Channeling my inner Aaron Copland and Elmer Bernstein, I originally wrote this fun piece for SATB choir and piano. This recording is an orchestral arrangement I wrote about a year after completion of the original choral version.
YechadshaihU
arranged for orchestra
A CHORAL VOCALISE
Choral Ensemble: S.A.E.W. Choir
An experiment in writing choral music without the constraint of fitting text.
SOLACE: QUIET MUSIC FOR TROUBLED TIMES
Piano: Leo Lightstone
Originally for flute and guitar, I wrote this music during the American evacuation from Afghanistan in the fall of 2021. I arranged the piece for solo piano during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in March of 2022.
ALEI TAPUACH (abridged) and INTABULATION
Vocals: Nayeli Abrego
Violin: Erik Johnson-Scherger
Piano & darbuka: Leo Lightstone
My setting of the poem by the medieval poet & philosopher Yehuda HaLevi. Click here for the full choral version. I wrote the music using a modal setting with open fifths in the accompaniment as a nod to the time period of the poem. Intabulation is a fantasy on Alei Tapuach. The overlapping ostinato and theme at the opening and closing of the fantasy is achieved using scordatura tuning, open strings and some wonderful playing.
I Love a song by gershwin
Vocals: Nayeli Abrego
Piano: Leo Lightstone
My homage to George Gershwin. I wanted the music to have a 1930's jazz broadway feel. I wrote the lyrics using a mixture of my own words and the titles of Gershwin songs.
In this short piece the major triads of each key are played over a fixed pitch sequence. An ostinato rhythm occurs throughout and a linearly progressive time phase offset is used with each entry of the dance motive.
New music for an old instrument. I took this idea a little further by writing a set of modern variations on a Sephardi song from the renaissance period. The music employs a digital recording of acoustic and synthesized sounds to incorporate the renaissance musical techniques of clapping and drones.
In this piece the main musical line, and often the supporting lines, move only by an interval of a second.
Music in Seconds
Piano: Gregory Millar
Music for Violin and Piano (Excerpts)*
Another interval piece. The focus is on the interval of a third and its inversion, a sixth. The music explores how the character of these intervals changes depending on harmonic context.
*concert sponsored by Ottawa New Music Creators