Dangerous Coats was written in 2020 for Joshua Thomas’s Smart Repertoire project. Thomas and a consortium of 49 saxophonists commissioned this work for baritone saxophone and piano, which is intended for the developing saxophonist. Now that the period of exclusivity is over, the work is available in my e-store.
If you’d like to take a listen, here’s a video Thomas recorded of the work to present as part of the International Conference for Saxophone Pedagogy and Performance in 2021.
My solo flute work L’Age Mûr was featured on Ellen Grohlman’s radio show “Music of Our Mothers” this past Wednesday, along with music by Henriette Renié, Myra Melford, Illeane Perez Velazquez, Emma Wilde, Matilde Capuis, and Cécile Elton. If you are interested in listening to the broadcast, archives of past episodes can be found on the show’s website. If are interested in checking out the score of the piece or purchasing a copy, you can do so in my e-store.
This week, I was featured on Anthony Joseph Lanman‘s excellent 1 Track Podcast. The show presents musicians with one basic question: If you could introduce listeners to your music by playing them just one piece, what would it be and why?
When Anthony invited me to be a guest on the podcast, I knew right away that I wanted to share Trigger, my mini-opera about domestic violence because of the important topic it examines. You can listen to our conversation and hear some audio excerpts of the music here. If you’d like to watch the full premiere performance, a video is included below.
Trumpeter Kate Amrine is releasing her first album
, which includes my solo Elegy. Her project features music for trumpet alone and in various chamber settings by women composers, including Alexandra Gardner, Ariel Marx, Jennifer Higdon, Jinhee Han, Ledah Finck, and Nicole Piunno. She is joined on the album by Borah Han (piano), Peggy Houng (harp), and The Witches (Ledah Finck, violin and Louna Dekker-Vargas, flute) in a program that includes singing, improvising, and extended techniques.
Kate is currently doing an online fundraiser for her project – please check it out and consider supporting her mission to promote the music of women composers.
If you visit her fundraiser page, you can hear her perform Elegy in the first portion of the promo video.
A video of my new mini-opera “Trigger” is now available on YouTube! The work was written for soprano Afton Forsberg and the 2016 Opera from Scratch workshop, where it was premiered by Afton and pianist Simon Docking on Aug. 28, 2016.
The composition was inspired by an incident from the spring of 2014 in Nova Scotia: a woman filed a domestic assault complaint against her boyfriend, and a local law enforcement officer accidentally left a voicemail message at the victim’s number where officers can be heard discussing the case. In the recording (which is available online), an officer can be heard disparaging the woman, implying that she may be lying about her injuries, and asking if she deserved to get hit. I was very disturbed by the incident, and my reactions to it ultimately became realized in Trigger.
In preparation for the premiere of Iseult Speaks on 2/20 by Charity Clark and the Hartford Independent Chamber Orchestra, I’ll be posting a new recording from the piano reduction each day. Nine of the thirteen movements were previewed by Charity with pianist Blake Hansen at my recital on 2/5/16, and the recordings will be posted to the playlist below. Follow me on social media to see announcements when new tracks are added, or listen to the full set of preview recordings here after Friday 2/19. Then, if you’re near Hartford, come check out the premiere of the chamber orchestra version on 2/20!
A complete recording of Twisted Blue (in the clarinet and piano version) is now available! Alex Kollias and Elisabeth Tomczyk premiered the three-movement work on Feb. 5, 2016 as part of a composition recital I gave at the Hartt School. The recital also included preview performances of Iseult Speaks (to be premiered by the Hartford Independent Chamber Orchestra on Feb. 20, 2016) and Step No. 4: Know the Tuba Attitude (premiere TBA later this spring). Dr. Daniel D’Addio reprised My Father Was a Ventriloquist as well. Stay tuned for additional recital recordings coming soon!
This past fall, the London-based Riot Ensemble commissioned me to create a work for soprano, alto flute, harpsichord, and two percussionists as part of their 2015 Call for Scores. The resulting work, Thought, was premiered in London on Nov. 17, 2015. The work is a meditation on Walt Whitman’s eponymous text, featuring extended techniques and spoken parts for the instrumentalists.
It’s been a busy year for recordings and publications! This past spring, Parma Recordings released my solo percussion work St. Teresa in Ecstasy (performed by Mike Lunoe) on their Parma Music Festival Live 2013 digital album. The collection is available through iTunes here. This summer, The Society of Composers, Inc. released their fiftieth volume of the Journal of Scores, which includes my First Praise alongside the music of 7 fantastic composers. This fall/winter, a review I wrote of Jennifer Kelly’s collection of interviews In Her Own Words: Conversations with Composers in the United States will be published in the journal Women and Music: a Journal of Gender and Culture. I’ll be posting a brief excerpt from this review soon, but for anyone who might be interested: Kelly’s book is a great collection of interviews with a diverse group of female composers, and I highly recommend it!
