of discussions (and a lot of memes) — about how to wash your hands effectively. Isaac Schankler asked people to send in twenty-second handwashing jingles, and my […]
All we could see from the window was water
January 30, 2020 – 1:56 am
title: All we could see from the window was water instrumentation: trombone, piano duration: 5 minutes written in: 2019–20 In 2018, Jen Wang put together a project in which people could commission short pieces by donating to RAICES, an immigrant and refugee advocacy organization. Trombonist William Lang‘s contribution led to the birth of All we […]
Ah yes, the three genders
November 21, 2019 – 1:14 am
title: Ah yes, the three genders instrumentation: vibraphone and percussion duration: 11 minutes written in: 2019, r. 2020 “Ah yes, the three genders.” The meme started as a joking response to things like a trio of airport signs labeled “Men,” “Women” and “Telephones,” or an application form whose options are “Male,” “Female” and “Business.” Over […]
Zip Code Memoir
June 20, 2019 – 4:08 am
title: Zip Code Memoir medium: text written in: 2014 – 2019 Zip Code Memoir is an autobiographical Twitter art project, consisting of one tweet for every ZIP code I’d been in before my 30th birthday (August 26, 2013). Read Tweets by @zipcodememoir
Microphages (20th Anniversary Edition)
May 29, 2019 – 4:05 am
title: Microphages instrumentation: piano duration: 4 minutes written in: 1999/2019 In 1999, CoMA and the now-disbanded Ensemble Décadanse put out a call for ten-second-long pieces, which would be performed the following year at a concert called “2000 Miniatures for the Year 2000.” I was fifteen years old, with far more energy and far fewer deadlines […]
Three Principles of Noir
September 7, 2018 – 6:31 pm
title: Three Principles of Noir instrumentation: amplified voice (C3 – D5), pre-recorded electronics and chamber orchestra (1111/1111/vibes/piano/strings) duration: 30′ written in: 2018 text: Alex Temple I used to spend a lot of time on film messageboards. One day, after watching a bunch of movies featuring sharp-tongued PIs and ill-conceived murder plots, I came up with […]
trndstrctmslf
January 2, 2018 – 4:33 am
title: trndstrctmslf instrumentation: electronic duration: 2:43 written in: 2017–18 My third contribution to Hedra Rowan‘s Meat Scenes — an annual compilation of experimental remixes and covers of the previous year’s hit singles, many of them by queer and trans artists. After resynthesizing an Ariana Grande song in 2015’s Out of You and Frankensteining a Taylor […]
tiny bun and tiny kitten
July 18, 2017 – 7:00 pm
title: tiny bun and tiny kitten instrumentation: voice, electronics duration: 13 seconds written in: 2016–17 text: Cat Picardat & Lucy Hadman The day after the 2016 election I felt like I was walking underwater. I also wrote this theme song for an imaginary cartoon show, with text by two members of my polycule, and I […]
Second Moon
December 17, 2016 – 6:21 am
title: Second Moon instrumentation: voice (range: G#3 to C5) and piano duration: 1 minute written in: 2016 text: Alex Temple In 2016, Kayleigh Butcher and Christopher Narloch commissioned 15 composers to write short responses to the 15 songs of Schoenberg’s “Book of the Hanging Gardens.” My contribution, “Second Moon,” gives a new flavor to the […]
Out of You
October 11, 2016 – 4:52 pm
title: Out of You instrumentation: electronic duration: 4:04 written in: 2016 A sequel to 2015’s Out of Style. This time I used an mp3 to MIDI converter to turn Ariana Grande’s “Into You” into raw MIDI data, and then resynthesized it using a variety of timbres and effects (plus a few surprise samples). The result […]
Again
June 23, 2016 – 8:36 pm
title: Again instrumentation: voice (range: D3 to C4) and Rhodes duration: 20 seconds written in: 2016 text: R.A. Briggs A brief piece about apologies. I originally wrote it for Luke Gullickson‘s looping-Instagram-video project Desert Rhodes, which is now on indefinite hiatus. For best results, imagine him playing it out in the desert somewhere, and listen […]
Out of Style
November 23, 2015 – 5:29 am
title: Out of Style instrumentation: electronic duration: 3:51 written in: 2015 A stupidly formalist remix/rearrangement of a top-ten hit. If you’re curious, here’s what I did: I cut up the song at the transients, which gave me 1,165 tiny samples. Then I arranged those samples from shortest to longest, creating a very gradual deceleration. Finally […]
Insides
September 3, 2015 – 2:58 am
title: Insides medium: sound + scent + design + interactive performance created in: 2015 created with: Katie C. Doyle Insides is a performance piece that uses technology, sound and audience interaction to explore issues of patience, consent, intimacy and #wreckage. Katie Doyle and I performed it three times in total: at Comfort Station in the […]
The Man Who Hated Everything
August 18, 2015 – 10:20 pm
title: The Man Who Hated Everything instrumentation: flute, sax, trombone, piano, electric guitar, vibraphone, drum set, 2 violins, cello duration: 12 minutes written in: 2015 text: Alex Temple “A total blazing hoot.” —George Wallace “[Zappa] would have positively adored Temple’s terrific The Man Who Hated Everything” —Nashville Scene In The Man Who Hated Everything, I […]
Behind the Wallpaper
March 4, 2015 – 3:36 pm
title: Behind the Wallpaper instrumentation: amplified voice (range: F3 to C#5), string quartet duration: 35 min. written in: 2013–15 text: Alex Temple “[A] dizzying collage of dreamlike impressions … somewhere between avant-garde composition, mysterious artifact, and sci-fi thriller.” —Lindsey Rhoades, The Village Voice “It is equal parts cinematic, romantic and terrifying” —Amanda Farah, The Quietus […]
Shiny Object Syndrome
January 17, 2015 – 9:41 pm
title: Shiny Object Syndrome instrumentation: electronic duration: 1:17 written in: 2015 Shiny Object Syndrome consists of a single note or chord for each of the 128 General MIDI instruments, in order. I wrote it for Parlour Tapes+’s MINI MIDI MIXTAPE, which you can get either as a digital download or as a set of eight […]
Lola
May 16, 2014 – 10:58 pm
title: Lola instrumentation: electronic duration: 1:56 written in: 2014 In 2014, Marc Perlish photographed an antiquarian bookstore that had just closed. Now he’s published the resulting photos in an e-book entitled What Will I Find?, and each picture in the book is illustrated by a short piece of music. My piece, Lola, accompanies this image […]
NewMusicBox articles
March 17, 2014 – 1:26 pm
Part of the reason I haven’t written here in a while is that in January I wrote a series of articles for NewMusicBox. You might be interested in them: 1. What Counts as Borrowed Material? 2. How to be Culturally Relevant 3. The Appropriation Problem 4. History of the World
Parlour Tapes+ trailers
March 12, 2014 – 12:42 am
title: Parlour Tapes+ trailers medium: video written in: 2013–14 Part cassette label and part theater collective, Parlour Tapes+ is one of my favorite artistic organizations in Chicago. I’ve made a couple of unnerving trailers for them. On May 3, 2014, the label threw a dance party / masquerade ball called Parlour Pagananza, conceived as a […]
Viola Joke
February 21, 2014 – 5:24 pm
title: Viola Joke instrumentation: two vaudevillian violists + electronic studio audience duration: 9 minutes written in: 2013–14 text: Alex Temple Viola Joke is a comedy routine that takes place in an apocalyptic nightmare world. And yes, there is a laugh track. Watch Doyle Armbrust & Chris Fisher-Lochhead, voices and violists Live at Galvin […]
O Superfood
February 13, 2014 – 6:25 pm
title: O Superfood instrumentation: electronic duration: 8:05 written in: 2014 O Superfood is a mashup of 43 different tracks that cover a wide variety of stylistic ground: rock, pop, jazz, hip-hop, EDM, country, doo-wop, gamelan music, Baroque music, minimalism, German Romanticism and mid-century modernism. Unlike Nineteen, there’s no overarching concept; the connections between samples are […]
Things That Are Dead
January 24, 2014 – 4:50 pm
THINGS THAT ARE DEAD: Classical music (source: BBC) Rock and roll (source: Huffington Post) Pop (source: Radiohead) Hip-hop (source: Nas) Poetry (source: The Daily Beast) Cinema (source: J. Hoberman) Theatre (source: The Age) The American novel (source: Lee Siegel) Originality (source: Zach Hannigan) The author (source: Roland Barthes) Liberalism (source: The American Spectator) Conservatism (source: […]
Switch: A Science-Fiction Micro-Opera
October 29, 2013 – 10:34 pm
title: Switch: A Science-Fiction Micro-Opera instrumentation: singing cellist (range: Gb3 to D5), flute, violin, percussion, electronics duration: 18 minutes written in: 2013 text: Alex Temple In June of 2013, engineer Sylvia Wald and I completed work on an experimental device that could capture audio signals from parallel universes. By some extraordinary luck, the first thing […]
Let’s Record Everything!
September 23, 2013 – 4:13 am
1 You’ve just been to a concert by a new-music ensemble. You really liked one of the pieces they played, and you’re excited to hear it again. Good luck with that. Will the ensemble repeat the program? Very unlikely — even if they’ve spent months preparing for it. Will they play that one piece again? […]
John Adams Rolls His Eyes at “Kids These Days”
September 18, 2013 – 3:47 pm
John Adams had some pretty nasty things to say about young composers in a recent New York Times article: “We seem to have gone from the era of fearsome dissonance and complexity — from the period of high modernism and Babbitt and Carter — and gone to suddenly these just extremely simplistic, user-friendly, lightweight, sort […]
It’s hard even to say it.
August 30, 2013 – 10:15 pm
title: It’s hard even to say it. instrumentation: electronic duration: 6:02 written in: 2013 written with: Jenny Olivia Johnson This past December, Chicago cassette label, composer/performer collective and theatrical-event producer Parlour Tapes+ released their second album, *AND. Each track on it is a collaboration between an artist who lives in Chicago and one who lives […]
I’m a Trans Composer. What the Hell Does That Mean?
July 26, 2013 – 4:18 am
In the last few months, there have been a number of highly-circulated articles about women and contemporary classical music. There was Amy Beth Kirsten at NewMusicBox, arguing that the term “woman composer” is anachronistic; Kristin Kuster in the New York Times challenging that idea on the grounds that a composer’s success is never “all about […]
In Defense of Nostalgia, Again
July 10, 2013 – 12:18 am
Last month I wrote a couple of things about nostalgia in a discussion on NewMusicBox. Today I was looking back at them wistfully, and I missed the good old days of June 2013 so much that I thought I’d reproduce what I wrote here. First, in response to Isaac Schankler’s remark that “there’s also […]
The Problem With 4’33”
July 4, 2013 – 1:35 am
1. Making Ideas Clearly Manifest A few months ago, I participated in a ludicrously enormous Facebook thread about the relationships between composers and listeners. Somewhere in the middle of it, I wrote this: “I actually think a lot of composers don’t care enough about the audience. But I don’t mean that they aren’t writing the […]
Nineteen
July 3, 2013 – 3:09 am
title: Nineteen instrumentation: electronic duration: 9:32 written in: 2013 Nineteen is a mashup of 100 pieces by 100 different composers — one for every year from 1900 to 1999. They enter in chronological order, although the samples are different lengths and often overlap considerably. (The densest moment comes at the beginning of Part 3, where […]
Willingly
February 2, 2013 – 8:44 pm
title: Willingly instrumentation: flute, piano, electronics duration: 8 minutes written in: 2012-13 text: composite (see below) Willingly is one of the most spare, spacious pieces I’ve written in a long time. It’s based on the recorded voices of friends, colleagues, former students and family members talking about unanticipated changes in their lives — some of […]
Willingly update
December 10, 2012 – 9:22 pm
As some of you know, I’m working on a piece called Willingly, for David Chavannes and the most appropriately named flutist ever, Lily Floeter. The piece is based on samples of people saying “If you had told me ten years ago that some day I would willingly _____, I wouldn’t have believed you,” where what […]
How to Live With Both Irony and Sincerity
November 27, 2012 – 7:03 pm
Replacing One Extreme With Another Last week, a bunch of my Facebook friends linked to a New York Times editorial by Christy Wampole called “How to Live Without Irony.” In every case, they had nothing but praise for the article. Not surprising, I guess — bashing hipsters is practically a national pastime at this point. […]
Liebeslied Gets Political
September 25, 2012 – 3:41 pm
Last Saturday, Liebeslied got its third performance, courtesy of Jenna Lyle and the Chicago Composers Orchestra. Turns out the piece changed its meaning while I wasn’t looking. When Mellissa Hughes premiered it last fall, she emphasized the glamorous side of the 1950s pop songs that it pays tribute to and critiques, and Jenna’s first performance […]
Discovering Your Taste
September 1, 2012 – 6:18 pm
“Sometimes I feel like discovering what art you like — as opposed to what art you wish you liked — is a life-long process.” I wrote that on Twitter, so I had to be brief, but I’d like to expand on it here. Two months ago, when I was at Fresh Inc, Stacy Garrop asked […]
Two Metaphors in the Politics of Musical Style
July 26, 2012 – 8:57 pm
A lot of talk about the new-music scene is based on a metaphor in which the people who write and listen to “difficult” music are the elitist aristocracy, and the people who write and listen to “accessible” music are the downtrodden average joes. There’s also a lot of talk about the new-music scene which is […]
Theatre of War
May 29, 2012 – 5:20 pm
This graphic has been going around Facebook lately: It is, of course, a huge oversimplification. In particular, correct pitch and rhythm are much more important than the graphic suggests. Sure, if a group plays a bunch of wrong pitches and rhythms, very few people in the audience will have any idea; if it’s a premiere, […]
Driftwood
May 28, 2012 – 9:12 pm
One of these days I’m going to add a page to this site about my performances of other people’s music. In the meantime, go listen to my bangy piano playing on Ben Hjertmann’s Driftwood.
The White-Walled Room
May 26, 2012 – 2:48 pm
New piece in the music section! Or rather, new version of an old piece: The White-Walled Room, which I wrote three years ago but was never really happy with until I revised it in preparation for Soapbox. Read more about it and take a listen: The White-Walled Room While I was revising the piece, I […]
Party at the Last Resort
May 1, 2012 – 1:27 am
title: Party at the Last Resort instrumentation: flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, piano, violin, viola, cello, bass duration: 6 1/2 minutes written in: 2012 Picture this: you’re driving along some godforsaken desert highway in California, when you come across a sign for a hotel, all pink and blue neon. Curious, you take the turnoff. You […]
Thick Line
April 27, 2012 – 2:24 am
title: Thick Line instrumentation: three or more wind/brass instruments duration: 4 minutes written in: 2012 Thick Line was originally written for Eclipse Wind Trio to play at the 2012 Fresh Inc Festival, but it can be performed by any number of wind or brass instruments. All the musicians read from the same score, which specifies […]
Support Group
March 2, 2012 – 5:48 pm
title: Support Group instrumentation: electronic duration: 3 1/2 minutes written in: 2012 text: composite (see below) Support Group will eventually be part of a piece called End, which is an opera in the form of an interview podcast. It depicts a therapy group for people who were traumatized by TV production company closing logos when […]
Julie’s Dream
March 2, 2012 – 5:16 pm
title: Julie’s Dream instrumentation: electronic duration: 4 minutes written in: 2011 text: Alex Temple Julie’s Dream will eventually be part of a piece called End, which is an opera in the form of an interview podcast. It depicts a dream that indirectly sets the protagonist, Julie, on the path to a terrifying and incomprehensible discovery […]
New Music’s Image Problem (Part 2)
February 14, 2012 – 4:12 am
Last week I made a post in which I noted that people who are into experimental film, theater, literature and visual art don’t tend to listen to contemporary classical music, and suggested that this might be because the way contemporary classical music is presented to audiences makes it seem “uncool.” Since then I’ve spent a […]
Program Notes and New Music’s Image Problem
February 5, 2012 – 11:10 pm
If there’s one thing composers love to do, it’s complain about program notes. There are two kind that tend to come under particularly intense fire. Let’s call them the Play-by-Play: Repossessions begins with a fluffy, scurrying motif in the contrabass clarinet. Soon it is joined by irritable pulsations in the high strings, and the music […]
Liebeslied Afterglow
October 17, 2011 – 8:43 pm
The Liebeslied premiere went extremely well! Mellissa was great as always, and ACO was wonderful to work with; they put the piece together incredibly quickly, and when they had to rewrite my first-person bio in third person, they were careful to avoid gender-specific pronouns. (If you’re reading this and don’t know why I want to […]
Daniel J. Kushner interview
October 12, 2011 – 7:15 pm
Huffington Post critic Daniel J. Kushner recently interviewed me about my recent piece Liebeslied, which is being premiered this Friday. The interview is up now, so you can read about the impetus behind the piece, and about my thoughts on popular representations of love in general, here.
Liebeslied
August 1, 2011 – 11:00 pm
title: Liebeslied instrumentation: amplified voice (range: F#3 to E5), live electronics and chamber orchestra duration: 8 minutes written in: 2011, r. 2012 and 2014 text: Alex Temple “Nightmarish… It’s like a Buñuel film in miniature, and it achieves perfection.” –Alex Ross The love songs of the 1940s and 50s are pleasant and light-hearted on the […]
Welcome
July 28, 2011 – 6:31 pm
Thanks for visiting my new website, created by Elliot Cole and based on a design by Timothy Andres. Stay tuned for miscellaneous thoughts about art, culture and the new music scene.
Hello world!
July 12, 2011 – 8:13 pm
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
Big Heads
February 6, 2011 – 8:02 pm
title: Big Heads instrumentation: voice (range: F#3 to C5), tenor sax, synthesizer, bass and drums duration: 3 minutes written in: 2011 text: Sara Madison Björk Hernández & Alex Temple One day, a friend’s kid was building a scarecrow out of random objects in my apartment, and while she was putting a hat on top of […]
September 3, 2010 – 5:19 pm
title: Emperor Norton Makes a Proclamation instrumentation: two voices (ranges: A#3 to E5, Eb3 to C5), electronics duration: 4 minutes written in: 2010, r. 2016 text: Joshua Abraham Norton In 1859, Joshua Abraham Norton of San Francisco declared himself Emperor of the United States. Despite having no actual political power, he wore a regal uniform, […]
A Presentation to the Board
March 11, 2010 – 7:36 pm
title: A Presentation to the Board instrumentation: speaking voice and video duration: 6 minutes written in: 2010 text: Alex Temple A Presentation to the Board is based on a 1957 promo film by Redbook Magazine. I cut up, rearranged and rescored it, and then added a live speaking part, turning what had been a cheerful […]
The White-Walled Room
July 2, 2009 – 1:08 am
title: The White-Walled Room instrumentation: voice, electronics duration: 8 minutes written in: 2009, revised 2012 text: Alex Temple The White-Walled Room is about someone beginning to remember a traumatic event that happened five years earlier. The precise nature of the incident is never revealed, but it’s consistently associated with slow motion, the color white, and […]
Slightly Less Awkward People
January 18, 2008 – 4:36 pm
title: Slightly Less Awkward People instrumentation: bass clarinet, electric guitar and electronics duration: 7 minutes written in: 2007-8 Slightly Less Awkward People is a sequel to a piece I wrote in college called Slightly Awkward People. Back then I was just getting into Shudder to Think’s bizarre masterpiece Pony Express Record, and I was fascinated […]
The Travels of E.C. Dumonde
January 2, 2008 – 8:03 pm
title: The Travels of E.C. Dumonde instrumentation: voice and electronics duration: 29 minutes written in: 2007-8 text: Alex Temple “It’s like ‘This American Life’ on acid.” -an audience member When I was 24, I moved to New York, eager for a break from academia. At the time my head was swimming with ideas and images […]
Inland
February 16, 2007 – 4:36 pm
title: Inland instrumentation: melodica and piano (one player) duration: 4 minutes written in: 2007 The melodica is a silly-looking instrument, but it can be used to make serious music. I wrote Inland not long after seeing David Lynch’s enormous, brilliant, terrifying film Inland Empire. The piece wasn’t meant to be referential at first, but something […]
Whitman Songs
September 28, 2006 – 11:05 pm
title: Whitman Songs instrumentation: amplified voice and piano duration: 4 minutes written in: 2006 text: Walt Whitman I’ve never been entirely comfortable setting preexisting poetry to music. Composers tend to pick poems that are dense and abstract, poems that only reveal themselves after several readings. Turning them into songs adds yet more information, and prevents […]
Three Creatures
September 26, 2006 – 4:12 pm
title: Three Creatures instrumentation: electric guitar and electronics duration: 9 minutes written in: 2002-6 Three Creatures gathers together three pieces that I wrote on separate occasions for composer-guitarist Mark Dancigers. More Pockmark is a quiet, gentle piece, inspired by experimental improviser Derek Bailey’s oddball take on jazz standards. 3 Arms and 17 1/2 Legs is […]
Grass Stem Behaviors
March 6, 2006 – 6:04 pm
title: Grass Stem Behaviors instrumentation: piano duration: 7 1/2 minutes written in: 2005-6 Grass Stem Behaviors is a free-associative take on the traditional piano repertoire. There are clear references to particular eras, composers and pieces, but they always contain small melodic and rhythmic seeds that grow into something very different: a vintage 1740s cadential figure […]
This Changes Everything!
November 7, 2005 – 4:35 pm
title: This Changes Everything! instrumentation: original version: electronic sax version: soprano sax + electronics clarinet duo version: clarinet, bass clarinet + electronics duration: 6 minutes written in: original version: 2005, revised 2008 sax version: 2006, revised 2014 clarinet duo version: 2017 “I felt like I was under a huge fluorescent light.” –Kirsten Volness on the […]