UC San Diego

The music composition portfolio consists of three works presented in three chapters. The first chapter titled “Casuarina-salvaged Dreaming” includes a work for eight performers plus electronics, lasting for approximately 10 minutes. This composition was premiered by the graduate students of UC San Diego’s Department of Music, and conducted by Steve Schick. The work is presented in a semi-flexible time-banned system whereby the conductor can assert some agency in the duration of the composition. The electronics utilise sound sources that are localised within the Southwest of Australia, and these samples are drawn randomly from different categorised pools with differing durations, and cast across the 4 channels of the concert hall. Then, the ensemble reacts, replicates, and maneuvers around these electronics.

The second chapter consists of a 6-minute composition for a small chamber ensemble entitled “a moment exposed”. Through this work I focus on creating a extensive introduction, a dialogue between the clarinet and violin. The two instruments paired together, performing in a sort of chaotic unity where the two instruments interact and replicate each other's gestures in a raucous opening — acting together, but vocal in insisting on their own instrumental identity. Often, the clarinet sits above the violin’s register, with the violin utilising more of its lower register — the 4th string is also tuned lower to ground the violin further. Out of the pair’s final explosion emerges the rest of the ensemble. The two low strings are in their upper register, and the piano vamps soft chords — acting as a cloud which sits underneath the interjections of the clarinet and violin.

Chapter three is entitled “Star Picc” for amplified piccolo, vocoder, tape, and a big drum. This work features live processing of the piccolo using pitch shifter. The shifter has 6 independent lines, one for each channel. The speakers are separated with the left channel next to the performer, and the right channel behind the audience — becoming more present in the latter half of the work. The piece explores contemporary performance practice, contrasted against kitsch robotic sounds in the fixed media and electronic pitch bending in its processing.