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Songwriting for the Musical Soundcloud: It’s Up!

This class has ultimately pushed me further than most music classes at Purchase, and I am fortunate to be featured among several talented composers and lyricists for this end of the semester “performance.” Due to COVID-19 complications, we could not have the live performance typical of this class. However, a SoundCloud playlist/podcast has its own advantages moving forward during this time. This gives composers the opportunity to utilize a much wider array of arranging options, not being limited to the piano/guitar of the live performances. I tried to make use of this on my track, Staples Separation. Honored to have it be on this playlist, alongside such talent from my peers.

Big shout out to Ryan Homsey and Sara Cooper for being immensely positive and flexible when it comes to organizing this. Their kindness is not superficial, they gave us great feedback pushed us to be the best we could be every Monday. Thank you, truly <3

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Av Kitane Mansa

Av Kitane Mansa is my most recent, standalone, contemporary classical composition that has been performed. Performed early 2017 by a group of independently hired professional musicians, it is one of the pieces I am most proud of to date. This time of the year was the introduction to many new things for  me as a composer. The task given to us by my mentor Kevin James was to write in a style that we were unfamiliar with, and make it our own. I chose Gypsy music. This was the first time that I had experimented with prepared piano, generating something akin to the cimbalom, a hammered percussion instrument. It was the most performers that I had written for at that time (12), and was also the first time using a specific cadence in order to convey the location of the song. On top of this, my class of composers had to hire a group of musicians on own. There was quite a bit of new material, but I think it helped me to learn even more and really push the boundaries of my composing.

This piece’s title is derived from a Gypsy love chant “Av,mi Romani mal / Pawdel dur chumbas / Av kitane mansa?” that roughly translates to “Come my Gypsy friend, over the hills so far away. Will you come along with me?” This piece starts with an agitaded con fuoco section, creating a sense of imbalance with shifting meters. Once the steady guitar pulse comes in, flourishes in the other instruments pervade before introducing the odd meter bass line, and finally getting to the “chorus” of the song. The clarinet and trombone melody is later found to be the source of the lyrics, after the vocalists are added in. A stripped down section featuring dumbek and cimbalom leads to a more classically influenced string section, before building and stripping away into a cimbalom solo/cadenza. This leads to the reintroduction of the guitar pulse and, finally, the addition of vocalists into the main chorus, showing how the piece got its name. Overall, I am incredibly proud of this piece, and incredibly thankful to everyone involved, especially Kevin James, as always.

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FSSA Production of The Music Man 2017

When I was first cast into my school’s production of The Music Man, I was overcome with many emotions. Pervading through them was the shock and amazement that I, a lone instrumental major, was able to be cast in the highest attended event of the school year. Say what you’d like about it, but Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man is exactly what it needs to be. It’s funny, it’s grandiose, it has a heartfelt story, and it has a fantastic soundtrack. Hit after hit after hit. Besides all of this, it’s simply an extremely fun show to be in, which never gets boring and is always full of surprises. I am honored to have performed in this fantastic show.

More surprises were just around the corner. We were fortunate enough to perform on Broadway as part of the Shubert Foundation High School Music Festival. Performing of Broadway was something I never thought I would experience, and I am beyond honored to have done it. Thank you C.P, thank you to the whole cast. I’m fortunate to have shared in this experience with you all!

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Falls the Shadow

This piece, composed in early 2016 is one of my more obtuse works, written at the time simply for the sake of being obtuse. The main harmony seen in the jabs towards the beginning as well as towards the end of the piece were derived from sitting at the piano trying to find the most dissonant combination in a three note “chord,” which I figured to be a tritone followed by a half step. In hindsight, my journey into extended dissonance could have been started somewhere besides vocal music. After all, there is a reason that voices are the primary instruments used in church music. They are generally seen as holy, as what instruments are trying to imitate. From a technical standpoint, it is also naturally harder for for vocalists to sing horribly dissonant music without any tonal center. Fortunately I was blessed with the opportunity to work with the group EKMELES, who are extremely talented and always open for a challenge. Still, these are things that you must take into account while writing for vocalists, which I certainly did not.

That’s not to say that I hate the piece, however, or that it has no redeeming factors at all. This piece focuses on sparseness and use of space, as well as extended techniques such as whispers, spoken word, and simulating wind by making shhhhh noises. The text is taken from T.S Eliot’s The Hollow Men, which is one of my favorite works of poetry by him and I think conveys a powerful message. The dark, emotive lyrics are reflected by the dissonant harmonic content and screaming high notes, especially from the soprano. Chanting is often a source of rhythmic drive, when it actually exists in the piece, and has become a frequently used tool for my other compositions featuring lyrics. This composition features disparate elements, moments of scarcity and moments of intensity, in which I try to emulate the calm sections of Eliot, as well as the storm. Although not the catchiest or most emotional of my pieces, I am still proud of the work I’ve done, and entirely thankful to EKMELES and my mentor Kevin James, who steered me in the direction I wanted to go in and made my vision as great as it could be.