Tag: chamber music

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Bowles Fouse Duo Revisit Cypher, A Circle

An excerpt of the musical score for Cypher, a Circle depicting a circle divided into four quadrants with note names on the outside and numbers on the inside

Tomorrow pianists Kathryn Fouse and Adam Bowles kick off a six city tour of Alabama presented by the Birmingham Art Music Alliance. They’ll perform a program of new compositions for piano duo, including my piece Cypher, A Circle. Bowles and Fouse premiered the work in 2013.

The piece is a series of guided improvisations using the puzzle-like diagram above to determine pitches, durations, number of notes, etc.

Other composers on the program include Ron Clemmons, Michael Coleman, Monroe Golden, Gavin Green, Michael Huebner, Mark Lackey, and Emily Zhang. Not every program includes every piece; the ones that include my work are in bold below.

  • Tuesday 2/10 1pm – Shelton State Community College, Terrific Tuesday Series, Tuscaloosa AL
  • Tuesday 2/10 7:30pm – Samford University, Birmingham AL
  • Wednesday 2/11 11am – Wallace State Community College, Hanceville AL
  • Thursday 2/12 1pm – Thompson High School Performing Arts Center, Alabaster AL
  • Friday 2/13 1:30pm – Alabama School for the Blind, Talladega AL
  • Sunday 3/1 6pm – University of Alabama in Huntsville, 13th Annual UAH Keyboard Festival, Huntsville AL

These concerts are supported in part by the Alabama State Council on the Arts.

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Vuorovesi Trio Performs Worldlines

Excerpt of the Worldlines score showing black music notation on a white background

The Vurorovesi Trio will perform my composition Worldlines on Monday, January 12 at 7pm in the Moore Gallery in Bryce Main on the campus of the University of Alabama. The Vuorovesi Trio is made up of University of Alabama School of Music faculty members Diane Boyd Schultz, Mary Lindsey Bailey, Osiris J. Molina.

Monday, January 12, 2026 7:00pm
Vuorovesi Trio
Moore Gallery in Bryce Main
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa AL

Like many of my scores, the musicians performing Worldlines determine the moment-to-moment shape of the music. In this case, all of the musicians share the same written material and use hand-signals to determine how they navigate through it. One hand signal may cue players to repeat their current phrase, while another may cause them to read backwards through the score. A worldline is a tool from physics which describes an object’s path in both three-dimensional space and in time.

Worldlines is scored for 3 or more sustaining instruments. I love how well it fits the wind trio format and Vuorovesi, in particular. Here’s a video from Vuorovesi’s April 2025 performance at the Alabama School of Fine Arts.

YouTube player

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Worldlines

Excerpt of the Worldlines score showing black music notation on a white background

The Vuorovesi Trio will perform my piece Worldlines in a free concert tonight at the Hoover Public Library.

Monday, March 24, 2025 7pm
Live on the Plaza: Vuorovesi Trio
Hoover Public Library
200 Municipal Drive
Hoover AL 35216

The Vuorovesi Trio is made up of University of Alabama School of Music faculty members Diane Boyd Schultz, Mary Lindsey Bailey, Osiris J. Molina. All the pieces on tonight’s concert are by Alabama-based composers: Michael Coleman, Monroe Golden, Gavin Green, Holland Hopson, Joseph Landers, and William Price.

Worldlines was premiered in 2017 at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Abroms-Engel Institute for Visual Arts. It was written in response to Jessica Angel‘s installation Facing the Hyperstructure.

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Around Stravinsky

An excerpt from the score for Extras

The BAMA Players will premiere my septet, Extras, on a concert titled Around Stravinsky presented by the Birmingham Art Music Alliance as part of the 2024 Birmingham New Music Festival.

Friday, May 10, 2024 7:30pm
Around Stravinsky
2024 Birmingham New Music Festival
Samford University
Brock Recital Hall
800 Lakeshore Dr
Homewood AL 35209

All of the works on the program are inspired by Igor Stravinsky’s Septet (1953). Other composers on the concert include Wesley Johnson, Mark Lackey, Jody Landers, and Matthew Scott Phillips.

My work uses the last few bars of the last movement of Stravinsky’s piece as a jumping off point. The pianist serves as a kind of conductor for the open score. The wind and string players choose which phrases they play in each section as the music unfolds. Every performance is unique. The title comes from an analysis of Stravinsky’s score which declared certain notes “extra.” I wrote Extras to create a kind of foster home for Stravinsky’s orphans.

The BAMA players featured in this concert are

  • Brad Whitfield, clarinet
  • Cameron Bonner, bassoon
  • Valerie Sly, horn
  • Sarah Norlund Dennis, violin
  • Chris Lowry, viola
  • Peter Garrett, cello
  • Eun-Hee Park, piano