Good morning from NYC!
Today I have a cadenza I wrote for Mozart’s Piano Concerto K.491 in c minor.
The cadenza morphs into some quotations from Mozart’s piano music.
I was really inspired by a piece Frederick Rzweski write for my teacher Jerome Lowenthal called cadenza. And the point was to be able to perform the cadenza as a separate entity to the concerto.  Here’s my take.

More fast music (Carnival of the Chinese Animals)

Today I wrote more fast music for the animals' dance party finale and it sure is fun to write.

This section leads right into the Irish/Chinese sounding music from yesterday. At least today's music sounds less Celtic … 

Also I’m taking advantage of having 2 pianos. Here I have one of them play the tune in octaves (à la Schubert primo parts) while the other plays octaves tremolos, which evokes the strumming of a Chinese pipa.

Invention 2

Click HERE to have a liss 

Hi everyone!
So excited to be joining this illustrious group of composers.
Here is my song I wrote based on a Robert Frost Poem for Baritone and piano.

The Carnival (from Carnival of the Chinese Animals)

Today I wanted to write some fast music. 

Here is music for the finale, where all 12 animals have successfully crossed the River and are having a party. (The Buddha quietly crosses to Nirvana while the animals are living it up.)

So what is amusing here is that my 'Chinese' music sounds a little like Irish music. I'll just go with it.

Toothbrush Duet

Hey guys, here's a duet I wrote for two toothbrushes. I did a little recording, it had to be split over two files. It's called "Brush Your Teeth"

Part 1
https://mixcord.co/acapella/p/HKtsTkbxgY8uEqR6vOdKmw/?fbclid=IwAR2kwpFmRjCBar1_xJ---GQ2BhmBEhbmtd-tDE8G7THifo5RKWgVOEtDEx8

Part 2
https://mixcord.co/acapella/p/xjlyuw5MqR0WzT-bKNxpRw/?fbclid=IwAR3jmAWPuA328xR2Ixb4pR1wqTTBNcnACxQvHYZ4FfAcg37gtwz7ssiH3mU

Sheet Music
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7nzofaax18rmmuk/AACwNUGqcKoWJsiRhKPzrF1Ga?dl=0

a little airplane thing, v tired will post more tomorrow

Mena song and violin piece

Hey everyone! I forgot to post my piece from yesterday, but I wrote a song for a close friend of mine who was feeling a bit down.

And my composition today is a small improvisationary piece for solo violin (the score is called Neue Datei). I don’t have a lot of experience writing for strings (especially double stopping) and wanted to try out something nice and easy. 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7nzofaax18rmmuk/AACwNUGqcKoWJsiRhKPzrF1Ga?dl=0

Mena lyrics

When you’re getting in a pickle

And you’re feeling blue

She’s the hammer and the sickle

That’ll pull you through,

She’s a buddy she’s a pal

and she’s here for you

It’s Mena Mena Mena!

Her tongue’s really big

But it moves quite quick

She’ll stick it in your mouth

Like a Bolshevik

This chick’s thick tongue’s

Like a magic trick

It’s Mena Mena Mena!

Chorus

Mena my friend it’s all ok,

You’ll fight to live another day

You’ve got the strength,

Let’s hear you say

I’m Mena Mena Mena!

She’s a sassy little lassy

And she’ss speak her mind

She’ll rip your ass in two

If she’s so inclined,

Her tongue is sharp

But her heart is kind

It’s Mena Mena Mena

Mena takes nine naps every day,

She’s a connoisseur of naps

She’s a sleep gourmet

If she’s hungry or thirsty

Back away

From Mena Mena Mena

Chorus x 2  

The Orchestrated Path (from Carnival of the Chinese Animals)

Happy Sunday everyone!

Today I orchestrated a few measures of the piano score from a couple of days ago. 

I’m finding it very interesting to have 2 cellos but no viola. 

Here I’m voicing them in very close dyads, but I’ll double the lower cello with the violin one octave above. 

It’ll be like the right-hand of a Brahms piano piece, just at lower pitches.  This should add a Brahmsian richness as long as the dynamic is soft, otherwise it’ll sound thick.

Incidentally today is Richard Gill’s birthday. Thank you Andrew for your post a few days ago honoring Richard. I didn’t know he was the inspiration behind your Month of Music project. Richard and I worked most closely together on the unique ABC reality TV show Operatunity Oz where he was a judge and I was a producer of the soundtrack album. Happy birthday Richard. 

Away with the fairies, sketch

For fun, I'm calling this project 'away with the fairies.' It's hopefully going to be a creepy psycho-horror short opera, about choosing to be lost. Not intended for live performance, I'm making use of recording techniques in my composition, so the score might not look particularly interesting when it's finished.

I'm flying to the US tomorrow, so I probably won't post - maybe I'll have finished something along these lines by the time I arrive, who knows. 

Opening sentences (Carnival of the Chinese Animals)

Today's beach-side contribution :)

This is the draft opening sentences of Carnival of the Chinese Animals. You should be able to read the handwritten text despite the photobombing by the harbour :) And yes, the pen really is bent, that is not an optical illusion ….

There are two main variants of the Zodiac animals' 'amazing race' folk story, and they differ only in whether the central character is the Jade Emperor or the Buddha. 

I asked my parents which one they knew as kids, and they said the Buddha version. So I've based my narration on that choice, and it also gives me the added benefit of writing some kōan-inspired sayings in the story. 

I've never encountered a telling of the story with this feature even in other Buddha versions, so that is an original touch I am happy to contribute because I find kōan and Buddhist wisdom and teachings quite beautiful. 

The Path (from Carnival of the Chinese Animals)

This is the sketch from today I’m currently calling The Path. 

In the story, there is a mythical river that the animals have to cross, and the order of their arrival determines their place in the Zodiac. 

The tempo and dynamic is flexible (hence no tempo marking on the sketch yet) as it may have to be used in different contexts as the 12 animals make their separate journeys to the final destination. 

If it’s starting to sound like an ancient Chinese version of The Amazing Race, don’t think that hasn’t occurred to me! I’ll probably upload a draft excerpt from the narration tomorrow.

Figment #1

Some little note games for piano. I didn't spell it out, but you could probably play the piece in any order you like.

Bassoon Quartet! "Down"

Hey guys! Here's composition no.2, a Bassoon Quartet called "Down"
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7nzofaax18rmmuk/AACwNUGqcKoWJsiRhKPzrF1Ga?dl=0
I'm really liking how this is shaping up, will definitely revisit this later to flesh out some of the material.

Carnival of The Chinese Animals

Thanks Andrew for including me in the 11/2018 Month of Music!

The awesome Southern Cross Soloists have just announced their 2019 season, and it includes a commissioned work from me. In February SXS are celebrating the Lunar New Year with Carnival of the Chinese Animals, my new 15-20 min piece based on the Chinese Zodiac’s 12 animals.

SXS are joined by cellist Li-Wei Qin, erhuist George Gao and pianist Kristian Chong, making a very unusual lineup – flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn, erhu, violin, 2 cellos, 2 pianos (because SXS already have a cellist and pianist) – plus a narrator!

I’ve decided to include a narration, because most people aren’t aware of the folk story behind the 12 animals of the Zodiac (neither was I, really, until I started work on this project). As with any ancient fairytale, there are as many versions of the story as there are storytellers – so I’m writing my own version, with some original touches added.

I’m alternating between writing the narration and the music. I know most composers would get the text written first – and usually by someone else – but all my experience with text (sung and spoken) tells me I’ll get the best result for me if I work on them concurrently.

So my blog entries here could be about either.

I worked on this music sketch today. At the moment I'm calling it the Noble Truths theme. 

Comp No.1: Attention! (picc+snare)

Hey everyone, my first post here. Here's a little piece I wrote for piccolo and snare. Not sure how to embed stuff but here's a link to the dropbox :) https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7nzofaax18rmmuk/AACwNUGqcKoWJsiRhKPzrF1Ga?dl=0

Invention for piano

Month of Music - 5!

Hello everyone - massive welcome to the newcomers Oliver Shermacher and Lyle Chan!

This is relevant right now, so I figured that it might be good for me to share -

Richard Gill was the person who suggested to me that composing every day was utterly important. I suppose when I began Month of Music, I did it as a way of impressing him, although I never had the courage to send him the blog address. He challenged everyone with this task, and when he did, he suggested that to write just a few lines of music was entirely the point. This being said, I want to encourage everybody to do their own thing, and to share my belief that music = goodness = beauty = truth, which I specifically ripped off from him.

more of my forum piece

aaaaaahhhhhh it's due on Thursday!!!! panic!!!

more unfinished score here

yet another horn piece

tentatively called oasis... lacks dynamics...

unfinished score and audio here

Fisher Song for Flute

another horn piece!!

Trying to think of a title!! Not sure about what I came up with... right now it's called gannets diving,
named after this bird:


photo credit: By Alan D. Wilson (http://www.naturespicsonline.com/) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons


AUDIO and SCORE HERE

I might name it northern gannets diving, to refer to the specific bird!

Spring Evergreens for Flute

more of my copying/scanning work for Amber!

for some reason blogger won't let me upload the actual scan-- I had to take a screenshot?? So weird.

Partita : Game score without annotations

This is a piece for piano and electronics, obvs you can't see much evidence of the electronics here.

inLk

this weekend has been...

a lot of just hand copying and scanning my solo soprano piece for Amber! I am still dissatisfied with the quality of the scan, so I may have to seek out alternative solutions!

string quartet no.6 movement 1

This is a piece that will deal with the nature of changes, and particularly changes in nature.

Mvt 1 is v slow and contemplative, grab a jazz cigarette and enjoy

Score and Audio HERE

even when you smile

'even when you smile' sounds like the title of a jazz tune

more of my piece for soprano clarinet and piano!

score draft here!

Rainy Morning Melody

This is an arrangement of a tune by Alice Chance, from the last month of music. I wanted to exercise some video game nostalgia, so I chose some bitcrushed samples and a NES sampler that I've been using for a while. Enjoy!

a piece for soprano clarinet and piano

still figuring things out... this is for one of the forum readings, so I have slightly more time than other pieces but... still practically no time.

unfinished score draft here

Final version (?) of the excerpted string 4tet no.5

This one contains some polyrhythmic action, players taking the earbuds of separate metronomes and playing along with them.

link here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vcs7lx4as5qzn54/Fire%20-%20String%20Quartet%20no.5%20CPP%20WORKSHOP%20-%20Full%20Score%20with%20metronomes.pdf?dl=0

not sure what this is

I wrote a sketch today, with a mix of texts from different sources. A couple lines from DH Lawrence, then a few from the historical letters of Alice Mitchell and Freda Ward (two lady lovers in Memphis in the 1800s, who then were forcibly separated by their families... there's more to this story, but you can look it up yourselves if you're so inclined)

I'm hearing a chamber ensemble of some kind when I listen to this. For two voices.

midi HERE

some sassy 12 tone EDM

Lincc

feat. Babbity Rabbity

Night lies beside me

Fellow Feet and Bello Belly

Finally I'm  posting!!!

Just finished them, might still need some fine tune.

still needs dynamics! bleh!

Here's my CPP ensemble piece! It has a lot of boxes and arrows, so midi is a no go, but here's the score!

Now I need to go work on my patch for electronic music! agh!

Morning and Evening

This one's a Haiku, in music and words

String Quartet no5 update, still not final

Link Here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mbQIq2YAXXbXNZa3F6gmEdxi9nMKrkqx/view?usp=sharing

I rewrote a substantial amount of it. The stuff I took out is going to end up in the final version... consider this something like a 'first movement,' although the finished product is probably going to be quite different again.

sneak peek of ensemble piece

a preview of the ensemble piece I'm working on!! more tomorrow!

piece for the cpp ensemble

stay tuned folks! my daylight attempts were unsatisfactory, but now that the midnight hour has past, I think I may have something... more tomorrow

Fire - string quartet no.5

score's a mess, but it's the start for a piece.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Fbphyl8FipZ6AA3XQXOYhhVzy7cJcV2Q

religious music is scary

but it's even scarier with this amount of delay feedback on it

many thanks to bach for writing scary organ music (durch adams fall)

audio HERE

hang in there everybody

The Pond

Desolation

happy little piano phase

or something?

I made a little phase thing-- I think it would be better live, more interesting? Maybe even different instruments would be better, like two violins? ten minutes of the same 18 eighth notes over and over again. Not sure how I feel about it, seems almost too simple. But I also like it.

midi HERE

humming song 2

another little humming song that was stuck in my head-- very similar to the first in some ways. I always think the music I write when I have a migraine comes out confused, so I'm curious to see how this sounds when I feel normal again.

midi HERE

Aliens

humming song

a little humming song I had stuck in my head

midi HERE

A Lover

Everyone's busy as hell. Seems like a good time to dig into favourite poetry, so I did that for this brief thing tonight

MVP - for film scoring class

We were given a short film, and some instructions. Enjoy!