UC Santa Cruz Composition DMA Representative scores & Recordings 2021
Symposium (Dedicated to Giannis Antetokounmpo & Iannis Xenakis) for piano score pdf
Composed for pianist Adam Sherkin as part of the Piano Lunaire Inaugural Composers' Symposium in Toronto, Ontario, January 2020.
This piece combines a rigorous, mathematically derived formal architecture with the spontaneous athletic genius of the performer in tribute to three great men of the Greek Isles: Plato and the two (G)Iannises.
Black Heart for piano score pdf
Composed for pianist Ricardo Descalzo as part of the 2018 Barcelona Modern Festival in Barcelona, Spain.
This piece, composed in close collaboration with the performer, deals with a great deal of heterogenous material, a great deal of which is aesthetically derived from the work of the piece's dedicatee, the visionary genius Cecil Taylor, as well as the poet John Milton. Eschewing preparation and the vogue of treating the instrument as an object, this piece deals with the interaction of the performer and the piano as an instrument.
This piece, composed as part of the 2017 Mills College Signal Flow Festival, works with the individual strengths and idiosyncrasies of the performers to produce a contemporary form of ritual music. Combining influences of ancient Scandinavian religion, extreme metal, Mozart, Wagner, and the indigenous music of northern Mexico, it is a synthesis of many of my pursuits while studying at Mills.
Performed March, 2017 at Littlefield Concert Hall, Oakland, CA.
Steed Cowart - Conductor
Bergrun Snaebjornsdottir - Horn
Michelle Lee - Alto Flute
John McCowen - Contrabass Clarinet
Kevin Robinson - Bass Clarinet
Isaac Otto - Bass Clarinet
Chris Wood - Electronics, Voice
Scott Siler - Drum Set
Tim Decillis - Percussion
Tom Weeks - Alto Saxophone
The original performances is prepended by a fixed media piece, which is here not included for reasons of brevity and focus.
Ero Guro for quartet score pdf
Ero Guro is the first piece I composed for the ensemble of the same name upon my return to the Bay Area from New York in 2015. Drawing its concept from the transgressive Japanese art aesthetic, the piece deals primarily with extremity and eclecticism, with each of the four movements illustrating a different organizational principle. The material is inspired by a diverse array of artists, including Junji Ito, William S. Burroughs, Anton Webern, Ornette Coleman, Sunn O))), The Grateful Dead, Anthony Braxton, Daniel Lopatin, Robert Graettinger, and Napalm Death.
Recorded 2015 at the Beatlab in Oakland, CA.
Tom Weeks - Alto Saxophone
Mike Srouji - Electric Bass
Robbie Pruett - Drum Set, Squids
Harry Gibbons - Drum Set, Squids
This piece - the first track from the band TONED's 2020 album 'The Private Sector' - has no score, as it is the result of a collaborative, multi-layered compositional process involving written, notated, or aurally dictated instructions, spontaneous performance decisions, tape collage, electronic processing, and post-facto "xenochronic" assembly. At each stage of creation, there are varying levels of control and compositional decision making by each member of the band (Leo Suarez, Nathan Corder, and myself), and the audio material itself is so varied and heterogenous that an exhaustive list of source material would be difficult, however, the primary instrumental contributions come from:
Tom Weeks - Winds
Nathan Corder - Electronics, Guitar
Leo Suarez - Percussion
with additional material from:
Matt Robidoux - Guitar
Tim Russell - Percussion
Alvin - Voice
Michael Bahr - Poetry
Complete Composition List