Large Ensemble

American Overture is an orchestral overture that reflects my American roots in its references to Rock and jazz. The music is relentlessly kinetic; from the opening bars, it has a drive that is not sated until the final chord. American Overture was first performed on November 7, 2004, by the Filhamonica de Stat “Transilvania”, conducted by Rachael Worby.

Fanfares & Fantasies was composed in 1999 as a commission from Michael Morgan and the Oakland East Bay Symphony to open their 2000 season and to celebrate the new millennium. My intent was to capture that celebration, but to also recognize the complexity of the world at that time; hence the idea of alternating “fanfares” with more introspective “fantasies”, though the work also traces an overall trajectory of darkness to light. The initial fanfare is pained, with dissonant intervals in the trumpets. It leads to a fantasy of swirling colors and disembodied themes. These two initial sections introduce all of the significant thematic material for the work. The second fanfare is yet darker, in the guttural lower register of the trombones. The second fantasy, a mensuration passacaglia (in which a repeated theme accelerates each time it is repeated), begins with a tuba solo followed by a duet for bassoon and muted violas and then cello with woodwinds dancing drunkenly overhead. It builds in intensity through a series of string passages, reaching a climax with the brass that leads directly into the third fanfare which features trumpets and trombones in canonical conversation. This explodes into a virtuosic triple fugue that includes all manner of fugal devices and climaxes to a final fanfare, which is transformed into a luminescent and triumphant F# major.

Night Incantation was composed in 1998 while I was living in Charlottesville, VA. It is a work about stillness. It explores thick, static sonorities that move glacially, like slow breaths, only gradually building to climaxes and subsiding.

Virvatuli was composed between February and July, 1997, while I was a Fulbright Fellow in Finland. The title is the Finnish word for “will-o’-the-wisp”, the phosphorescence of methane gas in swamps. It also means a delusive and illusory hope, goal, or aim. I tried to capture the eeriness and otherworldliness of the first aspect of the title, while at the same time realizing the second aspect structurally. The opening insect calls represent reality; the orchestra, hope and idealism. A battle ensues in which hope emerges triumphant, yet before a final resolution can be achieved, it reveals its illusory nature and disintegrates, leaving only the insects… and emptiness. Cynical? Possibly, but it is only in those moments of idealism that we can approach beauty, and that in itself is a kind of truth.

Virvatuli received First Prize in the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra New Music Competition and Second Prize in the International Witold Lutoslawski Composers Competition.

Sinfonietta was composed in 1996 while I was living in Finland on a Fulbright Fellowship. The work is cast in two contrasting movements. The first is an extended “Sonata-Allegro” form. The principal theme is presented in the trumpet and strings. The second theme is presented in the oboe with a delicate woodwind accompaniment. A brief closing section introduces a chordal motif. The remainder of the movement elaborates these themes, building to a climactic return of the principal theme. The movement concludes with a fugal coda. The second movement telescopes the remaining three movements of a traditional symphony. It begins with a slow section that juxtaposes eerie polychords with descending string lines. The material is taken over by the woodwinds, then elaborated by the lower strings, building to a graceful dancelike section that serves as the “scherzo”. These two ideas are finally brought together in a triumphant climax, leading to a quicksilver coda. Sinfonietta was first performed by the Omaha Symphony Orchestra as a result of their new music competition.