Welcome to my webpage. Here you will find a calendar of upcoming performances of my compositions, a list of my works with audio and score excerpts, my biography and reviews of my music. I also have a MySpace page. You are welcome to look around and contact me if you have any questions or would like copies of scores, parts or recordings. Enjoy!
As a composer, I aim to create compelling yet accessible musical works that vividly engage my listener's emotions, imagination and spirit. My music is often inspired by the visual arts, dance, poetry, and traditional and early music. Generally, my musical vocabulary is eclectic, synthesizing and juxtaposing traditional tonality, modalism, expressionistic chromaticism, musical quotations and references to popular and jazz idioms. I enjoy �writing for my gig,� that is, finding just the right style, form and difficulty level for every piece I compose. This process always keeps things interesting, keeps me connected to the performers I'm working with and allows me to continue to broaden my horizons.
A number of my pieces have been inspired by historical music. For example, my recent orchestral piece Organum Infinitum is based on a vocal piece by the medieval composer Perotin. In other cases, my historical inspiration has been from alchemy, the visual arts and architecture. For instance, I use quotations from surreal seventeenth-century alchemical texts in my electro-acoustic string quartet piece Symbiosis Nonetheless and I musically depict the bizarre images of medieval marginalia in my cantata, Motets & Marginalia. Similarly, Labyrinth for solo saxophone and narrator was inspired by a floor labyrinth located in a medieval church in Ravenna, Italy. Incorporating traditional folk music and non-Western instruments into my music is also an interest of mine. For example, my Fiddlin' After Midnight is based on Appalachian folk tunes and features a traditional fiddler. My Currents in Liquid Paper is scored for Japanese koto and violin and I collaborated with an African drummer in composing the music for the dance production Contents Under Pressure. I am well versed in choral music and compose a fair amount in this genre. Highlights of recent choral performances include the premier of my Adam Lay Ybounden to an audience of 3000+ at the 2006 Lessons & Carols Services at Sewanee: The University of the South, TN, and the premier of my Magnificat/Nunc Dimittis by the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music Chamber Choir (February 2005).
I have had wonderful experiences collaborating in dance, theater and multimedia productions. While living in Durham, NC (1996-2001), I composed the music for two evening-length works, Walking Miracles and Contents Under Pressure. These shows dealt with such themes as child abuse, racism and bias and were both educational and powerfully therapeutic for the community. More recently, I co-founded (with choreographer Angela Hill) Art Moves, a reoccuring site-specific dance production at the Knoxville Museum of Art. The music and dance of these shows are based on works of art on display in the museum. Since 2005, I've been on the steering committee of the Tennessee Valley UU Church Performing Art & Lecture Series and I organize a thematic multimedia concert event every season. (2006: Sounds of the Labyrinth; 2007: Echoes of Appalachia; forthcoming 2008: Waging Peace in Times of War)
(For more about these collaborations, please see my Works List page.)
My works have been featured at the New Music Days Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden, the Oregon Bach Festival, the Belvedere Chamber Music Festival (Memphis, TN), the Encounters/UNC Festival of New Music, the North Carolina Dance Festival, the NYU Composers Seminar, the Sonoklect New Music Festival, the Otterbein "Old Links to New Music" Contemporary Music Festival, the University of Nebraska New Music Festival and various academic music conferences. They have been performed by such groups as the Plymouth Music Series Orchestra, Auros Group for New Music, Ciompi String Quartet, Rilke Ensemble, a renowned professional choir in Sweden, Luna Nova, the Northwestern University Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Cornell Chamber Singers, University of Washington Chorale, and by college choirs throughout the Southeast.
RECENT NEWS: My works Labyrinth for alto saxophone and narrator and Moses and the Serpent for alto saxophone and percussion are now published by Dorn Publications, Inc. (See Works List for more about these pieces.) I also happened to notice recently that a number of used copies of the ever popular (yet out-of print!) Palm Court Christmas CD, which features 10 chamber music arrangements of mine, are currently available at amazon.com. And the price is right!
RECENT & UPCOMING PERFORMANCES:
Dans le labyrinthe de Marais (2002), Luna Nova Music Ensemble (Craig Hultgren, cello, Adam Bowles, piano), Looking Forward Looking Back, Monday, October 6, 2008, 7:30, First Congregational Church, 1000 S. Cooper St., Memphis, TN.
Gryllus, Adam Bowles, piano, 4:00, January 25, 2009, Beethoven Club, Memphis, TN & January 26, 2009, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AK.
ART MOVES 2009, a site-specific multimedia dance production event at the Knoxville Museum of Art, Momentum Dance Lab, Saturday & Sunday afternoon, February 21 & 22, 2009, KMA, Knoxville, TN. (For more about Art Moves, see Workslist)
SOUNDS & SWEET AIRS: Shakespeare & Music, featuring my Menacing Spirits: 2 Shakespearean Monologues for contralto and piano, and performances by the Wild Thyme Players, Momentum Dance Lab, and others, 8 p.m., April 28, 2009, PALS, Tennessee Valley UU Church, 2931 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN.
2007-08 Season Performances
2006-07 Season Performances
2005-06 Season Performances
2004-05 Season Performances
I'm currently living in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Please feel free to e-mail me if have any questions or would like any additional information
about me or my works.
Links
BIO
Works List
Reviews
Score Excerpts
My Space