Mora Mortis is an experimental piece based on Ovid's elegiac poem Heroides (“Heroines”) X, written from Ariadne's perspective after being abandoned by Theseus on the island Naxos. Quotes from the Latin text, the meter of the original poem, and an adapted Ancient Greek mode were the foundations of the piece.
Composed for SATB, piano, violin, vibraphone, and digitally-manipulated sound (in Ableton). Performed by Regina Henares, Sophie Javna, Shane Lory, Michael Levaille, Garrett Manion, Anna Palevsky, and Grace Hale, and recorded with the help of Lewis Keller at the studio at Colorado College. (2018)
For two marimbas
-What happens to a human body when it stops breathing?
-What does it mean to survive someone else’s death?
-How can time continue at all?
“Sudden Depths” is a piece for 2 marimbas. It tracks a journey diving below the water, being pushed and pulled and pummeled by waves, before rising back up to tread water once again. It is a metaphor I have turned to often since the sudden death of my father in August. The cliché “waves of grief” is almost meaningless at this point, it’s said so often— but it is really one of the only analogies I’ve found that even begins to describe the physical experience of loss. The pressure of the water on your chest; the arbitrary, casual brutality; the predictable unpredictability. Returning to the surface is survival, but at the end of my piece I am just as lost as at the beginning, and though the journey is excruciating, it doesn’t seem to matter or resolve in any way.
The piece is divided into six sections:
I. Treading Water
II. Descent
III. Drop-off
IV. Sea-change
V. Resurfacing
VI. Again, Treading Water
Six is an important number throughout the piece, and just as waves are made up of smaller and smaller waves, each section acts as a microcosm of the piece as a whole, and phrases follow one another in a pattern derived from the same form. There is a focus throughout on breath— inhales and exhales are written into the score for both players. The breaths isolate waves of phrases, and contribute to the varying levels of growing anxiety or calm stasis at different points throughout the piece. The interaction between the percussive marimba and the drawn-out inhalation and exhalation is itself a representation of the piece as a whole. Ultimately, “Sudden Depths” is a piece about the collision of the human bent towards survival and the devastating, immense force of nature.
LISTEN (6’11”)
Lullaby for Brooklyn is a solo cello piece written during quarantine. The form is rough and choppy, as if periodically waking from a disturbed sleep. The melody is based on the Lithuanian lullaby Liuliaį dukreli (“Hushabye, my little daughter”).
The piece is sweet and somber, and urges the listener to fall asleep, but within the framework of Lullaby for Brooklyn is ultimately unable to fully ease the dreamer from a state of anxiety and delirium. At the start of the piece (and a bit throughout) the cello moves between straight tone, vibrato, and tremolo, as if trying to breathe deeply while out of breath. The cello also mimics an ambulance whine, a 2-note melody that has become constant and ubiquitous, throughout the day and night.
This piece makes use of an extended technique called “sul tasto”, in which the cellist bows lower than they normally would, creating an airy, out-of-breath sound, like a mother singing softly to a restless child. (2020)
LISTEN (1’35”)
Alien Tongue is an experimental ambient track using vocalizations of killer whales from Alaska (resident & transient) + electronics. It is a short meditation on the question: What is consciousness? It also offers a tiny, abstracted glimpse into the endless and unknown sonic life of the ocean.
Orcas have complex auditory communication— the closest thing to an alien language we know of— and it is clear that listening to these sounds in a musical context can naturally lead to powerful feelings of shared empathy for others that share our planet. Recordings of whale sounds and song have been incredibly important in changing the public attitude towards whaling, the ocean/environmental movement, and perceptions around non-human intelligence. It was created for episode 2, "Intelligence", of the podcast Saturation by @Ariannish. (2018)
LISTEN (2’24”)
Composed and arranged in the style of a slow air, and drawn from the Irish solo singing tradition of sean-nós. Dark, melancholic, lilting, singable. For accordion, fiddle, double bass, and mandolin. (2016)
WATCH HERE (5’59”)
3rd place winner at Best of the West ACM Student Film Festival
“Rosas Danst Rosas” is a famous contemporary dance piece by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. The film Reclaiming Rosas adapted that piece to interrogate the idea that there are spaces and actions in which black women cannot or should not be a part. The original score uses drum samples and original recordings of piano, voices, and melodica. (2017)
Half-Hanged Mary is an original tune that subverts a popular bluegrass trope known as the “murder ballad”. Many songs in this sub-genre are still extremely popular today, and nearly all tell the stories of women rejecting men and consequently getting gruesomely murdered. Those lyrics are usually paired with an upbeat tempo and major chords, and the lyrics usually indicate that the person singing the song believes that this was a normal and justified action.
Whether or not the 21st century interpretation is one of irony or humor, it is creepy, outdated, and anti-feminist. Bluegrass today is a very male-dominated genre, which doesn’t help either.
”Half-Hanged Mary” is a feminist response to these types of murder ballads. The lyrics are an adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s poem of the same name, and tell the story of Mary Webster. In the 1680s, Mary was accused of witchcraft and hanged in Hadley, Massachusetts. According to several accounts from the time, she was left hanging all night and was still alive when they cut her down in the morning. She lived for another fourteen years.
In 6/8, E minor. For upright bass, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, and three voices. (2017)
Em / / G / /
Rumor was loose in the air
Em / / G / /
Bound to take somebody’s life
C / / G / /
Mary took the blame, she bore the shame
B / / Em / /
For she was nobody’s wife
Em / / G / /
The men of the town sling her up high
Em / / G / /
The frame of the wood starts to creak
C / / G / /
The bonnets and skirts stare up at her
B / / Em / /
Once friends, they don’t dare to speak
CHORUS
Em / / G / /
I was hanged for living alone
D / / Em / /
for having blue eyes and sunburnt skin
C / / G / /
a sure fire cure for warts, oh yes,
Bm / / Em / /
and breasts, the sign of the devil within.
Em / / G / /
Her throat is taut against the rope
Em / / G / /
Choking off words and air
C / / G / /
Blood bulges in her skull
B / / Em / /
She bites down on despair
Em / / G / /
When they came to harvest her corpse
Em / / G / /
(Open your mouth, close your eyes)
C / / G / /
Cut her body from the rope
B / / Em / /
Surprise, surprise, she’s still alive
LISTEN (5’50”)
A piece composed for the Joseph Dorfman competition, as the culmination of the International Summer Academy of Music workshop in Ochsenhausen, Germany. Performed live by a professional ensemble. For Bb clarinet, piano, cello, and vibraphone. (2017)
