Compositions

Choral

  • Choral

    At Thirty-Five

    SATB Chorus (with divisi)

    3 minutes

    Setting Robert W. Service's poem of the same title, At Thirty-Five is a wry, occasionally poignant and ultimately uplifting rant about the doldrums of what we might now call a "mid-life crisis".

  • Choral

    Hope is the thing with feathers

    SATB Chorus; SAB Chorus

    2 minutes 30 seconds

    Inspired by 16th century madrigals, this setting of Emily Dickinson’s poem of the same name uses rich word painting and a traditional structure, but with more modern harmonic language.

  • Choral

    Kubla Khan

    SATBB Chorus

    8 minutes

    A challenging work for chamber choir. This setting of Coleridge's famous poem "Kubla Khan" is packed with powerful fifth-based harmonies, clusters, augmented triads, and colorful word painting.

  • Choral

    Le Cigale

    SATB Chorus

    3 minutes

    Written for a laugh during the cicada bloom in the summer of 2021, Le Cigale is composed in the renaissance style of Josquin de Pres’ famous El Grillo.

  • Choral

    Let me walk in your ways from Jamestown 452

    soprano solo and piano; SAB and piano

    2 minutes

    A passionate and heartfelt plea for God’s guidance and support.

  • Choral

    Liberty

    SATB chorus

    1 minute

    Liberty was composed a few months after September 11, 2001. The text is from the opening of Emma Lazurus’ poem “The New Colossus”, and serves to remind us of the noble ambitions which tie us together as a nation.

  • Choral

    Music Like Water

    SATB Double Chorus

    5 minutes

    A challenging work for double chorus inspired by water’s persistence and strength. A tiny stream of water finds a way through stone and tiny streams. Frozen, it can shatter solid rock; flowing, it can combine into powerful torrents, almost without warning.

  • Choral

    O Magnum Mysterium

    SSAA Chorus

    3 minutes

    Sparkling dissonances and medieval inspired open harmonies express the yearning, longing, and magic of the Christmas season.

  • Choral

    Ronda del Fuego

    SSAA Chorus

    3 minutes

    A setting of Gabriela Mistral’s poem of the same title, for intermediate level treble chorus.

  • Choral

    Speed and Perfection

    SATBB; SAB

    1 minute 30 seconds

    A setting of Jane Hirshfield's poem "Speed and Perfection" from her collection "Given Sugar, Given Salt. The music imitates the rushing of the night wind, and the flurry of leaves, while the harmonies evoke the sweetness of fruit.

  • Choral

    St Teresa’s Bookmark

    SATB with organ or piano accompaniment

    2 minutes

    A short, but moderately challenging setting appropriate for a small or large adult choir. Appropriate for use as a church anthem.

  • Choral

    Tension, Apprehension, and Dissention

    SATB Chorus

    2 minutes 30 seconds

    In this intricate shouted fugue, traditional imitation processes create an ever increasing pressure while the constant counting, “Eight, sir: Seven, sir…”, portrays the maddening irrational rationality of modern existence.

  • Choral

    The Sea is Calm Tonight

    SATB Chorus

    3 minutes 30 seconds

    A contemplative and wistful setting of the opening of Matthew Arnold’s "Dover Beach” The polyphonic setting mirrors the relentless churning of the ocean, jumbles the text and creates new meaning.

  • Choral

    Tsuki ga dete/The Moon Rises

    SSAATB Chorus

    5 minutes

    Inspired by moonlit walks on the beach below the bluffs on the UC Santa Barbara campus; the lap of the small waves against the sand, and the shimmering path of light from the moon on the water.

  • Choral

    You Put Apples to Your Lips

    SATBB; SAB with piano

    3 minutes

    This setting of Jane Hirshfield’s “for a wedding on mount Tamalpais” relies on triadic and added tone harmonies with Lydian inflections to capture the brightness and ripeness of the poem’s sensual language.

Solo Voice with Accompaniment

  • Solo Voice

    from Paris to Helen

    tenor solo and piano

    4 minutes

    From Paris to Helen is a short concert aria with a text from Ovid’s “Heroides”: a series of epistolary poems presented as if written by heroines of Greek and Roman mythology.

  • Choral

    Let me walk in your ways from Jamestown 452

    soprano solo and piano; SAB and piano

    2 minutes

    A passionate and heartfelt plea for God’s guidance and support.

  • Solo Voice

    Memories of Silver

    mezzo-soprano and piano

    3 minutes

    The text for Memories of Silver was derived from Walter de la Mare’s poem “Silver”. This text, half-remembered, abbreviated, and altered, reveals the original poem in patches, as if it is being seen by moonlight.

  • Solo Voice

    Sea Fever

    baritone and piano

    8 minutes

    A setting of four John Masefield poems from his collection Salt Water Ballads (1902) portraying the different moods of the ocean.

Instrumental

  • Instrumental

    0r161n

    solo flute with optional tape track

    2 minutes 45 seconds

    0r161N was inspired by the imaginative intersection of biology and technology. I translated the beginning of Darwin’s “Origin of Species” into binary code, and then spliced it into patterns which were translated into musical material.

  • Instrumental

    A Dream of Spring

    treble duet and piano

    5 minutes

    Written in memory of six students at the University of California, Santa Barbara who were killed by gun violence on May 23rd, 2014. Originally for two violins and piano, A Dream of Spring works equally well as a duet for any two treble instruments.

  • Instrumental

    Alba

    trumpet and harp

    10 minutes

    Alba is loosely based on the most famous troubadour abla, or dawn song, Reis Glorios, by Giraut de Bornelh (c.1140 – 1200). The poem, like most albas, reflects on the closing of a tryst at the end of the night as dawn approaches.

  • Instrumental

    Elaeth the Eel

    solo piano

    3 minutes 30 seconds

    This lighthearted intermediate level piano work is about wiggling. Slippery harmonies give way to a writhing accompaniment and jaunty melody.

  • Instrumental

    Forgotten Memories

    flute and piano

    5 minutes 30 seconds

    This piece reflects on these ideas, and on family, loss, and how, even in the absence of memories, we imagine who we are.

  • Instrumental

    Love Songs

    solo bassoon

    8 minutes

    Love Songs for Solo Bassoon illustrates various aspects of love, and incorporates the extraordinary variety of colors available to the bassoonist.

  • Instrumental

    Three Short Pieces

    solo guitar

    6 minutes

    Three contrasting early intermediate level songs. The first, a harmonically unsettled complaint, the second, a flamenco flourish, and the third, a wistful lute song.

  • Instrumental

    Yaya Shirokuro (somewhat black and white)

    solo piano

    4 minutes

    Each and every key of the piano is played only once. The notation is spatial, leaving room for interpretation and drama.

Chamber

  • Chamber

    452 Jamestown Place

    soprano and baritone

    10 minutes

    A tour de force for a daring soprano showcasing multiple styles and colors and testing dramatic acting capabilities. The baritone is a supporting role.

  • Chamber

    Cherry Trees

    String Quartet

    11 minutes

    It evokes the swirling of falling cherry blossoms and liveliness of people gathered below with playful rhythms and imitative falling patterns.

  • Chamber

    East of the A Sun/ West of the Moon

    flute, viola, and piano

    A whirlwind tour through a land of fantasy. The movement titles were taken from the whimsical labels Jaro Hess applied to his imaginative 1930’s map, entitled “The Land of Make Believe.”

  • Chamber

    Four Landscapes

    bass-baritone, clarinet, horn, violin, viola, cello

    12 minutes

    This cycle explores the theme of humanity’s interaction with nature and takes its text from Wallace Stevens’ Six Significant Landscapes (1916).

  • Chamber

    Quilt I

    quartet for flute, clarinet, violin, cello

    7 minutes

    Inspired by my mother's quilting practices, Quilt I was patched together using both isorhythym and fugue.

  • Chamber

    Quilt II

    flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano and percussion

    5 minutes 30 seconds

    This piece is a quilt made of varied ideas, musics, and influences, and, like a quilt, it has a top, full of action, color and pattern, and a back where the pattern of the threads hold it together is visible.

  • Chamber

    Strange Woods

    flute choir

    4 minutes

    The musical materials Strange Woods were generated from Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “Fairy-land.” Pitches and rhythms were assigned according to predetermined patterns and clusters and the accents of the text.

  • Chamber

    Vox Dilecti Mei

    soprano, flute, clarinet, cello

    7 minutes

    The text from Vox Dilecti Mei comes from the second chapter of the Song of Solomon, verses eight through ten. The music is built from two contrasting tonalities.

Orchestral

  • Orchestra

    A Game

    Full Orchestra: 2(pic)222/4331/perc(1)/str.
    Small Orchestra: 2(pic)222/2200/perc(1)/str.

    3 – 5 minutes

    A short, playful aleatoric piece for orchestra on the theme of tuning. One member or section of the ensemble is instructed to hold a pitch while the others move from disparate pitches towards the unison.

  • Orchestra

    Nunatak

    Full Orchestra: 3(afl)3(eh)3(bcl)3(cbn)/4331/timp.2perc/ harp.cel/ str
    Small Orchestra: 2/2(eh)22/4331/timp.2perc/ harp or pno.cel/str

    6 minutes

    Nunatak was written during a road trip to Colorado with my mother and one year old daughter. I was struck by the enormity of landscapes and landforms: the Mohave, the Colorado River, the Rockies, and my mind wandered north, to the glaciers of Alaska and Canada.