Composed March – April 2020, written for Joseph Vaz.
Joseph was my student (on string bass!) in the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra for three years, and since my departure from that position, he and I have remained in touch and become good friends. His senior year of high school, we collaborated on two concerto performances, the Mozart d minor and the Gottschalk “Grand Tarantella”.
Sometime during the first year of Joseph’s master’s degree program at CCM, we started discussing the idea of my writing a piece for him and eventually settled on the idea of a sonata. He gave me lots of listening homework to fill the gaps in my knowledge about the existing repertoire, which I diligently completed, sending him regular commentary and analysis as I listened through his list.
I had not intended to compose the sonata until much later in 2020, but my work was able to begin ahead of schedule due to Covid. For very unfortunate reasons, Seattle had one of the earliest lockdowns and it quickly became apparent that we were in it for the long haul. I quickly pivoted to “composer mode” and the sonata was the first major work of what turned out to be an abnormally prolific compositional period for me.
Being thoroughly acquainted with Joseph’s virtuosity, I held nothing back, neither musically nor technically. I could not have asked for a more fulfilling collaboration, and I rank this piece among my most important instrumental works, along with my symphony and horn/viola/piano trio.
for soprano, mezzo-soprano, viola, and piano op. 40
Commissioned and premiered by Northwest Art Song: Arwen Myers, soprano; Laura Thoreson, mezzo-soprano Kenji Bunch, viola; Susan McDaniel, piano
The English text was assembled and freely adapted from speeches by and interviews with Valerie Bell (mother of Sean Bell), Gwen Carr (mother of Eric Garner), Sybrina Fulton (mother of Trayvon Martin), as well as a number of pseudonymous sources interviewed in Long Time Passing: Mothers Speak About War & Terror by Susan Galleymore, and a 1992 article from the New York Times entitled “Parents and AIDS: Rage and Tears†by Carol Lawson.
This piece was composed for two very good friends, Andy and Mary Moran, whom I first met in the summer of 2005 at the Pierre Monteux School. Andy was attending as a conductor and horn player, Mary as a member of the viola section, which meant I got to sit next to her in orchestra all summer, which I count among the singular delights I’ve been afforded.
Andy is now Professor of Horn and Orchestral Director at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point; Mary is a musician and staff member with the Central Wisconsin Symphony. The premiere was given at the UWSP School of Music, by Mary and Andy and Janna Ernst on the piano. Shortly thereafter, I travelled to Wisconsin to give further performances (as pianist) both there and in Chicago, and we have since performed it at additional concerts as part of the ARTi Gras Festival in Central Wisconsin.
Program Notes
Trio for Viola, Horn, and Piano, op. 32 (2017)
I. Risoluto
II. Lirico
III. Diabolico
IV. Finale: Passacaglia.
This piece was commissioned by Dr. Andres Moran, who was looking for music that he and his wife Mary, a violist, could perform together. Andy and Mary had been good friends of mine since we met at the Pierre Monteux School in the summer of 2005, and I was delighted when they suggested I compose something for them.
Initially, the Morans asked for a single movement work, but when I had finished that piece (now the first movement of the trio) I knew that it was only the beginning. Three movements later, the work had become among my largest, most ambitious compositions in any genre.
The trio follows a traditional four-movement structure and also features what is known as “cyclical form”, in which themes reappear throughout all the movements of a work, binding the overall piece together. For example, the theme that opens the first movement, a winding, soulful song for the horn, comes back at the end of the first movement, at the beginning of the fourth movement, and once again (in disguise) at the end of the fourth movement. Music from the third movement reappears as a variation in the fourth movement, and so on and so forth.
The music of the trio is influenced by many composers, but it is mainly an homage to Johannes Brahms. This is in large part due to the fact that Brahms wrote a trio for a very similar group of instruments, his opus 40 for violin, horn, and piano. My trio nods to Brahms in a number of ways: its predilection for dark colors and moods, its use of the deep piano register, its rigorous rhythmic counterpoint, and in its oblique references to Hungarian (or what once would have been called “Gypsy”) music.
Neither the horn nor the viola often get a star turn in chamber music, and it was a delight to write this trio as a showcase of the intrinsic beauty and capabilities of these instruments. The horn and the viola are usually considered mellow-toned, middle-register instruments, and indeed they can be, but both instruments have a much wider compass of color, expression, and register. As I knew Andy and Mary both to be phenomenal musicians, I put very few limitations on myself writing for them, and the result is a work that demands virtuoso playing, energetic execution, and deep emotional conviction.