Trembling Time II was written for members of Talea Ensemble in September of 2009, the occasion being a European concert tour in which we collaborated and shared billing with Iancu Dumitrescu and Ana-Maria Avram’s Hyperion Ensemble. The title itself comes from a quote by Horatiu Radulescu in which he describes a feeling experienced when observing the slow movement of clouds. Although this image may suggest a work of gradually changing drone music, the music itself is brimming with mercurial energy. Along with my two string quartets written in 2004-06, it is highly representative of my writing for strings, and explores approaches innovated by Scelsi, Dumitrescu, Avram, and Radulescu through my own particular sensibility, combining my roots in metal and noise with the mystical and perceptual poetics of Romanian spectral music.
Score available at Project Schott New York
Score available at Project Schott New York
Score available at Project Schott New York
Du.0 2017
SCORE AVAILABLE VIA PROJECT SCHOTT NEW YORK
The title Psalterion is a Greek word for string instrument or harp, from which the word psalm is derived. It originally referred to “a song sung to a harp”, from psallein “to pluck”. Inspired by the sustained electronic harmonies of Maryanne Amacher’s ‘VM3 From The Levi-Montaclini Variations’, I used an autoharp to design the tuning of the quartet’s sixteen open strings, a chord rooted on the cello’s low B-flat. The sonority features a slight detuning of the second violin and viola on the order of cents. When played in combination with corresponding strings of the same pitch, these fine differences produce a variety of “singing” or beating effects.
In response to this commission by the Museum of Biblical Art for their “Hearing the Sacred” series, I drew inspiration from the opening of the Book of Ezekiel, which vividly describes the prophet’s vision of four anthropomorphic angelic creatures, who, in consort with a mechanical wheel structure, are capable of unique forms of levitated motion. As such, the piece narrates a mystical experience, perceptually revealed through the resonance of open strings and their natural harmonics.
Score available at Project Schott New York
(Mivos Quartet live 2015)
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Moonblood was the first major work I wrote after moving to NYC in 2004, and is rooted in techniques I had studied and developed during my prior four years as an undergraduate at Oberlin Conservatory, while also drawing from new experiences performing noise-based improvisation with electric guitar and electronics. It features several stylistic hallmarks that have remained central to my music in the years since, such as fluctuating timbres that give rise to an abundance of shimmering sounds, and the contrast between sections based on rhythmic pulse and “smooth time”.
My initial sketches for Moonblood were created in the late summer of 2004, using edited recordings of electric guitar, voice, and strings as source material for an electronic music track. I then wrote the instrumental parts by interpretively transcribing the electronics, as well as collaboratively improvising on top of the track in live settings. Following the Spring 2005 premiere by Allsar Quartet (the day of my 26th birthday), a first version for string quartet and electronics was performed extensively, including a fall 2008 European tour with iO Quartet and Hyperion Ensemble. Later in 2012, after experiencing Mivos Quartet rehearse the work without electronics, I recast it for string quartet alone, without making alterations to the original instrumental parts.
The form of Moonblood was used repeatedly in my works of this period, reflecting an affinity for mythological narratives of death and resurrection. Broadly speaking, it consists of an introductory section (rooted in inharmonic sounds), a first climax (rooted in pitch and rhythmic density), a section of repose, and a final ecstatic climax.
Score available at Project Schott New York