Composed for the 2025 Massachusetts Modern Music Retreat

Composed immediately after Explorations in Simplicity for the same festival, I thought it would be best to write in a completely antithetical style to the trio. The result was a highly structured piece reminiscent of Stravinsky’s neoclassical period, with a straightforward tonal scheme, yet with much rhythmic flexibility.

Premiered by Michael Dirnberger, clarinet and Daniel Rosson, bassoon on August 16, 2025 at Christ Church Fitchburg,
Fitchburg, MA.

Composed for the 2025 Massachusetts Modern Music Retreat

In Two Movements: I. Encased in Ice | II. Objects Recolored

In this work, microtonal timbres are juxtaposed with repeating cells of music. The piano part, especially in the first movement, contains much improvisation. The exact sound of this movement is therefore indeterminate and will vary from performance to performance. For the second movement, the recolored object is the sound of the piano itself. Since a standard piano is not capable of playing microtones as fundamental pitches, the winds can use their ability to shade piano notes to give them a new context and color. The idea of “chromatic” music is taken quite literally in this piece.

In Four Movements: I. Abrupt Awakening | II. A Moment’s Rest? | III. Furious Labors | IV. No Rest for the Weary

This striking work explores a nineteenth-century ensemble in a twenty-first century context. The musical language encompasses multiple explorations of forms, moods, and techniques. The uniting factor aside from the consistent instrumentation of the quintet is the juxtaposition of the piano’s standard tuning with the flexibility of the strings to play microtonal music. Microtones are used throughout all four movements to color and recolor musical lines and to create layers between the strings and the piano.

Not Yet Premiered.

Three movements: I. Pavan | II. Galliard | III. Gaillarde Ancienne

In the vein of most Renaissance music, the parts are marked by their role, as opposed to specific instruments. They are: Superius, Altus, Tenor, and Bassus. My recommendation for the consort instrumentation is either:

1. Treble/Tenor/Tenor/Bass
2. Treble/Tenor/Bass/Bass

These three dances are typical of the sixteenth and seventeenth-century dances that are staples for viol consort musicians. The pavan was a processional dance, while the galliard was a much livelier dance that included jumping as part of its steps. The first galliard is my take on the dance form, while the gaillard ancienne is more true to the sixteenth-century form as outlined in Thoinot Arbeau’s Orchesographie (1546).

The dances are unified by their harmonic and melodic content, which is that of rāga Yaman, or the Lydian mode. This gives the dances a character unlike their Renaissance counterparts, which tended toward more tonal harmony as opposed to a strictly modal one.

Premiere: First and Third Movements, Rock Hall at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 19, 2024, by Temple University Early Music Ensemble under the direction of Heather Miller Lardin.

Three movements: I. Prelude | II. Interlude | III. Finale

This piece is an exploration of a variety of ideas, structured in three movements. The first movement is a neo-Romantic prelude, contrapuntal and emotional in nature. The unique combination of instruments lent itself to a symphonic approach when composing this movement.

This is then followed by an interlude composed of smaller sections that form a sort of mini-opera in five subsections. First, a short introduction gives way to a slow, melodic cavatina featuring a violin solo, while the others accompany and respond to the violin. The third section is in a two-part French overture, alternating double-dotted figures and a faster fugal section. After the overture, an instrumental recitative in E major is heard, with double bass and bassoon filling the role of basso continuo.

The third movement is the aria that follows the recitative, bringing the music back into the key of B major. Textures reminiscent of the first movement give a cyclical feeling to the piece. It ends with a short coda in B major that brings the piece to a close, with the quickest tempo of the entire composition.

This art song has a free-floating, almost unmetered quality. When performed, the shape of the sonnet is not made obvious; instead, the poem’s emotional qualities are emphasized. Despite the ensemble being inspired by early music, the instruments are much more integrated with the vocalist’s lines, creating textures unlike anything from the baroque corpus.

The poem comes from Pundri Sheshadri’s 1925 book Vanished Hours. Reflective of the British Raj in India at the time, it is a traditional Shakespearean-style sonnet in iambic pentameter with the subject of love. Importantly, this poem is not a translation of any kind—Vanished Hours is a collection of English poems by Sheshadri. It appears that not much is known about Sheshadri, other than his birth and death years; multiple Internet searches failed to find any information about his life. In setting his text, I intend to make his work better known.

Not Yet Premiered.

*The basso continuo “part” is actually two parts that form a small section. This section is composed of a keyboard instrument, e.g., harpsichord, fortepiano, or modern piano, and a sustaining bass instrument, e.g., cello, viola da gamba, or bassoon; exact instrumentation is left to the performers. Both parts are through-composed. As was common in the seventeenth century, the sustaining bass part occasionally diverges from the keyboard part to play a featured line or a countermelody. If performed on an instrument such as double bass or contrabassoon, the sustaining bass part will sound an octave lower than written as expected; this will have no effect on the harmonic integrity of the work.

[description and movements currently under revision]

Commissioned by the Philadelphia Student Composers’ Project, sponsored by the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation.

This piece is a single-movement sonata that traces the arc from one morning to the next. It follows the classical sonata form, in which the exposition goes from morning to evening, the development is a dreamlike night, and the recapitulation heralds the following morning. The harmonies and melodies of this piece are built from two North Indian rāgas: Bhairav and Yaman, which are respectively associated with the early morning and early evening. Due to the differing characteristic notes and associations of each rāga, it was possible for me to re-contextualize the musical motifs. Toward the end, as the second morning takes hold, the colors of Bhairav affect the themes that were set in Yaman at the beginning of the piece, completing the journey.

Premiered on November 13, 2022 as Sonata, “The Morning” by Hub New Music at Rock Hall, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Composed for Temple University’s New Music Ensemble

Premiered October 12, 2022 by Temple University New Music Ensemble in Rock Hall, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Society was conceived in the year of upheaval that was 2020. With the Covid-19 pandemic raging, a major election unfolding in the United States, and race riots exposing many of the country’s shortcomings, I felt that the social order had become too individualistic. I also felt that people had become unwilling to compromise for the sake of the greater good, and—as a result—that too many people were being left behind at this time of suffering. In response to these events, I composed Society to show how integral each part is to the whole, as every person is to their entire community. The motifs of the piece cannot stand alone, just as we, the people, cannot stand alone. Society is a piece meant to be felt by the performers and the audience rather than heard in detail. The closest analogue would be a sound bath, an experience.

It is in open score, with a straightforward method of execution. Each performer picks one out of the ten motifs, which are presented in numerical order without accompaniment. After this is done, each performer is free to enter and exit as they wish, looping their own motif or moving around to one of the others. The piece ends when the performers deem it complete and no specific ending is given. Some example endings include: fading out in dynamics or in numbers, simply stopping, or ending together on a long held note. Vocalists who wish to perform the piece may do so on a neutral syllable of their choice. As can be seen, much of the piece’s character is left to chance, mirroring how social orders are characterized by the people in them, and the way people are influenced and shaped by those around them. No two performances will be the same, and yet, each one will be as successful as the other. That is the beauty of Society.

This was composed as a companion piece to W. A. Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F Major, K. 370, and is heavily inspired by it. The first movement is a stormy, often-dissonant movement in D minor. To contrast this, the second movement is in two parts: a short introductory section based on a motif from Mozart’s quartet, and a conventional, consonant rondo in D major. Both movements feature the oboe as a solo instrument accompanied by the strings, alternating this texture with moments for the strings alone.

Two movements: I. Andante e grave – Allegro con moto | II. Intrada: Misterioso – Rondo: Allegro giocoso

Movement II premiered in November 2019 by:

• Amanda Spratt, oboe
• Uli Speth, violin
• Nicole Nissel, viola
• Julia Corso, violoncello

at Mildred & Ernest E. Mayo Concert Hall, The College of New Jersey, Ewing, New Jersey, USA