Here is your New Music August Mixtape from Composer’s Toolbox! This is a stylistically diverse array of compositions that
These are presented in random order as: Composer – Recording – Program notes – Website/Social media
Vahid Eftekhar Hosseini – Sguardi su Shur
Sguardi su Shur; in 3 movements (2019) – For cello solo
A contemporary elaboration on the Radif (Iranian classical music repertoire)Vahid Eftekhar Hosseini, composer
Nicola Baroni, cello
https://www.instagram.com/vahid.e.hosseini/
Laura Collier – Tarantella
Tarantella is a fast and dark piece in near perpetual motion. It is in sonata form with two contrasting themes. One is powerful and dissonant and the other is light and pleading. The development section is the only respite in this frantic piece and presents a softer and more mysterious version of the main themes.
http://lauracollier.com/
Gabriel Iwasaki – The Sound of Adventure – Cinematic Fantasy for Orchestra No. 4
This piece was composed for the finals of the “International Dvořák Composition Competition” and it’s based on a theme of Dvorak’s 9th symphony. It was composed as a homage to the musical legacy of this legendary composer. The composition seeks to portray the notion of adventure, mainly due to the use of odd time signatures and modal harmonies.
The combination of these elements added to the way this piece is orchestrated, give the music a cinematic edge, inciting to the audience to think of adventure. Hence the name of the composition.
The piece starts with a fanfare-like melody reminiscent to Dvorak’s theme from his 9th symphony, but in minor key, which then turns into a more syncopated adventure-like rhythm. The composition was written in the form of a Fantasy with 3 distinct sections; Presto, Adagio and Presto. This is the 4th Cinematic fantasy for orchestra composed by G. Iwasaki.
Last but not least, it’s important to mention that this piece was written and orchestrated only 4 days.
https://www.gabrieliwasaki.com/
https://www.instagram.com/gabriel_iwasaki_official/
Isaac Stephan Silva Uria – Portrait of Memories
https://www.instagram.com/isaac_su1/
Lucy Shirley – Values in 4 Parts
Values in 4 parts is a collection of voice and saxophone studies in language and expression, based on the principles set forth by Raymond Queneau and primarily employed by the French literary and mathematics group the Oulipo. Each movement of Values contains a poem or a fragment of text that has been manipulated by or interpreted with a certain Oulipian technique or principle. The technique is then translated into a musical process and paired with the text to create self-contained studies in verbal and musical language.
https://lucygraceshirley.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/LucyGraceShirley/
Daniel Derakhshan – Inner Turmoil
Inner turmoil is an experimental piece that detaches the listener from the aesthetical dogmatics and pushes their attention towards known elements from different aesthetics. The piece features direct modulations and various rhythmic ideas to keep a consistent ambiguity. However, it also presents the listener with familiar elements from modal music and earlier given ideas or themes, creating a fresh aesthetic for the listener.
https://soundcloud.com/danielderakhshan
https://www.facebook.com/Derakhshan1995/
Timothy Arliss OBrien – A Soliloquy in Nature
I wrote this simple melody on a trip camping in Mount Hood National Forest on the Sandy River. It was a pleasant sunny weekend and the birds were singing incessantly and the river was cold and refreshing. The forest was beautiful on that trip and I started to whistle a simple melody. I expounded on the theme as night fell and the sound of the babbling river and bird songs grew more mysterious in the dark forest.
I hope this piece reminds you to always listen for the song nature is wanting to sing.
http://www.timothyarlissobrien.com/
http://instagram.com/adorableinpdx
Andrew List – String Quartet No. 5 “Time Cycles”
String Quartet No. 5 “Time Cycles” is inspired by T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and also Circular Time Theory. The work consists of five movements each of which inspired by a quotation from Burnt Norton the first of the Eliot’s Four Quartets.
In his diary T. S. Eliot wrote “what would it be like if you had four different poetic strains that eventually come together as one. “ He was listening to the late Beethoven Quartets when he wrote that and was inspired by that great music when writing the Four Quartets.
My entire piece is based on the same musical material through out. The first four movements are variations that explore this musical material in different ways. In Burnt Norton Eliot writes: “Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past” The fifth movement is a recapitulation of the earlier four and is also the point where all of the musical material comes together. In my piece time present, past and future are all happening simultaneously.
My piece is also inspired by Circular Time Theory where all time and events are occurring at once as opposed to linear time theory when events unfold in a sequence, All five movements of my quartet use the same intervallic and pitch material through out thus everything is occurring at the same time presented in five different guises.
Quotations for each movement:
1) The stillness, as a Chinese jar still moves perpetually in its stillness, not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts, not that only but the co-existence or say that the end precedes the beginning, and the end and the beginning were always there and all is always there before the beginning and after the end.
2) At the still point of the turning world, neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is.
3) Time past and time future allow but a little consciousness. To be conscious is not to be in time but only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
the moment in the arbour where the rain beat, the moment in the draughty church at smokefall be remembered; involved with time past and future.4) And all is always now. Words strain, crack and sometimes break, under the burden under the tension, slip, slide, perish. Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place.
5) Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present, all time is unredeemable.
http://www.andrewlist.com/
https://www.facebook.com/andrew.list.79
Tim Burnelis – Piano Trio in F “Breath of the Wild”
This trio for piano, flute and clarinet is inspired by the music of video game composer Manaka Kataoka, who composed music for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Her music utilises more late-romantic musical styles, often going against classical harmonic conventions by using dissonances between the melody and bass-line that are masked by the harmony, giving her work a quirky characteristic.
The trio opens with a lyrical clarinet solo, which presents a descending melodic line and the main motif of the A section. This motif is in F dorian (although not apparent at the beginning), with the addition of some chromatic movement to add harmonic interest. It also consists of several appoggiaturas/suspensions, which also become apparent when the piano enters with the motif.
Each instrument enters one by one, with the piano restating the motif at bar 9 after the clarinet solo with harmony underlying it and a countermelody supplied by the clarinet. The flute enters with a new countermelody to support the motif in the piano, and also features a blue note in bar 15 with an Ab over the A natural in the piano right hand. This section exposes the appoggiaturas/suspensions found in the motif.
The following section at bar 17 uses part of the motif’s rhythm and explores it with new harmony and structure. The flute and piano right hand double in octaves whilst breaking up the rhythmic structure of the original motif. During this passage, the clarinet continues to supply a countermelody, with a rhythmically diminished version of the start of the motif (from quavers to semiquavers) transposed down a perfect 4th at bar 17.
The bridge into section B at bar 24 foreshadows the main rhythmic accompaniment of the B section in the piano right hand, to help transition between the two sections smoothly. I wanted to introduce completely new material here to juxtapose against the lyrical themes of the A section, whilst developing on the quirky characteristics from the first section.
The B section introduces a new character to the piece; with an energetic, humorous clarinet theme in C mixolydian. Bar 37 explores this theme with ascending parallel chords in the piano over a static bass-line to create tension, whilst the flute and clarinet develop on the motif in octaves over the top.
At bar 41, the flute and clarinet play the main motif over the ascending chords in the piano, with variation of rhythm and notation in both parts to create subtle dissonances between them and the piano. The bridge into the last four bars of the B section foreshadows the final chord progression of the piece with a whole-tone progression in the bass to lead into the key of D major. The final development of the B section at bar 45 changes the orchestration with the melody now given to the flute and left hand piano, while the clarinet adds some broken chord accompaniment.
To bridge into the A1 section, I wanted to take the whole-tone approach further by incorporating it into a whole bar to create a sense of excitement and surprise at bar 48. This bridge section is short and rather abrupt to add to the overall excitement of the piece.
The A1 section lands in D dorian at bar 49 with the re-statement of the main motif, this time a minor third lower. I have changed some of the orchestration here, mainly in the flute with a low trill and some octave leaps to create more variation and tension. At bar 57-58, I arpeggiate up from G7 into Ab lydian, where I then place the original motif to create more excitement and to prepare the piece for the ending. Here, the flute and clarinet play semiquavers in thirds to accompany the piano and create a flourishing sound.
To lead into the penultimate section, the flute and clarinet perform a quick ascending run into a new key of B major at bar 61. Here, the varied version of the original motif from bar 17 is heard in octaves between the flute and clarinet, with the piano now taking over the semiquaver accompaniment. The final section in E lydian at bar 65 takes the piece to a delicate restatement of bar 21, with the piano doubling the flute in its upper register and the clarinet supplying the countermelody.
The last few bars develop on the previous bridge section at bar 24, using the whole-tone progression in the bassline, leading to an Fsus4 chord before finishing in F. I wanted the ending to sound like it had finished in a completely new key, and with the previous section being in E lydian, the final two bars sounds uplifting as it is a semitone higher in F. Another thing to note is that the flute ends with same three notes it began with.
https://www.timburnelismusic.com/
https://www.facebook.com/timburnelismusic/
Liam Carey – Concerto for Piano and Electronics
This is a traditional three movement classical concerto but with the soloist playing with a video instead of an orchestra. In the first movement the video is a collage of 214 different pieces; the second movement the electronics consist solely of sine waves which are visualised by lissajous figures, and the third movement the video is made up of recordings of me finding various ways of banging and plucking the inside of a grand piano.
http://liamcarey.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/slowcoachcarey/
Ryne Siesky – …grind…
Each year, approximately five-hundred billion plastic cups are used, of which roughly six billion cups end up in landfills every year. …grind… utilizes a single sound source: a one-second sound file of a plastic Keurig coffee pod hitting the floor. The sound is then morphed into more destructive sound forces, symbolic of the faulty business and political ideologies that ultimately contribute to a lack of environmental sustainability.
https://www.rynejsmusic.com/
https://www.facebook.com/rynejsmusic
Mitch Boucher – Prelude and Fugue in C# Minor
This is my Prelude and Fugue in C# Minor. It was composed between 2018 and 2019, and both show different levels in compositional proficiency. The prelude was part of a compilation of twelve minor-key preludes, and each of these are very small. The subject of the fugue was provided by another composer.
Alessandro Giannotti – Berceuse
The piece was written in 2010 for a performance in collaboration with the Italian writer Michele Mari. Berceuse combines its typical form (in this case I might say rather in a sort of passacaglia) with the use of a Canzone by Orlando di Lasso, quoted as cantus firmus. The principal theme is mostly used as bass line and just in the last bars finally emerges in the right hand.
https://twitter.com/alexgiannotti
Marin Limić – Tokata op. 33
http://www.glazbenik-marinlimic.hr/
http://www.instagram.com/marinlimicofficial
Gene Pritsker – Flammenschrift, A Fanfare for the Natives of the Earth
Flammenschrift A Fanfare for the Natives of the Earth’. This music delves in to the creation of humanity and its development through time, a melody, representing humanity, is treated with various textures and rhythms recalling the span of human existence. I look at humanity in one connected, continuos reality, not in a nationalistic, ethnic, religious or any other forms of divisions we have created for ourselves. But as a species living on one small planet in a very large universe. As a composer I look at music the same way. Not as different genres, cultures or esthetics, but as an expression in sound vibration that is created by the human experience on earth.
https://www.genepritsker.com/
https://www.facebook.com/gene.pritsker
Mark Wolf – Anxious Objects
‘Anxious Objects’ is a musical rendering of Studio Daniel Libeskind’s spatial design in the architecture of his Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, his 2007 radical expansion of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Consisting of and ensemble of three players, solo voice and electronics, the conceptual basis for ‘Anxious Objects’ corresponds musically to the museum’s five intersecting metal-clad volumes. On a visit to the museum in April 2016, separate field recordings were made within each of the five volumes and were later assigned to each ensemble constituent. A frequency analysis was extracted from each of the recordings and developed into a musical language. Of most interest is the central volume titled the Spirit House. A large cavernous void, the Spirit House facilitates interaction between each of the volumes both spatially and sonically. Heard through a loudspeaker(s), the Spirit House field recording provides the work’s electronic element.
‘Anxious Objects’ is an attempt at artistically recreating a moment in time. It takes the form of a series of statements questioning the success of the architecture’s functionality in displaying exhibits in unconventional, sharp, angular spaces. Libeskind’s architecture reveals a highly considered conceptual design process, providing the motivation for crafting an equally considered temporal musical experience.
https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/wolf-mark
