Composer
While going through airport security a few years ago, Heather Trommer-Beardslee turned to me and said “Ever since the Larry Craig scandal I’ve wanted to do a tap dance piece based in a bathroom stall.” So, of course, we made one. Rather than poke fun or mock the event, we made a work about “Public …
Based on Plato’s Cave Allegory, this work was conceived and choreographed by Andrea Purrenhage. This video is from the dress rehearsal of the Central Michigan University Dance Company in April 2017.
Abstain Red Hells takes its title from a movement of a forgotten piece of mine for flute and soprano saxophone. The basic idea of a stubborn ostinato and a tense-yet-lyrical melody was played out in the very small scale in this earlier piece and has since been liberated into a bigger and more open musical …
This piece is part of a collaborative music/dance project which I did with dancer/choreographer Heather Trommer-Beardslee. Heather interviewed three vets who had recently transitioned from military careers to being students at CMU. These compelling stories became the motivation for our piece. Heather and I worked independently on choreography and music and only lined up the …
I was waking up one morning and the title for this piece was stuck in my head. I wasn’t sure why, I didn’t necessarily know what it sounded like, but I knew it was a good title. When Andrew Allen asked me to write a piece for him, I threw this title at him and …
Composed for Katherine Crawford and given its premiere performance at Electronic Music Midwest in 2013. The poetry is by Robert Fanning and is included in the score. Special thanks to the Freesound.org users ethang, laureci, ephemeral-rift, and sandyrb for their sonic contributions and to Laura Patterson whose live performance of my piece All My Dreams are Silent …
I have a file full of potential titles and one summer this file grew quite a bit as I re-read William Gibson’s classic Neuromancer. When Tammy Evans Yonce asked for a piece for glissando flute (flute with a glissando head joint) and electronics I proposed the title “Dreams Grow Like Slow Ice,” which I’m pretty …
I have this collection of poetry from Pitt Press that I’ve been reading and reading since about 1992. A few poems by Ted Kooser caught my mind and I filed them away for a future text setting. When Katherine Crawford asked me to write a piece for her and electronics, I decided to finally act …
This composition grew out of five short samples of note production on a harpsichord. These samples were then strung together to mimic the trajectory of a sounding note on that instrument: attack/articulation, sustain, and then the abrupt cut off release. Purchase the CD.
I first read “Near Burning” around 1997 when my in-laws gave me an anthology of contemporary poetry. The imagery and language provoked a strong emotional and spiritual reaction. For almost a decade I returned to the poem as a vehicle for contemplation. In 2005, I felt musically able to respond to the emotions and ideas …