Daniel Swilley - Composer

What I know thus far:

• From the morning of the 16th until the evening of the 19th there will be 15 concerts held at the Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.
• My piece The Feel of May for solo bassoon will be on one of those concerts.
• I may get to hang with one of my old comp teachers Tayloe Harding at the conference because he also got a piece accepted to be performed.

more to come…

On March. 12, in the Smith Recital Hall on the UIUC campus, will be the premiere of my recent electronic work Edge Protocol. Come check it out one and all…

Notes on the work-
Edge Protocol, (6’15”), for two-channel electronic playback, is primarily concerned with the notion of the human mind under immense pressure or stress. The work is meant to convey states of mind of a person before they “crack.” However, this journey is not a one way plummet, but like the ebb and flow of life, has its more and then less contorted moments.
Edge Protocol was composed with the aid of GRACE (a algorithmic composition environment by Rick Taube) and sounds produce with the Kurzweil K2000.

On Nov. 13, in the Smith Recital Hall on the UIUC campus, Stephanie Koher will be premiering my work The Feel of May for Solo Bassoon.

Notes on The Feel of May-
While reading poetry I came across several lines concerning the passing of time and how specific times of year have a “feel” to them. This notion of a perceived “feel” intrigued me, because, while I can associate with having these feelings, I am also aware that I am sometimes (it seems like most of the time) too busy to notice what is going on around me. After making these connections I have found myself making greater efforts to “take in” my surroundings, and to not let the simple beauties around me become a blur, as if being passed in a speeding car. This is not always easy or even possible. In fact, there is now something similar to a tug of war going on within me at all times: one side wants to take all necessary steps to see that the business of life remains in order, and the other desires even the briefest respite in which to essentially “stop and smell the roses.” While the month of May is arbitrary (it is merely the month in which my journey began), this tug of war, or tension and release, is the premise behind The Feel of May. Wanting to slow down and experience life and then being sucked back into the unpleasantly necessary business is something we can all relate to. Hopefully life will allow us a few more breaks in the future so we don’t miss the beauty which surrounds us.

2007

Reflection, (7’00”) for solo piano was commissioned by Adam Scott Neal. This work is primarily concerned with the interaction of light and reflective surfaces. Reflection is characterized by the opening phrase of the work where a single pitch is played twice, a different pitch is played, and then the first is played again. Also, the notion of reflecting is observed in neighboring rolled figures where the first roll will go in one direction and the following will go in the opposite direction.

Reflection was composed with the aid of GRACE, a algorithmic composition environment, by Taube. Reflection is an experiment in mapping the statical occurrence of gestures over the course of a work, and is part of the continued experimentation by the composer using weighted interval sets as a means of organizing pitch.

2007

Edge Protocol, (6’15”), for two-channel electronic playback, is primarily concerned with the notion of the human mind under immense pressure or stress. The work is meant to convey states of mind of a person before they “crack.” However, this journey is not a one way plummet, but like the ebb and flow of life, has its more and then less contorted moments.

Edge Protocol was composed with the aid of GRACE (a algorithmic composition environment by Rick Taube) and sounds produced with the Kurzweil K2000.

2007

Pelagic, (10’) for Wind Ensemble is inspired, as many works are, by the ocean. Pelagic is meant to portray images of the sea in various states. Although there is no program for the order of these states, definite moments of calm and rough seas are apparent throughout the work. The word pelagic means “open ocean.”

Pelagic was composed with the aid of athenaCL, a algorithmic composition tool, by Arriza. Pelagic is part of the continued experimentation by the composer using weighted interval sets as a means of organizing pitch.

2007

• Premiere: Student Composer’s Concert, Champaign, IL 11.13.2007 - Smith Recital Hall

The Feel of May, (7’00”) for solo bassoon, commissioned by Stephanie Koher.

While reading poetry I came across several lines concerning the passing of time and how specific times of year have a “feel” to them. This notion of a perceived “feel” intrigued me, because, while I can associate with having these feelings, I am also aware that I am sometimes (it seems like most of the time) too busy to notice what is going on around me. After making these connections I have found myself making greater efforts to “take in” my surroundings, and to not let the simple beauties around me become a blur, as if being passed in a speeding car. This is not always easy or even possible. In fact, there is now something similar to a tug of war going on within me at all times: one side wants to take all necessary steps to see that the business of life remains in order, and the other desires even the briefest respite in which to essentially “stop and smell the roses.” While the month of May is arbitrary (it is merely the month in which my journey began), this tug of war, or tension and release, is the premise behind The Feel of May. Wanting to slow down and experience life and then being sucked back into the unpleasantly necessary business is something we can all relate to. Hopefully life will allow us a few more breaks in the future so we don’t miss the beauty which surrounds us.

2007

Grey Departure, (10’) for string quartet derived from String Quartet No. 1, which is the result of a fascination with two differing sources: the compositional process of Iannis Xenakis and Morton Feldman’s characteristic slow evolution of material. As such, Grey Departure and String Quartet No. 1 are explorations of the use of stochastics in the compositional process and slowly evolving materials. Aside from these aspects and an attempt to stretch the possibilities of the program MusicGen (a compositional aid), a strict algorithmic process was followed. This process centered around a trajectory that mapped overall density, intervallic content, and note duration.

Grey Departure, a truncated version of String Quartet No. 1, was created for the purpose of furthering performance possibilities.

2006

• Premiere: Daniel Swilley, Conductor-Graduate Composition Recital, Atlanta, GA, 2.24.2007 - Kopleff Recital Hall.

• Recorded: Daniel Swilley - Conductor-GSU SCI Student Chapter CD In with the New vol. 2, 12.2006 (mvnt I.Zephyr)

Pantheod, (27′) for chamber ensemble(10) - draws inspiration primarily from John Keats’s poem Song of Four Faeries. The titular faeries, named Salamander, Zephyr, Dusketha, and Breama, are each associated with an element in Keat’s poem and throughout mythology: Salamander to Fire, Zephry to Air, Dusketha to Earth, and Breama to Water. Pantheod’s four movements are a portrayal of these faeries/elements. Because of the differing characteristics of each faery and element each movement is approached differently in terms of pitch, rhythm, texture, and time. The first movement Zephyr (wind) utilizes overlapping augmented triads for pitch material, non-retrogradable rhythms, and is mostly aleatoric. All of these choices were made to emphasize vastness, fluidity, and a sense of unendingness. The subsequent movements follow this notion of characterizing the faeries and elements.

Pantheod’s title is derived from a manipulation of the word pantheon, which is a monument or temple dedicated to all gods of a religion, or in this case Keats’s faeries and their associate elements.

The instrumentation for Pantheod is an expansion of the instrumentation of Stravinsky’s L’histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale), with additions (flute, horn, and viola) to balance each family of instruments.

Pantheod was composed with the aid of the computer programs MusicGen and AthenaCL.

The Song of Four Faeries by John Keats:

SALAMANDER.

HAPPY, happy glowing fire!

ZEPHYR.

Fragrant air! delicious light!

DUSKETHA.

Let me to my glooms retire!

BREAMA.

I to green-weed rivers bright!

SALAMANDER.

Happy, happy glowing fire!
Dazzling bowers of soft retire,
Ever let my nourish’d wing,
Like a bat’s, still wandering,
Faintless fan your fiery spaces,
Spirit sole in deadly places.
In unhaunted roar and blaze,
Open eyes that never daze,
Let me see the myriad shapes
Of men, and beasts, and fish, and apes,
Portray’d in many a fiery den,
And wrought by spumy bitumen.
On the deep intenser roof,
Arched every way aloof,
Let me breathe upon their skies,
And anger their live tapestries;
Free from cold, and every care,
Of chilly rain, and shivering air.

ZEPHYR.

Spirit of Fire! away! away!
Or your very roundelay
Will sear my plumage newly budded
From its quilled sheath, all studded
With the self-same dews that fell
On the May-grown Asphodel.
Spirit of Fire–away! away!

BREAMA.

Spirit of Fire–away! away!
Zephyr, blue-eyed Faery, turn,
And see my cool sedge-bury’d urn,
Where it rests its mossy brim
‘Mid water-mint and cresses dim;
And the flowers, in sweet troubles,
Lift their eyes above the bubbles,
Like our Queen, when she would please
To sleep, and Oberon will teaze.
Love me, blue-eyed Faery, true!
Soothly I am sick for you.

ZEPHYR.

Gentle Breama! by the first
Violet young nature nurst,
I will bathe myself with thee,
So you sometimes follow me
To my home, far, far, in west,
Beyond the nimble-wheeled quest
Of the golden-browed sun:
Come with me, o’er tops of trees,
To my fragrant palaces,
Where they ever floating are
Beneath the cherish of a star
Call’d Vesper, who with silver veil
Ever hides his brilliance pale,
Ever gently-drows’d doth keep
Twilight for the Fayes to sleep.
Fear not that your watery hair
Will thirst in drouthy ringlets there;
Clouds of stored summer rains
Thou shalt taste, before the stains
Of the mountain soil they take,
And too unlucent for thee make.
I love thee, crystal Faery, true!
Sooth I am as sick for you!

SALAMANDER.

Out, ye aguish Faeries, out!
Chilly lovers, what a rout
Keep ye with your frozen breath,
Colder than the mortal death.
Adder-eyed Dusketha, speak,
Shall we leave these, and go seek
In the earth’s wide entrails old
Couches warm as their’s are cold?
O for a fiery gloom and thee,
Dusketha, so enchantingly
Freckle-wing’d and lizard-sided!

DUSKETHA.

By thee, Sprite, will I be guided!
I care not for cold or heat;
Frost and flame, or sparks, or sleet,
To my essence are the same;–
But I honour more the flame.
Sprite of Fire, I follow thee
Wheresoever it may be,
To the torrid spouts and fountains,
Underneath earth-quaked mountains;
Or, at thy supreme desire,
Touch the very pulse of fire
With my bare unlidded eyes.

SALAMANDER.

Sweet Dusketha! paradise!
Off, ye icy Spirits, fly!
Frosty creatures of the sky!

DUSKETHA.

Breathe upon them, fiery sprite!

ZEPHYR AND BREAMA.

Away! away to our delight!

SALAMANDER.

Go, feed on icicles, while we
Bedded in tongue-flames will be.

DUSKETHA.

Lead me to those feverous glooms,
Sprite of Fire!

BREAMA.

Me to the blooms,
Blue-eyed Zephyr, of those flowers
Far in the west where the May-cloud lowers;
And the beams of still Vesper, when winds are all wist,
Are shed thro’ the rain and the milder mist,
And twilight your floating bowers.