From the Stars in the Firmament to the Depths of the Sea explores different types of resonances, from starry high-register clusters through lush mid-register seventh chords, to low, primordial triads. It animates these resonances in a variety of ways, from tolling bells to sweet melodies to bare half notes. The work has a certain lonely […]

Expanding and Contracting is a meditative work that happens to have intricate mathematical processes underlying it. The piece is in three parts and the instrumentation is open; one part is for any keyboard, strummed, or mallet instrument(s); another part is for any treble melodic instrument(s); and the third part is for any two drums of […]

Night Dance is a brief, evocative work for flute (or clarinet) and guitar. It has no specific program, but its circling melodic cells, subtly shifting rhythmic grooves, and undulating harmonies evoke, for me, mysterious nocturnal creatures scurrying and dancing through an enchanted night forest. The seamless integration of improvisation and notated music in the piece […]

The main melody and sonic image for Lucid Dream came to my mind quite suddenly while I was bicycling through San Francisco on a quiet night with a beautiful moon glowing on the horizon. I imagined a slow, quietly unfolding melody, with a halo of other pitches emanating out from it, like shards of crystal. […]

Full Faith and Credit was inspired by the economic crisis that struck in 2008. Well before the crisis actually hit, I had become obsessed with the unsustainable nature of our economy, and with the huge housing bubble and endless sea of debt that seemed to be engulfing everything. When it all came crashing down, writing […]

Sextet began with a groovy little bass line that came into my head one day. I started playing around with layering different patterns on top of it, and what began as a whimsical exercise became the backbone of a dramatic and wide-ranging work. Sextet combines the repeating figures and grid-like structure of post-minimalist music with […]

Composed for the raucously refined duo The Living Earth Show, Repetitive Stress channels the raw power and aggression of heavy metal music through the meticulous structures of post-minimalism, creating intricately off-kilter grooves with unpredictably sudden twists and turns. It was premiered by The Living Earth Show at the 2012 Switchboard Music Festival in San Francisco, […]

Piano Trio is an epic four movement work combining austere minimalism with emotional romanticism and dramatic narrative. Movement 1: A slow, ponderous opening gives way to feverishly undulating figures in the piano under sighing melodies in the violin and cello. A buildup culminates in oozingly descending piano chords, sinking down into a subdued return of […]

Danny’s
 Favorite 
Pocket 
Watch, composed for Yarn/Wire, 
 evokes
 mechanical 
objects 
and 
processes 
that 
seem
 to 
be 
coming
 a 
bit 
unhinged, 
getting 
a 
bit 
off‐track,
 erratically 
speeding
 up 
and
 inappropriately 
slowing 
down.
 Danny
 is
 a 
mild‐mannered 
mad 
scientist, 
trying
 desperately
 to 
get 
his 
favorite 
old 
pocket 
watch 
to 
make 
sense 
again.

Inspired by the last line of a poem by Federico Garcia Lorca (“In the fir trees on the mountain: fireflies”), this piece is a gradually unfolding meditation for string quartet. An initially short chord progression gradually expands, rises in register, and glides through different harmonic areas, like the shifting colors of the evening sky. It […]

String Quartet #1 begins in a straightforward minimalist style, reminiscent of Philip Glass, built around a recurring sequence of four chords centered on an Ab-Cb minor third. Eventually, however, the music gets hung up on a syncopated dissonant chord, and takes a sudden sharp turn in a radically different direction, with aggressive runs in the […]

Five Two Tango is a fun, groovy little piece that is mostly in five, is written for two violinists, and is somewhat tango-like at times. It was a finalist in the Twiolins’ (a German violin duo) 2012 Crossover Composition Award Competition, and was recorded on their CD Sunfire.

Fanfare for Varèse was composed for the Empyrean Ensemble as a fanfare to open their 2007-2008 season. I was thrilled to learn that Edgard Varèse’s Octandre would be featured on the same program and that I would be writing for the same instrumentation (except with a tuba in place of Varèse’s double bass). I determined to […]

Prelude for Piano is a dark and searching meditation, giving way to a more floating, tender middle section, before returning to the darkness.

The four meditations are simple, gentle meditations, each one evoking a different character or mood. The musical materials are very limited. Each meditation has its own characteristic figuration or pattern that repeats and evolves and is refracted through different harmonies. The music is not meant to go somewhere or lead to something, but instead sits […]