My fourth string quartet consists of chorales, fourteen of them. Some of my concerns here were chromatic voice leading, suspensions as concords, and extended chords implied with four voices. Here’s the first one.

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These seven songs were written in 1999. I was particularly interested in setting metered verse with changing meters, and in a rich two-part texture. Many of them were, inevitably, concerned with loss, given the recent death of my father, and my mother’s declining health (she died shortly afterward). The seven songs are: “Calico Pie” by […]

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A three-part palindromic round, modeled on everyone’s favorite mythical reptile, the hoop snake.

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Jason Little invited me to contribute to a show of machines by cartoonists, called “Comix Ex Machina,” at the Flux Gallery in June 2005. My device, “The Skinner Graduated Pictodisc,” set three hand-painted phenakistascopes spinning on record players at 33, 45, and 78 rpm. Here’s my working drawing. I installed the record players in plastic […]

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My fifth string quartet is based on the “trowie tunes” of the Shetland Islands. I set them diatonically, embellishing them with scordatura, hocketing, harmonics, and other techniques. According to tradition, these tunes are to be played only once, out of respect for the trowies; the quartet is therefore brief.  

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I provided the voice for a disappointed businessman in this industrial cartoon by Mark Newgarden. My fellow actors in this paean to Lucite were Brian Dewan and Russ Reiley. You can watch it here.

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The photocopied dossier you see here collects 49 pages of my songs, mostly for voice and piano. Do let me know if you would like one. The songs (and the texts) are: Epitaph (Richard Corbett) Greenaway Pictures (Kate Greenaway, Jane and Ann Taylor) We Have No Life Beyond Our Daily Life (Doug Skinner) En Route […]

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