works

Rumi Songs

These five songs are settings of poems by Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273), a 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic. The choice to set Rumi’s verses was an easy one, since they are immediately beautiful, moving and evocative. His poetry has an innate musicality and lyricism, and Rumi was himself an avid lover of music. Rather than choosing to set these poems for a more traditional ensemble (voice and piano, for instance), I’ve written for voice and pipa. These settings may have little or nothing to do with Persian tradition, as I’ve set English translations (by Coleman Barks) for a Western-trained singer and a Chinese traditional instrument. To me, this is a testament to the universal nature of the poetry. These poems are read and cherished across the world in various translations, and their popularity is due in large part to the universal themes Rumi explores in his writing. The verses are clearly love poems, but to whom are they written? The capitalized “You” in the first poem suggests it is dedicated to a god, but could it also be directed to a person, or to nature itself? Rumi’s poems have a myriad of meanings for a variety of readers, and it’s my hope that these settings, too, will be taken in whatever way you may choose to receive them.

These setttings are dedicated to Rachel Shutz and Yang Jing.

Trembling Light

Trembling Light was inspired by beautiful distortions, the kind created when a pebble is tossed into a pond reflecting the moon. Throughout the piece, tones and chords are “shaken” by quick repetitions and added vibrato. The piece begins simply, with both haegeum and piano playing in unison, then gains momentum as the tempo gradually increases and the texture thickens. By the end, what was once clear has been completely distorted, like the moonlight shattered across a churning ocean.

This piece is written for and dedicated to Soo Yeon Lyuh.

Won’t Do Wrong No More

For many years I’ve wanted to write a piece incorporating the American Blues, but I hesitated because I hadn’t yet found an ensemble that could evoke the timbres and gestures that would best evoke the genre. I was surprised, then, when I was introduced to gugak, Korean traditional music, since much of that music seemed to share the same sound world as the Blues. Won’t Do Wrong No More makes its Blues roots clear from the outset, with the piri imitating the sound of a blues singer’s raspy voice. As the piece goes, it moves in and out of blues landscapes, occasionally returning to the opening theme.

This piece is dedicated to Ji-young Yi, Chiwan Park and Woongsik Kim.

excerpts: performed by members of Contemporary Music Ensemble Korea: Ji-young Yi, gayageum; Chiwan Park, piri; Woongsik Kim, janggu

Won’t Do Wrong No More: sample 1

Won’t Do Wrong No More: sample 2

Three

I am not normally the sort of person who is interested in numbers. As I wrote this piece, though, I found it nearly impossible to ignore an intense gravitational pull towards the number three. Besides the obvious connection to three (this piece is a trio, after all), there are a variety of other references. Originally I had intended to write a three-minute piece, though it gained two more minutes during composition. Countless gestures in the piece, including the opening explosive statement, are repeated three times. The piece itself is divided into three sections, the last of which is dominated by a three-note motive. (I should mention that this is my first experience writing for the shamisen, a three-stringed instrument. Fate strikes again?) The majority of this piece was composed in the third week of January and, in a coincidental turn, it was premiered in the third month of the year.

excerpt: performed by members of AURA-J

Three

Pieces of the Sky

This is a unique piece for me, because it is my first work for a Korean traditional instrument. At the time I began writing these pieces, I was spending time with the poetry of Spanish writer Frederico Garcia Lorca. His poems often conjure images of the moon and sun, and I found myself writing with those pictures in mind. I chose to write four short pieces, each based on a fragment of Lorca’s poetry describing some facet of the sky.

These pieces are written for and dedicated to Ji-young Yi, who gave the premiere in the Summer of 2009 in Seoul.

excerpts: performed by Ji-young Yi

I. Some blind girls ask questions of the moon

II. Your illusion, sun, is to make the garden turn technicolor

III. Beneath the tender protest of the stars

IV. Singing, the Seven Maidens (Theory of the rainbow)

Tumbling From the Ninth Height of Heaven

The piece takes its title from a poem by Li Bai (c. 700-762), a Chinese poet from the Tang dynasty. The poem, “Viewing the Waterfall at Mount Lu,” describes an enormous waterfall at Mount Lu in Kiangsi province:

Sunlight streaming on Incense Stone kindles violet smoke;
far off I watch the waterfall plunge to the long river,
flying waters descending straight three thousand feet,
till I think the Milky Way has tumbled from the ninth height of Heaven.
(trans. Burton Watson)

Tumbling from the Ninth Height of Heaven is available on Duo vio-LINK-oto’s “Taking the Scarlet” CD:

Tumbling from the ninth height of heaven

This and That

The title of This and That refers both to the scoring of the piece (percussion duo and percussion ensemble) and to how the piece was composed.  Each of the three movements is scored for two different kinds of instruments.  The first movement, “Sticks and Stones,” has half the ensemble playing only wooden dowels, and the other half playing small stones.  The soloists also play sticks and stones, with one playing a set of tuned bowls with wooden sticks and the other striking stones against wood.  The second movement, “Mallets and Metals,” features a variety of metal instruments (chimes, cymbals, brake drums) and instruments played by mallets (vibraphone, marimba).  The third movement, “Drums and Drones,” is just that: long sustained pitches over a variety of drums, built as one long crescendo to the end.

The IronWorks Percussion Duo (Dave Gerhart and Axel Clarke) with the Cal State-Long Beach Percussion Ensemble; Shota Hanai, conductor

Distant Voices

In the summer of 2007 I came across a recording of music that was unlike anything I had heard before. Multiple voices sang repeating patterns on top of each other, creating an intricate weave of sound. This music was of the Baka Pygmies, an African culture found in Cameroon, Gabon and Congo. The melodies I had heard are yelli, songs that the Baka women sing for good luck in the men’s hunting. The music is improvised polyphony, in which each singer repeats melodic patterns and varies them with each repetition. A fascinating, lush texture is created when these melodies are layered, and I have tried to recreate some of those textures in this piece.

Distant Voices was written for Grant Okamura and the University of Hawai‘i Wind Ensemble, who premiered the piece in February 2008.

excerpt: University of Hawaii Wind Ensemble, Grant Okamura conducting

Distant Voices

Smoke, Steel, Stone, Cinder

I’ve often found myself writing music inspired by the elements. Fire, ice, wind, water . . . all these have been the focus of recent works. This piece, too, was inspired by the elements: the elements of industry.

excerpts: performed by the USC Contemporary Music Ensemble; Donald Crockett, conductor

Smoke

Steel

The Nostalgia of the Infinite

The unique title of the piece is taken from the painting ‘La nostalgie de l’infini’ by Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978). De Chirico was a part of the Metaphysical movement in painting at the beginning of the twentieth century. This Italian movement was characterized by bizarre and sometimes quirky imagery, and was a strong influence on the Surrealist painters Salvador Dali and Joan Miro. The painting itself currently calls New York home, residing in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

De Chirico’s work, which depicts two small shadowed figures at the foot of an enormous tower, seems to contrast the enormous with the minuscule, the cold with the warm, and the unfeeling with the sentient. It evokes a sense of something beyond the grasp of the anonymous characters, something infinite and unchanging. The opening of the piece pits a cold, harsh sound against a freer, more human music. As the piece continues these two opposites return in various guises, set between passages of a more contemplative, timeless music. Eventually, both the severe and the warmer music combine, leading to a burst of energy which dissipates into a brief restatement of the earlier materials.

The piece was premiered by Paul Haas and the New York Youth Symphony in March 2005 in Carnegie Hall, and was commissioned by the ensemble’s ‘First Music’ program.

excerpt: performed by the New York Youth Symphony; Paul Haas, conductor

The Nostalgia of the Infinite

The Burning Music

While composing The Burning Music, I had in front of me Carl Sandburg’s short poem, “Fire Pages:”

I will read ashes for you, if you ask me.
I will look in the fire and tell you from the gray lashes
And out of the red and black tongues and stripes,
I will tell how fire comes
And how fire runs far as the sea.

excerpt: performed by the USC Thornton Symphony Orchestra; Donald Crockett, conductor

The Burning Music

Welcoming Music

Welcoming Music is meant to be performed an event, as the audience enter a space. The music is a spacious, slow harmonic progresssion that fills the space, preparing the audience for the event to come.

Second Day Nothing

‘Second Day Nothing’ is written after Jonas Burgert’s painting of the same name. The painting depicts a busy, chaotic scene in which a variety of humanoid beings surround what appears to be some kind of crater. From this crater the crowd extracts a neon-colored ooze, dipping and hauling buckets from the scene of recent destruction. The painting is equally colorful and unsettling, and is filled with stark contrasts between bright and dark colors.

In writing the piece to accompany this painting, I opted to depict the scene as Burgert has. The piece is meant to illustrate the aftermath of some traumatic event. The music opens with what may be the very end of a large explosion. Following this, the strings gradually accumulate sonorities as if filling a crater with some thick substance. Next, one may hear buckets being lifted ever-upwards as the ensemble plays gestures that always rise from below. The music then intensifies and the accumulation of sound continues. In the end, though, the music returns to where it began, with only faint whispers to remind one of the crowd that once gathered at this site.

The piece was written for a Fall 2008 concert at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, Colorado, and the premiere was conducted by Devin Hughes.

Glass Tapestries

I wrote this piece after seeing the Los Angeles skyline illuminated at night from a nearby hilltop. The clouds hung low over the buildings so that it seemed as if they were hanging from the sky rather than reaching up from the earth. The piece is a meditation on that sight.

The premiere performance of the work took place in Los Angeles in the Fall of 2005.

excerpt: performed by Suzanne Buerkle and Johanna Borenstein, flutes
Jennifer Stevenson and Gi-Hyun Sunwoo, clarinets
Yuri Inoo and Dave Gerhart, vibraphones

Glass Tapestries

Furioso: Vendetta for String Quintet

furioso:(adj) furious, violent, raging

The piece was written for the T’ang Quartet and Bassist Eric Larson, who premiered the piece at the Tanglewood Music Center in the Summer of 2004.

excerpts: performed by the T’ang Quartet and Eric Larson, bass

Furioso: sample 1

Furioso: sample 2

Five Fixations for Eight Players

These five movements are concerned with fascination, compulsion, and, ultimately, obsession. Each “fixation” is an exploration of a single idea, which presents itself at the outset of each movement.

The piece opens with a short motive, repeated throughout with unwavering assertion. This motive then becomes the primary fixation of the piece, making appearances in the second and fifth movements. The music of the first movement also makes its presence felt in the third fixation, “Chants and Echoes,” when the underlying piano chords return as an uninvited interruption. “Digging In,” the fourth fixation, is the only movement which makes no reference to the opening music. Instead, the music focuses on a simple rhythmic pattern without ever breaking from it. The final movement, “One Last Thought…,” finally exhausts its musical preoccupations and turns to a fresh idea, one which is stated and then gone.

The ‘Five Fixations’ were premiered by the USC Thornton Contemporary Music Ensemble, conducted by Donald Crockett, in the Fall of 2003.

excerpt: performed by the USC Contemporary Music Ensemble; Donald Crockett, conductor

I: “On Pins and Needles”

The Ends of the Earth: four impromptus for piano

When friend and pianist Derek Polischuk contacted me about writing a new piece for him, he proposed an intriguing idea: compose a new set of pieces that will serve as a companion to Schubert’s Impromptus, Op. 142. As one who has always had a fascination and love of Schubert’s music, I was happy to take on such an exciting challenge.

Nocturnal

Nocturnal is a series of five night portraits, each taking place at different times throughout the evening. The first scene, “Voices in the night (with bell tolling in the distance),” begins with the piano tolling away the hours, while the saxophone sings a syncopated melody above. The second portrait, “Staring at the traces of passing headlights,” has the sax and piano working together in portraying a busy street scene. After a third-movement bout with “Insomnia” comes “Howling,” which gives the sax player a chance to connect with his inner primal side. The piece finishes with a scene of “Phosphorescent fireflies” filling the night sky with points of light before day breaks.

This piece is written for Todd Yukumoto, who premiered the piece in Fall 2010.

excerpts: performed by Todd Yukumoto, alto sax, and Thomas Osborne, piano

I. Voices in the night (with bell tolling in the distance)

II. Staring at the traces of passing headlights

III. Insomnia

IV. Howling

V. Phosphorescent fireflies

In Perpetuum

‘In Perpetuum’ was written for the Hawai‘i Institute for Contemporary Music piano competition. The short piece is written in a perpetuum mobile (‘perpetual motion’) style, in which the steady stream of 16th notes remains virtually unbroken for the length of the piece. I conceived the piece in a loose ABA form, with more aggressive outer sections framing a quieter middle one. In this middle section a short chorale emerges from the texture, and it is this section which gives the piece its title. In Perpetuum translates to “forever,” referring to the timeless, “frozen” music found in the middle of the piece.

excerpt: performed by Ayano Saito

In Perpetuum

Imaginary Ceremonies

In ancient Korea there existed a unique kind of court ritual, in which the king’s every movement was accompanied by music. One imagines a scene in which whenever the ruler was to drink, musicians would first be required to play a tune wishing him good health and a long life. If he was to cross the room, he would move to the pace of a slow, stately melody. Few actions could be performed without a musical introduction, and one imagines that only when he sat completely motionless would the king find a bit of silence.

excerpt: performed by Yuko Yoshikawa, marimba, and Yuri Inoo, percussion

2. “Music for a walk in the garden”

like still water

‘like still water’ was written for percussionist Yuri Inoo in the Summer of 2004.

The piece is a quiet, glassy surface with slow ripples moving through it.

excerpt: performed by Yuri Inoo and Thomas Osborne

like still water

And the Waves Sing Because They are Moving

Many of my works attempt to portray an image, and many of those images are taken from the elements: fire, ice, stone, steel, et cetera. This work is no different. The title of the work is taken from two lines by Philip Larkin:

And the waves sing because they are moving,
And the waves sing above a cemetery of waters.

excerpt: performed by Jason Hardink

And the Waves Sing Because They are Moving

Warm it Up

Warm it Up was written in the Spring of 2002 for percussionist Matthew McClung. This piece holds a unique distinction for me, as it is the only work I’ve written while battling a fever. Writing under such adverse conditions yielded some interesting results, and made for one of the most aggressive and theatrical pieces I’ve yet written.

excerpt: performed by Matthew McClung

Warm it Up

Six Short Pieces

These pieces were written in the Spring of 2001 in Houston, Texas. Coming off a slew of large-scale compositions, I turned to smaller forms for some much-needed refreshment. The pieces in this set were written as preludes, and each explores a single musical idea. The opening piece, marked “subdued,” uses only the motive heard at the outset as its material. The next piece is a drive toward a simple melody and a subsequent dissolution of the tune. The third piece is a conversation concerning a gritty motive. The fourth piece, in which both violin and viola are locked together, is a chorale heard through a thick haze. The angst-inspired fifth piece centers around a short ostinato. The last piece is an imaginary dance in which the partners begin together, then part, and finally return for the finish.

Christine Wu and Daniel Strba gave the premiere of these pieces in Houston in 2002.

excerpt: performed by Christine Wu, violin, and Daniel Strba, viola

2. Allegro

Sonata for Violin and Piano

Sonata for Violin and Piano was written in the Summer of 1999 for violinist Virginia Respess. The piece is in four movements:

I. Dialogues: As the title promises, this movement is a conversation between violinist and pianist.

II. Nocturne: A chance for the violin to sing over a flowing accompaniment.

III. Calm and Still: This movement begins calm and still, but soon becomes something quite different.

IV. Pas de Deux: A quick, virtuosic dance for two.

The piece was premiered in Ann Arbor, MI in the Fall of 1999 by Ms. Respess and the composer.

excerpt: performed by Virginia Respess, violin, and Thomas Osborne, piano

III. Calm and Still

Islands

‘Islands’ is a setting of a text by W.S. Merwin, a poet living on Maui. It was first performed by the University of Hawai’i Chamber Singers, directed by Rachel Samet, in Spring 2008 in Honolulu.

excerpt: performed by the University of Hawaii Chamber Singers; Rachel Samet, conductor

Islands

Songs of a Thousand Autumns

When I began composing Songs of a Thousand Autumns I had intended to set the texts of only one poet. The love poems of Ono no Komachi, a ninth-century Japanese poet, had left a powerful impression on me. Since first discovering them I had been waiting for the opportunity to put these words to music. Komachi’s poems, written in the standard five-line tanka form, are infused with a sense of longing, impermanence and, at times, despair. Such themes are typical of ancient Japanese poetry. But something was needed to balance out all this anxiety. Sei Shonagon, like Komachi, was active in the court during Japan’s Heian period, and is most famous for having written a collection of short texts called The Pillow Book. Unlike Komachi, Shonagon’s texts are often lighthearted, whimsical, and humorous, with writings titled “Oxen should have very small foreheads,” and “I cannot stand a woman who wears sleeves of unequal width.” In The Pillow Book she also compiled a number of lists, and it is these texts that I inserted between Komachi’s poems.

excerpts: performed by Tracy Rhodus,soprano; Dara Morales, violin; Julie Edwards,viola; Walter Haman, cello; Kimi Kawashima, piano

6. “Things that lose by being painted”

7. “Since my heart placed me on board your drifting ship”

8. “Like a ripple that chases the slightest caress of the breeze”

11. “Things that cannot be compared”

These songs are the result of a collaboration with poet Jennifer Kwon Dobbs in the Spring of 2003. Each of the four short poems deals with some facet of Winter, from freeze to thaw.

‘Four Winter Nocturnes’ was first performed in Los Angeles in 2003, with soprano Erica Miller accompanied by the composer.

excerpt: performed by Erica Miller and Thomas Osborne

No. 1