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Work Samples
Overpainted Photographs for flute and orchestra
Overpainted Photographs (2022-23) for flute and orchestra was written for and in close collaboration with Chicago-based flutist Dalia Chin. The piece was inspired by the series of artworks of the same name by Gerhard Richter, who took photographs and smeared them with leftover paint after a day’s work in the studio. This was initially done in a very improvised way, so the results were not too controlled, almost like chance. I became fascinated with this idea, of memories being distorted by superimposing textures and masses. The problems faced in a musical context are quite different than in the visual arts. How can you create completely abstract, non-representational memories in a piece of instrumental music? In other words, not of a person, a place (at least not a physical one), or a thing… If you succeed in creating this kind of memory, how do you superimpose a mass of colors to distort, transform, or enhance the experience of it? These are some of the questions I tried to answer in this piece.
Breathless for percussion quartet
The piece was written for Third Coast Percussion while I was living abroad in Quito, Ecuador. The title is a nod to French New Wave cinema, where the jump-cut was popularized as an expressive tool. In my recent music, I have become fascinated with the idea of a “jump-cut” as a formal idea. I’m attracted to the energy that sudden, abrupt changes can infuse in the music and in the listening experience. It’s a piece that never rests, that feels constantly on the verge of exploding; in the music, there are fast shifts and unexpected juxtapositions between batteries of volatile rhythmic material and the scintillatingly mysterious sounds of the melodica’s fluttered pitch clusters. There are transformations from non-metric relays at the outset to very groove-driven patterns, while gradual shifts in emphasis from woods to metals to skins simultaneously unfold.
Metasomatic: Apparitions for cello
This piece is part of my cycle of works Metasomatic. In the cycle, I explore harmonics and multiphonics on string instruments and saxophones. In this piece, the bow is extremely influential in what harmonics or multiphonics are audible at any given time. I became fascinated by how unpredictable the bow can be when searching for partials. For example, in the second half of the piece during a long loop section, I encourage as many harmonics and multiphonics to emerge as possible by repetitively gliding a fixed interval from one point to another, quickly alternating between two strings and slowly inching the bow towards the bridge over a long period of time, until eventually, an ethereal constellation of high partials float and resonate in the atmosphere over a recognizable pattern, creating a real acoustic polyphony, hence the title “Apparitions.”