Electric Phoenix

EVTE

Solo Instrument

It’s pretty obvious what this bay in my metaphoric library will eventually contain. But there’s nothing substantive here yet. (Remember: . . . and that is poetry . . .) 

As a start, however, I’ve extracted from my CV a short list of compositions for solo instrument, although in some instances these might have been placed in the category “music theater”:

  • POEMPIECE I: whitegold blue (1967; flute)
  • POEMPIECE II: how I fooled the armies (1968; bass trombone)
  • Wallpaper Pieces (1979; piano)
  • Footnotes (1981–84; guitar)
  • Different Drummers (1987–88; snare drum)
  • March Peace (1988; snare drum)
  • For Violin (1990; violin)
  • KS/CH (2003; flute)
  • The Walk to the Tarn (2013; piano)
  • The Walk around a Round (2019; toy piano)
  • Cello e cielo (2019; cello)

Instrumental Ensemble

It’s pretty obvious what this bay in my metaphoric library will eventually contain. But there’s nothing substantive here yet. (Remember: . . . and that is poetry . . .) 

As a start, however, I’ve extracted from my CV a short list of compositions for instrumental ensemble—which includes everything from duets up to (very!) large ensembles:

  • Sextet (1967; flute, oboe, horn, piano, two percussionists)
  • Bryant’s Ridge Disco Phase No. 1 (1978; disco band of sixteen or more instruments)
  • 5 Strings / 3 Players (1987–88; two violins, viola)
  • Dancing on Your Grave (1990; chamber orchestra)
  • The Kitchen Sink and the Water in It (1991; flute, clarinet, trumpet, two trombones, percussion)
  • Common Ground (1995; large wind ensemble and steel band)
  • Lullaby (1998; four trumpets, three trombones, bell)
  • from . . . on . . . for . . . (2002; flute, cello, piano)
  • Small Talk (2002; four unlike instruments capable of crescendo)
  • Canticanon (2003; twelve instruments)
  • Would That Change (2004; large wind ensemble)
  • Disjointed (2011; piano, percussion)

Choir

It’s pretty obvious what this bay in my metaphoric library will eventually contain. But there’s nothing substantive here yet. (Remember: . . . and that is poetry . . .) 

As a start, however, I’ve extracted from my CV a short list of compositions for choir—that is, vocal ensemble (sometimes accompanied) with more than one voice on a part:

  • Doors (1983)
  • A Peal for Calm (1987)
  • in memoriam reducere studemus (1996)
  • Six Mediaeval Lyrics (2010)
  • Four Folk Songs (2011–2016)
  • For Orpheus (2016)

Chamber Voices

It’s pretty obvious what this bay in my metaphoric library will eventually contain. But there’s nothing here yet. (Remember: . . . and that is poetry . . .)

As a start, however, I’ve extracted from my CV a short list of compositions for chamber voices—that is, unaccompanied ensembles with one voice per part. Think of madrigals—which, coincidentally, is the title of the first item on the following list:

  • Madrigals (1977–78)
  • Crazy Jane (2015)
  • Oooo Will! (2016)
  • Tracce (2019)

Solo Voice(s)

Overview

It’s pretty obvious what this bay in my metaphoric library will eventually contain. But there’s nothing substantive here yet. (Remember: . . . and that is poetry . . .)

As a start, however, I’ve extracted from my CV a short list of compositions for solo voice(s)—which means, of course, pieces for one or two voices, often with an accompaniment:

  • Four Poems of e. e. cummings (1966)
  • Four from the Song of Solomon (1967)
  • Many Returns (1977)
  • Medley (1978)
  • Duets (1978–79)
  • Vier alte Lieder (1993)
  • Rubaiyat (2001)
  • Three Monodies (2002)
  • Three Songs on Poems by Kenneth Rexroth (2003)
  • A Wake of Music (2008)
  • Lombardiran (2009)
  • Sweet (2009)
  • An Everingham Legacy (2010)
  • After Vincentino (2014)
  • Lifting Belly (2015)

History

The first (and last) word, as is so often the case for me, is taken from Mr. Cage:

             My 
            mEmory
       of whaT
             Happened
         is nOt
 what happeneD 
                      ———Composition in Retrospect (Cambridge: Exact Change, 1993), [5]

However, my memory is all that I have, and so I shall not be dissuaded: here is a brief account of that which is not what happened . . .

My first compositions were written in high school and were unashamed imitations of music I enjoyed—Gershwin, in particular. Then I went to Wesleyan, and my world changed: I came to love early music and I came to confront John Cage. These challenges turned me away from harmony, keyboards, and the nineteenth century, though not as much as I thought at the time. In any case, my college years produced a mix of incidental music (mostly written for the Wesleyan Glee Club), imitations of my new infatuations, and, occasionally, something of minor merit.

On to graduate school at the University of Illinois, where Ben Johnston helped me to learn serial techniques (at my request) and where Kenneth Gaburo’s “compositional linguistics” again changed my world. I discovered that my love of analysis, order, and system was not incompatible with my love for singing; and, times being as they were, I discovered that old music—particularly old music of no conventional value (like sentimental songs)—could perfectly well be repurposed with affection, not disdain.

I moved to California and started teaching. My interests (and my pieces) became even more interdisciplinary (my Illinois years had already engaged me with dance, in several ways). They also became more conceptual—a kind way of saying that my ideas weren’t really seen through to completion, except when required by a performance.

I quit my job and moved to England. There, from 1977 to 1980, I was productive, with especial attention to vocal music. My curiosity had been roused by my participation in EVTE (Extended Vocal Techniques Ensemble) at UCSD, and it was stoked by Electric Phoenix, an English group that became my compositional and performative home for almost a decade.

I returned to the US late in 1979 and embarked on a series of free-lance positions. My compositional attention turned to instruments, though my affection for the voice remained steadfast. By the time I rejoined academia (1986), I was more scholar than composer; but this changed during my years at Illinois, in part because I was increasingly engaged with performance and with administration.

I left Illinois and moved to York in 2000. By now my compositional approach had stabilized: I still liked systems, and I still loved singing. At York nearly all my compositions were for voice, and they became increasingly unsystematic. In 2011, I was introduced to Yeats and his “chanting” by Roger Marsh, which led to a series of works that continue even now. At the same time, I was making encores, arrangements, and occasional pieces for The 24, the choir that I directed.

I was a journeyman, producing something that was wanted—either by me or by circumstance. I had become, I discovered, a nineteenth-century composer, fond of keyboards, harmony, and lyricism. And there I think I will remain.

It was a very good century, after all. Do you agree?

         

Curriculum Vitae

This could be really tedious. You’ve been warned.

But you’re safe, at least until you move to more detailed pages. Here, there’s just a pdf of my “brief” (GAHHH!) vita—and you surely have sense enough to not download that.

Popular Music of World War I: Proposals