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Kristen Edwards - Flute

Maren Tonini - Oboe

Logan Miller - Clarinet

Jackson Ward - Horn

Camille Camacho - Bassoon

Sculpture of Clouds is a wind quintet inspired by the marimba quartet, Sculpture in Wood by Rudiger Pawassar. At the beginning, the winds maintain a percussive, interlocking groove underneath improvisational solos and sophisticated harmonies. The texture gets smoother gradually over time, until the halfway point. Then, the piece reverses in a palindromic form.

BROTHER (2023; World Premiere)

Brother features Andrew Rey Winn, a vocalist with astonishingly low pitch and rich character. Both the text and the resulting music was written with his range in mind. It also features a unique ensemble for a vocal piece, with Double Bass and a catalogue of percussion accompanying Rey in a bitter story of broken trust and grief.

Rey Winn - Bass

Ayden Machajewski - Piano

Jake Dixon - Double Bass

Nick Lemon - Percussion

Chris Smetzer - Percussion

Text by Jordan Young

Blood of my choice, 
My partner in arms, 
Will you doom us to be foes? 
Once friends, comrades, brethren, 
Now fiend, con, brute. 
If you scorn me with such fervor, 
I must burn you the same. 

I once raised this sword 
Alongside your own. 
When our blades cross, 
The steel and I weep. 

I grieve the fondness 
We once shared, but 
Hearing the voice 
That once called me “Brother” 
Spit out vile distrust 
And brand me “fraud,” 
It boils my blood, 
And scalds my veins. 

Brother, I cannot forgive. 
Not when you have taken, 
What I held so dear. 
Though my heart twists 
With every sharp clash, 
I will lick my wounds 
And soothe the aches 
With a salve made 
Of times long gone.

Ayaha Hariyama - Violin I

Brandon Morrison - Violin II

Marco Santistevan - Viola

Clare Choi - Cello

Frog Pond Rag is a short rag for string quartet, inspired by the many xylophone rags I’ve played and written over my time at SMU. I listened to real frog sounds to inspire some of the gestures and timbres, too!

STatue (2022; World premiere)

Statue is a work for electronics made in FMOD Studio using sounds recorded, processed, and synthisesed in Ableton Live 10. FMOD Studio is game audio middleware software; that is, it handles dynamic music and sound effects for video game engines. Statue takes advantage of the dynamic aspects to create a piece with indeterminate length. Each line of the poem develops its own slightly different sonic world. It features the text and voice of Jordan Young.

Text by Jordan Young

Being beautiful wasn’t enough,
She wanted more,
To be beauty incarnate,
For her flesh to be encased in rubies,
For her bones to be carved out of marble.
A being so perfect in form
That her blood glowed like molten lava,
That her eyes shed starlight for tears.
She could not see the value In her own feeble flesh
That curved and flowed with her every move,
Gentler than gems.
She could not see the sanctity In the ivory of her skeleton,
Holding her up to the light of the stars and the moon.
It never occurred to her
To admire the crimson rivers of life
That roared through her veins
Or to respect the tributaries
That flowed down her cheeks
Full of life’s troubles and pains.
She was too in love with a statue
To listen to the beating of her own heart.