Lullaby Boxes (2013)

Download the score – Lullaby Boxes

In January of 2009 I started writing a chamber piece. As the music unfolded, I kept changing the scoring, changing the instrumentation, etc. and was never happy with the way it was working. Eventually, I realized the piece was a really a piano piece. I wrote on the manuscript paper: THIS IS A PIANO PIECE. DO NOT CHANGE THIS. In 2010, I participated in the RPM Challenge in which I had to compose and record an album’s worth of material in the month of February. I finally completed the piano piece, titled it Prelude, and recorded it for the album. I put off making a score, just leaving the awkward sketches behind.

In 2012, when my colleague Alexandra Mascolo-David asked me for any solo piano music, I told her about this piece. I sat down to write the score, but couldn’t make it work. Something else happened with the material and I couldn’t figure out why. The music was so simple, so plain, yet so lovely that I was slightly embarrassed to give it to her. The title, Lullaby Boxes, is meant to invoke a kind of music box.



About Me

Jay C. Batzner (b. 1974) is currently on the faculty of Central Michigan University. He reads too many comic books and tries to find time for sewing and other various hobbies. Jay likes playing chess but loses a LOT of games. 

Jay’s frequent interdisciplinary collaborations with choreographer Heather Trommer-Beardslee has led to several dance works based on student veterans, ecological succession, the Larry Craig scandal, and hyena behaviors. The hyena piece even includes puppets! 

80s atonal awesome bilston comic books comics concerto contemplative counterpoint duet dulcimer duo electronics fixed media funny hard high voice improvisation marimba medium voice noisy percussion piano poem poetry pop quartet sci-fi scifi setup short song song cycle speaking spiky spoken strugatsky timpani trigger triggered trio unpitched weird white zen

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