Spectral Evidence, for percussion and piano, focuses on the stages of sleep and dream memory. “Spectral evidence was a form of evidence, based upon dreams and visions, accepted in court during the Salem Witch Trials. Spectral evidence was typically testimony given that an accused person’s spirit or spectral shape appeared to the witness in a dream while the accused person’s physical body was at another location” (wikipedia). This work is driven by the statistical occurrence of “non-steady-state” brain activity during the different stages of sleep. Brain activity such as Sleep Spindles and K-Complex are mapped to activity through the work. In addition, the “steady-state” brain waves during the different stages of sleep were considered when determining the overall evolution of density in the work.

Spectral Evidence was composed with the aid of GRACE, an algorithmic composition environment, by Taube. Spectral Evidence is an experiment in spectral composition, and is part of the continued experimentation by the composer in mapping the statistical occurrence of gestures over the course of a work. Spectral Evidence was commissioned by percussionist Caleb Herron.

2007

Pendent Trajectories  is one path that was taken. When started all aspects of the journey were undetermined or thought to be something that proved wrong. We allow intuition to guide us when plans fail or seem unimportant, and sometimes we find that which we did not seek.

2007

Grey Departure,  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,  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.

2006

String Quartet No. 1  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, String Quartet No. 1 is an exploration 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.