Solo Piano
Original Compositions and Arrangements for Piano
The Pianist's Guide to Illinois
This set came from an extremely lofty goal: to compose a short piece of music for every city, town, and village in Illinois. However, this would result in over 500 compositions – a lifetime goal rather than an achievable one for this project. To limit the scope of this work, I spoke to friends, talked to relatives, met with coworkers and listened to them talk about their hometowns. The funny, personal stories, the history, and the interesting facts they had carried with them influenced each piece in this set.
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This work was jointly commissioned by the Illinois Music Teachers Association and Music Teachers National Association in 2024 and was premiered on November 1st, 2024 in Decatur, IL.
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It is purchasable from Just A Theory Press
31 Dances for July
31 Dances for July
This collection of pieces was written in the month of July 2022. It serves as a didactic work for pianists just beginning their ballet accompaniment careers or a performing edition for seasoned accompanists looking to broaden their repertoire. Each piece is named after the ballet barre or center combination it best serves and the date of its composition.
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Other Collections
Songs from the Levant
Songs from the Levant is made up 7 arrangements of folk songs from the Levant area of the Middle East. These songs include: Al Bint al Shalabiya, Asfour, El Helwa Di, Shorabana, Teer, Tel'at, and Tik Tik Tik. This set was commissioned by Ghadeer Abaido and was premiered at the University of Iowa. This piece has been featured on programs for Steinway Artists.
Etudes Book 1
Etudes Book 1 is a collection of 6 concert etudes in the style of Frederic Chopin and Franz Liszt.
Three Echoes
This is a collection of three works about contemporary composers in dialogue with classical musicians. Heiligenstadt Echoes is in dialogue with Beethoven's Sonata in Ab Major, Salzburg Echo extrapolates on "Voi che sapete" from Le Nozze di Figaro, and Endenich Echo responds to Robert Schumann's Ghost Variations. The goal of the composition is to demonstrate that the most we can due to pay our respects to these composers is not to play their music endlessly, but respond to and innovate on their music.
Madonna
Junji Ito wrote about the figure of the Madonna from Christianity as an artifact that is both exalted and neglected. The Madonna, derived from the words for my lady, is a central figure in the art and iconography of Christian religion. My piece explores these ideas of exaltation and neglect through interweaving motifs that demonstrate the contrasting treatments of Mary that have been placed at the center of this iconography. For the musical and textural elements of the piece, I extricate the harmonic foundations of hymns I remember singing in Church, now a far distant memory. In utilizing only memory as an object for reconstruction, even the celebratory moments become shrouded in clouds of nostalgia, glazed in saccharine ignorance or insidiously laced with resentment.
Featured Works
Mono//Logic I
The number “seven” is considered lucky in several cultures, appearing as significant in Chinese culture, Christianity and Judaism, and (though less sacrosanct) gambling. Mathematician Alex Bellos claims it stems from the human desire to search for meaning and collections, while assigning character or personality. Seven becomes appealing out of our numeric system (using number 0-9 as individuals) because it cannot be evenly divided, yet is somewhere in the middle, satisfactory (as opposed to five which leaves people wanting to round up or down) and not as common as three.
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In this piece, I attempt to weave together the ideas of personal identity, introspection, and “train of thought” with the imbalance of the collections of sevens. Sometimes superficial and sometimes deeply embedded, collections of seven create the fundamental constructive elements of the piece in regard to pitch, rhythm, timbre, form, and texture.
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Humans and Insects
Humans and Insects draws its title from Osama Tezuka’s The Book of Human Insects, a narrative about parasitic assimilation. My work expands on this process of assimilation through a starker, discomforting contrast. The pitch material for this piece is based on the harmonic spectrum of a High Spirits Flute. The complexity of this flute’s sound creates an enticing harmonic challenge. The piano searches, in vain, to mimic the spectrum of the flute in an ultra-tonal arrangement. The assimilation is unsuccessful.
A Drop of Molten Gold
Composers have always had a particular fascination with the movement of water and how the image of that water has been sonified. As I have continued to work in the practices of embodied performance, I consider the derivations of created by composers throughout time and how we may continue to innovate on them. A Drop of Molten Gold draws from this practice of embodied performance, but rather than water, I imagine molten gold, how it interacts as a liquid with the world around it, how it bounces and splashes away in the casting process, creating intricate and beautiful shapes. This piece combines my own impression of liquid gold’s movement with technical gestures reminiscent of Ravel’s Jeux D’eau.
Electro-Acoustic
Nobody - Piano and Fixed Media
Nobody is composition about the treatment of the homeless, unhoused, and displaced in America. This piece mixed pre-recorded acoustic instruments, synthesizers, and interviews to weave together a narrative of disconnection and alienation.
Afraid - Piano and Fixed Media
Afraid uses samples from George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead to explore the concepts of death and fear. This film seeks to investigate the romanticization of death and fear, the fear of agency and the inevitable, and the interconnectedness of fear and grief.
Other Works for Solo Piano
Pillars of Marble & Salt
Nocturne for Afternoon
Weatherproof (for Piano & Toy Piano)
Barbatula Barbatula
Dancing with Van Gogh
Of Deepest Black and Brightest Gold
Piano Sonata in E Minor
Winter Walk
Ziggurat: The Tower of Babel