2010
Duration 10'30"
Commissioned by Alan Wenger.

The Final Stroke of Nine for trumpet and piano was inspired by the final stanza of the first section ("The Burial of the Dead") of T.S.Eliot's poem "The Wasteland." In this stanza, Eliot references the living death of the down-trodden, modern man, looping through day after day of routine and drudgery. In the unreal city, the "final stroke of nine" is marked with a dead sound, appropriate for the beginning of a new work-day.

2008
Duration 8'
Commissioned by the Athens Saxophone Quartet

T. S. Eliot's masterwork, The Waste Land, is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential poems of the 20th century. In his notes on the poem, Eliot says that the first part of the fifth section of the poem (What The Thunder Said) employs three themes: "the journey to Emmaus, the approach to the Chapel Perilous (see Miss Weston's book), and the present decay of eastern Europe." Regardless of these deeper references, this section of the poem features some of Eliot's most striking and effective imagery. Beginning in the second stanza, at line 331, with the words "Here is no water but only rock," Eliot's imagery turns dry, suffocating, and desperate. His use of repetition over the next 27 lines drives home the feeling of a person lost in a desert of rock, searching endlessly for water, but finding none. In the quartet here is no water but only rock, the music is similarly arid – especially in the opening section – and searches futilely for stability and comfort. It achieves a sort of stability and trajectory in the end, through appropriating the rhythms and energy of rock music, but mixed with a grating, dissonant, aggressive sense of harmony, which offers no succor or release. The closest the music comes to water is in the tenor saxophone solo at rehearsal letter J – which references the "God-Music" section of Crumb's Black Angels – but the search ends once more in rock.

2007
Duration 9'
Commissioned by the Thelema Trio
Recorded by the Thelema Trio on neither from nor towards (innova CD752).

neither from nor towards (ballade) explores motion within stasis, and the intersection of process with intuition. Its quick flurries of notes tend only gradually toward large-scale movement, and fall back time and again to the unchanging center. The piece is based on my earlier work, Ballade, for soprano saxophone and marimba, and takes its title from a line of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton. Like Eliot's paradoxical "still point of the turning world" – itself clearly linked to contemporaneous ideas emerging from early quantum mechanics – the pitch center of neither from nor towards is always crucial, yet never in the foreground. Instead, the instruments dance around that center, sometimes trading glances at each other across it, sometimes joining in furious consort to stray away from it (and yet always falling back).

2005
Duration 15'

Please contact me for a perusal score and/or recordings.

2005
Duration 14'

Please contact me for a perusal score and/or recordings.

2004
Duration 2'30"

The word "loft" makes me think of hurling something into the air – and the energy of this work responds to that connotation – but it also makes me think of lofty ideals, the aristocracy of philosophy. Fanfares and aristocracy go hand in hand. "Loft" further connotes the thickness of a layer of down, a measurement of many particles supported by small pockets of air, like the many notes of this piece are supported by the air of the performers. Finally "Loft" was the name of one of my favorite beers. Now sadly abandoned, but formerly produced by the New Belgium Brewing Company, it was a summery, delightful drink, sparkling with energy and effervescence. While the beer, unlike the piece, had no connection to the octatonic scale, the two do share that effervescent quality. 

2003
Duration 6'

Like many of my pieces, Axegrinder began as a title incorporating a play on words, instead of a purely musical idea. Musicians will immediately recognize the word “axe” as slang for “instrument,” especially string instruments. Likewise, the opening sounds of the piece not only remind me of the sound of a blade being ground on a whetstone but could be heard as grinding the instruments themselves. Beyond that, the idea of “having an axe to grind,” or of being obsessed with a certain idea, informed my choice of material, which is very limited. The entire work, with the exception of the extended viola solo – perhaps a person trapped in conversation with an axegrinder – is derived in one way or another from the opening sonority. Axegrinder is basically ternary in form, with the opening section spinning out of control into the contrasting B section (the viola solo). The work then returns to the opening material and revs up the whetstone on the way to the conclusion.

1997, rev. 2003
Duration 10'40"
Composed for Janell Christie and Michael Overman.

This work serves as the basis for the trio neither from nor towards (ballade). The original piece is for soprano saxophone and marimba; a revised version exists for soprano saxophone and piano. Either version of the work may be performed on clarinet instead of soprano saxophone.

2002
Duration 10'

haze came from a free association, like many of my works. In general, my music starts with a title first, with musical ideas generated from my responses to that title and different associations I make with it. In this case, the word "haze" came to me as an interesting title for a work. I immediately began thinking in terms of aleatoric music, existing as a “haze of possibilities.” From there it was an immediate jump to the instrumentation. It seemed to me that this group of instruments, with its wide variety of tone colors, could provide quite a range of possibilities in an aleatoric work. The next step was a word-based association, to Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze, which shapes several structural layers of this work, though it is generally obscured by the haze on top.

2001
Duration 8'

Stall Song began as a piece for soprano and two guitars, on texts copied from a bathroom stall in one of the music buildings on the university campus where I teach. The text was not risqué; instead, it consisted of a rather amusing argument about religion and music practice schedules. It began with the words "Practice Saves," which apparently offended another person, who responded "Jesus Saves." A well-reasoned discussion ensued, covering most of the walls of the toilet stall. As the piece developed, the melodic line began to be difficult to sing. Rather than abandon the line – I was quite fond of it – I decided to abandon the soprano and the text, and they were replaced with an oboe. The singing, lyrical nature of the piece is retained and the rhythmic stresses in the oboe recitative near the beginning of the work come from the stress patterns of the original text.

2000
Duration 7'

bear brings the raw energy and drive of rock music to the concert hall. The piece was composed after hearing a concert of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. The piece is divided and subdivided into large and small sections featuring different sorts of sounds, with a middle that could be called “Berio’s anthem-rock.” The ideas of contrast and “load-bearing columns” (hence the title) are central to the music.

1996, rev. 2000
Duration 6'30"

Flamingo Mozambique derives its title from its use of the Mozambique rhythm, which consists of 3 beats plus 3 beats plus 2 beats repeated over and over again. In the case of this work, this pattern is fragmented and presented in a variety of forms. The piece retains the drive and swing of Mozambique-based jazz while using a modern approach to harmonic language. The music closes with a comical tribute to the traditional ending for a jazz tune in this style.

1999
Duration indeterminate.

(Withdrawn)

1998
Duration indeterminate.

(Currently unavailable)

1997
Duration 5'

(Currently unavailable)

1996
Duration 10'

(Currently unavailable)

1996
Duration 7'

(Currently unavailable)

1994
Duration 7'
Winner, 1994 FSMTA/MTNA CPP-Belwin Composition Competition

(Currently unavailable)

1994
Duration 8'

(Currently unavailable)

1992
Duration 4'

(Currently unavailable)

1991
Duration 4'

(Currently unavailable)