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The Minute Passacaglia

Composer: 
Matthew Davidson

This one minute theme and variations (actually the “theme” is a five-second chorale) was realized in studio B of the Experimental Music Studios of the University of Illinois, Urbana, United States of America. It should be much shorter.

Genre/Theme

Nicklettes

Composer: 
Matthew Davidson

An Orchestral Children's Suite

Please see piano solo version for program note.

Ensemble Type

Music for Viola and Piano

Composer: 
Matthew Davidson

1. Bulun Bat Eta Bulun Bi; 2. Douce Dame Jolie; 3.

Ensemble Type

Instruments

To Dance to the Whistling Wind

Composer: 
David Froom
 
  • Commissioned by Laurel Zucker  
  •  “a spell of introspective intensity . . . wonderfully concise and effective . . . [made its] points with quiet power.”  (Cecelia Porter, The Washington Post)
 

Instruments

WIND QUINTET

Mvts 1 and 2, 12-tone used freely at times, Mvt 3 based on whole-tone interval; Revised edition (1996) of this work available.

SONATINA for two trumpets in B-flat and piano

A work in three movements written for Raymond Mase and Kevin Cobb, trumpets from the American Brass Quintet.

Instruments

Nonsense Music

Composer: 
Matthew Davidson

1. A Man Who Wasn't; 2. Sylvan Catch; 3. Peas with Honey; 4. One Fine October Morning; 5. A Little Bit Wrong  

 

 
 
 

Five short song settings of five nonsense poems (three anonymous, two credited), which reflects my childhood in New Zealand.

Ensemble Type

Instruments

SUMMER SOLSTICE

A celebration of pagan rites, lover's trysts, wild dances and lighthearted frolic;

Genre/Theme

COLLOQUY

Composer: 
Vladimir Ussachevsky
The composer's own voice is memorialized on the playback tape, which features a speaker (electronically processed voice) having a "conversation" with the orchestra about electronic music and the various sounds that can be synthesized (a la mid-1970s), as a friendly jousting back and forth between the tape and the instrumentalists in the orchestra. Requires a tape operator to stop and start a CD or computer audio files at precise moments in the score.  

Songs from "Letter to a Daughter"

Composer: 
Gary M. Schneider
The play is a monologue of a mother (a former cabaret singer)writing to her estranged daughter.  The mother sings the 5 songs during the course of the play.  The songs work well as a set apart from a performance of the play.    

Ensemble Type

Piano Trio #2, "Grenzen" ("Borders")

Composer: 
David Froom
 
  • Commissioned by the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt   
  • "The piece is a delight -- intellectually engaging, explosive with imagination and with a satisfying visceral power."  (Stephen Brookes, The Washington Post)
 

Ensemble Type

Instruments

Arirang Variations

Composer: 
David Froom

Commissioned by the Barlow Foundation for Kenneth Tse