ACOUSTIC (/ELECTROACOUSTIC)
the primeval touch found me
snare drum and electronics, September 2023
made using granulated samples of "Try Not to Be Afraid" by DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ
program note:
Through this encounter of club music samples and live physical sounds, the drum is recast as a vessel of memory both real and imagined, amplifying sonic materials from past and present queer nightclub culture in a new, abstract, forward-looking queer relational context. The performer, by way of intimately interacting with and manipulating these memories, attempts to transform nostalgia into futurity.
a matter of attention
solo amplified cymbal, March 2023
program note:
There is at least one hidden sound living within every acoustic instrument. In the case of the cymbal, that sound is a deep, rich fundamental that is only audible from a very close distance. This piece attempts to reveal those particularities by means of close amplification.
the place you left me standing
solo vibraphone, January 2023
commissioned and performed by Victor Sintchak
an exercise in consonance, dissonance, and familiarity, all as functions of time.
the Pacific turned glossy
haegeum and percussion, 2022
performed with and dedicated to Jeonghyeon Joo
a reflection on wildfires, Santa Ana winds, endangered wood/trees, and California summer heat.
from the program note:
"The Pacific turned ominously glossy during a Santa Ana period, and one woke in the night troubled not only by the peacocks screaming in the olive trees but by the eerie absence of surf. The heat was surreal." - Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem
when the world was small
solo vibraphone, 2022
program note:
when the world was small was made over a brief period of isolation during the Summer of 2022. I had a vibraphone in my bedroom, but due to thin walls and noise complaints from neighbors I couldn’t play it above an extremely quiet volume. This piece, a series of short vignettes, was thus created out of a desire to explore the potential for very soft timbres - at a level barely audible to anyone except the performer. The title was inspired partly by the smallness of the sound worlds and partly in response to Girlpool’s song “Before the World Was Big.”
Proximity
solo hand drum, 2022
program note:
Proximity explores the ways in which the meaning and significance of intimate gestures become transformed, strengthened, and/or diluted as time passes and physical distance between relational subjects decreases.
No serious artist wants Las Vegas
solo vibraphone, 2022
an exercise in absence, duration, and illusions of movement and stasis.