To request performance materials or ask a question, email Brian.
BY INSTRUMENTATION
Piano Solo
To Dream in Canons (in progress)
Storm King Miniatures (in progress)
Ordinary Time (in progress)
The Land of Steady Habits (in progress)
Elegy (Clouds) (2018)
bird's eye (2016)
Forgetting Pieces (2013) for piano & recorded poetry
A Friend's Umbrella (2009) for speaking piano
Other Solo
Self-Portrait (You Are Not Your Thoughts) for solo marimba
Lacunae (2013) for solo percussion
Three Topographies (2008) for solo violin
Mixed Chamber
Overloks, Vol. II (in progress) for violin & piano
Finite Things (2021) for flute & piano
The Utterance and the Space (2019) for vibraphone & piano
sea with endless waves (2016) for 4 percussion & 2 keyboards
Seven Songs (2015) for flute, percussion, piano & cello
East (2011) for two flutes, two percussion, violin, viola & piano
Modular Homes (2010) for oboe, trumpet, percussion, piano & cello
Untitled (2009) for percussion, celesta, violin & electric bass
Percussion Ensemble
Migrations (2015) for two or more percussion
Hollows (2014) for two percussion
Ringing/Rising (2013) for six percussion
Large Ensemble
I am afraid of quiet (2013) for four percussion & four keyboards
Like a Man (2010) for 16 players
Rain Towards Morning (2010) for 10 players
when I lived in permanence (2009) for 15 players
Orchestra
Wey-Gat Cycles (2010)
Music for Theater
Incidental Music for The Tempest (2015)
Incidental Music for Ghosts (2011)
Electronic
Our Built Environments (2020)
A Wilderness Grown While We Were Sleeping (2015)
music for empty places (2012)
BY REVERSE CHRONOLOGY
In Progress
The Land of Steady Habits for piano
Ordinary Time for piano
Overlooks, Vol. II for violin & piano
Storm King Miniatures for piano
2021
Finite Things for flute & piano
2020
Our Built Environments for fixed media
Self-Portrait (You Are Not Your Thoughts) for marimba
2019
The Utterance and the Space for vibraphone & piano
2018
Elegy (Clouds) for piano
2016
bird's eye for piano
sea with endless waves for four percussion & two keyboards
2015
Music for The Tempest for percussion sextet
Overlooks, Vol. I for viola & piano or sextet
Seven Songs for flute, percussion, piano & cello
A Wilderness Grown While We Were Sleeping for fixed media
2014
Hollows for percussion duo
Ringing/Rising for percussion sextet
I am afraid of quiet | 2013 | 4 percussion + 4 keyboards
2010
Like a Man | 2010 | 16 players
Modular Homes | 2010 | oboe, trumpet, percussion, piano, cello
2009
Untitled | 2009 | percussion, celesta, violin, electric bass
Like a Man | 2010 | 16 players
Rain Towards Morning | 2010 | 10 players
Wey-Gat Cycles | 2010 | orchestra
when I lived in permanence | 2009 | 15 players
Forgetting Pieces | 2013 | piano + pre-recorded voice
Instrumentation: piano, pre-recorded reader
Texts: poems from The History of Forgetting by Lawrence Raab
Duration: 12 minutes
Movements:
- "The History of Forgetting"
- "After We Saw What There Was to See"
- "Three Wishes"
About the Work:
This is a set of three pieces for solo piano, accompanying the recorded voice of poet Lawrence Raab reading three poems from his collection The History of Forgetting.
Each of the three pieces looks at forgetting and memory from a slightly different angle: the first considers Adam and Eve leaving the garden of Eden, learning, for perhaps the first time in human history, to forget the past. The second is a more personal reflection about family and the speaker's father; the final poem moves outward, considering nostalgia, childhood, and the impossibility of wish fulfillment.
The music for the three pieces also charts a course of ever-increasing focus on the resonance of the piano. The sustain pedal on the piano is depressed for the entire first piece, letting all notes ring freely. In the second, pauses are introduced in the prerecorded voice, letting accumulated piano melodies ring for a few seconds as vertical chords. And finally, the third piece focuses on the sympathetic resonance of the piano strings using the sostenuto pedal, as an increasing number of undamped strings catch the resonance of stuck notes.
Many thanks are owed to poet Lawrence Raab for giving me permission to work with his poetry, for reading and recording his poems for this piece, and for his discussion about the resultant music.
Lacunae | 2012 | solo handbells or vibraphone + distant tape
Instrumentation (Version 1): solo handbells, distant tape
Instrumentation (Version 2): vibraphone, distant tape
Duration: 9 minutes
Written for: Casey McLellan, handbells
Premiered: April 30, 2012 at Chapin Hall, Williamstown, MA
Watch Casey McLellan performing the solo handbell version
About the Work:
La - cu - na n. pl. -nae, -nas : a blank space or missing part : an unfilled space or interval : a small opening : a gap or vacancy : a hiatus : an absent part, especially in a book or manuscript : any minute cavity, as in the substance of bone : a space visible between cells, allowing free passage of light.
Lacunae began its life as a piece for solo handbells and tape. It was written for Casey McClellan, who was actively building a repertoire (where none had existed) for solo handbells. I've re-worked the piece for solo vibraphone and tape. Though the vibraphone version loses a bit of the drama of watching one person navigate a set of handbells, I think it retains the essential arc and resonance of the piece.
In both versions, Lacunae is a set of 16 cells with proportional spaces in between each cell. The cells and the spaces both get longer as the piece progresses, and the spaces gradually fill with the haunting sound of prerecorded handbells or vibraphone, working through the same material but slowed down by a factor of four. The tape sound, which was near silence at the beginning, becomes an equal partner with the live player by the end of the work.
The live part starts simply with a simple pulse, then a polyrhythm of 5 on 4. But it becomes an increasingly tricky tangle of stacked pulses (in the 13th cell, the performer has to execute 3 on 4 on 5 on 6) before capitulating, in a way, and ending in a becalmed, resonant haze, fully integrated with the tape sounds.
A Friend's Umbrella | 2009 | speaking piano
Instrumentation: speaking piano (alternately, can be performed by 1 pianist and 1 live reader)
Text: the poem "A Friend's Umbrella" by Lawrence Raab
Duration: 5 minutes
Premiered: May 15, 2010, Chapin Courtyard, Williamstown, MA
About the Work:
Coming soon.
Topographies | 2008 | violin
Instrumentation: violin
Duration: 12 minutes
Written for: Leo Brown, violin
Premiered: April 19, 2009 at The Robert & Dorothy Ludwig Schenectady JCC, Niskayuna, NY
Movements:
i. Fahnestock State Park
ii. Columbia County, NY
iii. Mount Prospect
About the Work:
This is the first set of pieces I wrote that attempted to musically represent landscape in much the same way a topographical map does. On a map, the nearly infinite amount of detail present in a landscape is simplified into a limited set of useful parameters: land height, the steepness of slopes, the presence of water or trees or man-made objects.
These three solo violin pieces, written for Leo Brown, take three specific places and turn them into simplified musical representations that convey pertinent details about the landscapes. In the first, Fahnestock State Park, the violin moves through a sunny forest before descending into an abandoned iron mine, mimicking the hammering of the mine workers with repetitive, insistent gestures. In the second, the faded industrial past of Columbia County, NY is represented by the machine-like rhythms and constant momentum. In the final, Mount Prospect, the violin continually ascends, moving through swirling arpeggios until a vast and far-flung vista is revealed.
VOCAL
the gentle rigor of things passing | 2009 | SATB x2
Instrumentation: SATB x2
Duration: 5 minutes
Written for: Roomful of Teeth
Premiered: June 26, 2009 at Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA
About the Work:
I wrote two pieces for new music vocal group Roomful of Teeth during a June 2009 residency at Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA. This one, the gentle rigor of things passing, calls for two styles of Tuvan throat singing techniques: xoomei, which produces ringing overtones over a strong fundamental note, and sygyt, which creates powerful whistling overtones and a quiet, almost inaudible fundamental. The piece layers individual notes over one another, slowly building up a spacious and highly resonant soundscape, at once ancient-sounding and new.
what things would say to one another | 2009 | SATB x2 + crotales
Instrumentation: SATB x2, crotales
Duration: 5 minutes
Written for: Roomful of Teeth
Premiered: June 26, 2009 at Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA
About the Work:
I wrote two pieces for new music vocal group Roomful of Teeth during a June 2009 residency at Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA. This one, what things would say to one another, is an atmospheric double hocket, with the four male and four female voices alternating chords while also playing alternating chords on crotales, small metal discs that produce a clear, long-ringing bell sounds.
THEATER
Music for 'The Tempest' | 2015
Instrumentation: percussion sextet
Production Details:
The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Director: Jean-Bernard Bucky
November 12 - 14, 2015
The '62 Center for Theatre and Dance, Williams College, Williamstown, MA
Music for 'Ghosts' | 2011
Instrumentation: piano, synthesizer, melodica, wine glasses
Music Duration: 20 minutes
Production Details:
Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen
Director: Terry Layman
November 17 - 20, 2011
Mort and Irma Handel Performing Arts Center, The Hartt School, Hartford, CT
FIXED MEDIA
Our Built Environments | 2020
Instrumentation: ambient music for fixed media (stereo)
Duration: 90 minutes
Movements:
i. Atrium
ii. Rollercoaster
iii. Power Lines
iv. Contrails
v. Towers
A Wilderness Grown While We Were Sleeping | 2015
Instrumentation: audio and video playback
Duration: 3 minutes
Text: "A Wilderness Grown While We Were Sleeping" by Rebecca Perea-Kane
Images: created by Rebecca Perea-Kane
Premiered: April 18, 2015 as part of the 2015 Tom Tom Founders Festival, Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, VA
music for empty places | 2012
Instrumentation: ambient room music for fixed media (stereo)
Duration: 160 minutes
About the Work:
music for empty places is designed to be played in a room or large space over a long period of time, acting as a continuous source of sound while other events and sounds are occurring in the same space.
I like to think of it as a painting or sculpture, something which has a continued physical presence in a space that you can either choose to focus on or ignore. It doesn't demand your constant attention like concert music, but rather fills a space like light, slowly changing as hours pass, indifferent to whatever other activity is occurring simultaneously.
Play it in a room you aren't occupying; play it in a room you are occupying and do something else until you forget its still playing; play it in a room and leave it for someone else to find; play it in a public space and wait for someone else to notice it; play it in a room, leave the room, leave the building, think about it still playing in the empty room in the empty building.