Love Songs for Ada (2020)
For soprano with piano accompaniment. Commissioned by the East Passyunk Opera Project. Finalist Honorable Mention for the American Prize in Composition (Vocal Chamber Music).
Love Songs for Ada is a setting of three poems written by American poet Amy Lowell (1874-1925). First published in 1922, these sensual and vivid texts are a testament to Lowell’s romantic relationship with actress Ada Dwyer Russell, whom she met in 1912. The poems have an improvisatory, dreamlike quality, as Lowell moves from metaphor to metaphor, planting repetitive words and themes along the way. In these three songs I connect the three texts in a single musical fabric, unbroken but stylistically diverse. The spirituality and wonder of the text is reflected in improvisatory and quasi-recitative passages, while the recurrence of melodic motives create a cyclic form that alludes to the temporal metaphors in the text and conveys the depth and plenitude of revelatory love.
Ca. 12:00
Listen to a recent performance here.
Still ist’s im Wald (2018)
For soprano solo and chamber orchestra - Finalist for the American Prize in Orchestral Composition - Commissioned by the Temple Composers Orchestra
Still ist’s im Wald is written in memory of my great-grandparents, who immigrated to the United States in the 1920’s. The text (sung in German, with interpolated spoken English translations) is an excerpt from Julius Wolff’s Der Rattenfänger von Hameln (1876), and the composition is heavily influenced by Klezmer modes and the improvisatory style of the Jewish nigun.
Ca. 11:30
Listen here.
Five Harpsichord Miniatures (2013)
Alternately fiery, lyrical, lush, and quirky, these five pieces showcase the timbral capabilities of the harpsichord in five pithy snapshots. These miniatures have been performed at events around the United States and abroad, including the Nordic Historical Keyboard Festival in Kuopio, Finland; the Geelvinck Fortepiano Festival in Amsterdam, and the Society for Composers Region III Festival. Five Harpsichord Miniatures is dedicated to Joyce Lindorff, who both prompted me to write this piece and kindly offered her expertise and insight during the writing process.
Ca. 5:00
Listen here.
On Whale Beach: Dances for String Quartet (2021)
Commissioned by the Skyros Quartet
On Whale Beach: Dances for String Quartet was composed for the Skyros Quartet, as part
of the “Dance and Resistance: A New Works Celebration” program at the 2021
Common Tone Chamber Music Festival in Moscow, Idaho.
Ca. 6:00
Recording coming soon!
a dark place is not a dark place (2018)
For trombone quartet - Commissioned by the Elysian Trombone Consort
This piece draws its title from the poem “A Long Dress” (from Tender Buttons) by Gertrude Stein. The idea of questioning the essence of objects and feelings is paralleled by the emergence, obfuscation, and eventual triumph of a simple melodic motive over the course of the piece. The sense of discontinuity and discomfort is amplified by percussive effects such as hitting or rattling the bell with a felt-tipped mallet, and scraping the mouthpiece across the strings of a grand piano (alternate directions are provided for performances where a piano is unavailable). The piece’s overall narrative trajectory from jumble to unity reflects the idea of overcoming a “dark place” within ourselves. A dark place is not a dark place was premiered at the International Women’s Brass Conference with additional performances at the International Trombone Festival and the University of Louisville’s New Music Festival.
Ca. 9:00
Listen here.
To a New Beloved (2013)
For flute and mezzo-soprano - Selected for the Composer’s Voice “Fifteen Minutes of Fame” concert series (fifteen one
minute works by fifteen composers).
To a New Beloved is a setting of text spoken by Titania in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and conveys Titania's enchanted infatuation with Bottom after his singing wakes her from slumber.Elements of whimsy such as trills, tongue pizzicato, and improvisation, are offset by more serious dramatic ideas conveyed through parlando and melisma. The result is a lighthearted yet earnest declaration of love.
Ca. 1:00
Watch a recent performance here.
Gallant (Mis)adventures in Quixotism (2014)
For chamber orchestra
Alternately lighthearted, bombastic, menacing, and lyrical, this capricious piece for chamber orchestra seeks to capture the spectacular and tumultuous stories of our daily lives—particularly the misadventures that pose incredible frustration in the moment but seem immaterial or humorous in retrospect. Gallant (Mis)adventures casts all of us as intrepid adventurers navigating through life, and seeks to remind us not to take things too seriously.
Ca. 7:30
Listen here.
and other stories (2017)
For solo piano - Written for the Sisterhood of Composer/Performers Concert Series
This set of short pieces for solo piano tells a coming-of-age story. The brokenness of Waltz (at the ballet lesson) conveys a young girl’s relationship with her body as she apprehends expectations of grace and poise. Nocturne (things my grandmother gave me) reflects on the influence and lineage of strong women. Pastorale (little yellow dog) and Romance (coffee shop talk) explore love, responsibility, and relationship building, while Toccatina is a commentary on the tension and unrest that characterize navigating today’s world.
Ca. 9:30
Listen to the third and fourth pieces here.
Third Party Consequences
For solo piano and five dancers - Choreography by Megan Mizanty
Third Party Consequences was written as a collaborative work between Sabrina Clarke and choreographer Megan Mizanty in the summer of 2013. The work explores the "butterfly effect," expressing the repercussions of small decisions through movement. This is musically paralleled via a freely flowing structure of contrasting sections which are unified by distinct sets, repeated melodic motives, and improvisational elements. A version of the work in progress was featured in a show called "enter hurricane," held at the Little Berlin exhibition space in Philadelphia in August of 2013, with a more finalized version presented at Temple University several weeks later.
Ca. 8:00
Watch a performance at Little Berlin (Philadelphia) here.
Counting Tomatoes
For solo viola
Counting Tomatoes is a musical depiction of one of my earliest childhood memories, of gathering tomatoes from the family garden with my father when I was about three years old. Although the memory itself has become worn out and uncertain over time, the feelings associated with it remain strong. This memory is musically depicted as ideas that are fragmented and recalled little by little. Like the fragments of memory, these melodic ideas develop and connect, branching out and embedding themselves in past, present, and future.
Ca. 6:00
Listen here.