Projects
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By All Means (2004)

Chamber orchestra, 9'

By All Means was commissioned by the Juilliard School and the Royal Academy of Music in celebration of their concurrent anniversaries. Each of the six commissioned works was meant to respond in some way to Webern’s Concerto for 9 Instruments, op. 24. My own response to this curious guideline was to focus on the opening [...]

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Clear Music (2003)

for Wendy Law
Cello, harp, celeste, 9'

Muhly writes, “Clear Music is an extended exploration of a single measure in John Taverner’s (1490-1545) motet Mater Christi Sanctissima. I have structured the piece into a series of peaks featuring the highest registers of the treble voice ““ here, the cello. I remember very vividly performing this piece and being struck by how distant [...]

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Drones, Variations, Ornaments (2011)

for the Crash Ensemble
Small Ensemble, 15 Minutes

Drones, Variations, Ornaments is music in constant transformation. What begins as a simple, cloud-like sequence of string chords with a trombone melody slowly transforms into an agitated perpetual motion machine of winds, guitar, percussion, and piano. The machine spits out an incessant syncopated drone on middle-C, over which a fragment of a melody in the [...]

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Duet No 1: Chorale Pointing Downwards (2003)

for Nadia Sirota
Viola & Cello

Duet No1: Chorale Pointing Downwards is the first in a series of short string pieces that serve as harmonic and technical studies for both composer and performers.

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How About Now (2006)

for NOW Ensemble (Alex, Sara, Mark, Peter, & Michael)
Small ensemble, 7'

I wanted the piece to feel like it comes from their preëxisting pantry of musical devices ““ a sort of thrown-together meal with close friends

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How Soon (2011)

for Treble Chorus (SSAA), Flute, Clarinet, Percussion, Violin, Violoncello and Piano, ca. 10 minutes

How Soon? was commissioned by eighth blackbird, the Kennesaw State University School of Music, and the Anima-Young Singers of Greater Chicago. This commission was made possible by the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award presented by Chorus America and funded by the American Composers Forum. MORTIFICATION How soon doth man decay! When clothes are taken from [...]

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Motion

for Britten Sinfonia
Clarinet, String Quartet, and Piano, Seven Minutes

Orlando Gibbons’s verse anthem See, see the Word is incarnate is one of my favorite pieces of text setting: Gibbons divides up Godfrey Goodman’s verses into solo bits for solo or coupled countertenors, who weave in and out of a texture of viols. Then, the chorus comes in at the end of each verse, like [...]

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The Principles of Uncertainty (2007)

Solo Counter-tenor, Violin, Cello, Piano, Banjo, 21'

I have no idea how to describe the strangeness of this song cycle; in true modern fashion, it started as a blog on the New York Times, consisting of paintings and text by Maira Kalman. Maira, a longtime friend and hero of mine, asked me to set all of the questions she asked on the [...]

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Time After Time (2003)

for Nancy Zeltsman, Sam Solomon, & Eric Hewitt
Soprano saxophone, marimba, percussion, 10'

Time After Time was written for the Yesaroun’ Duo (comprising multi-percussionist Sam Solomon & saxophonist Eric Hewitt) and marimbist Nancy Zeltsman. I set out to write a piece that was primarily energetic and rhythmically challenging enough for two percussionist and one honorary percussionist to play. The title refers to the fact that all the material [...]

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