Portfolio

Radiance – for flute, found percussion, and fixed media (field recordings from the borderlands processed in Max/MSP)

// Please listen to the acousmatic version linked below. The piece explores sonic borders, desert memories, the relationship between the field recordist and her environment.

Spoken by Sunlight – for solo flute (2023)

// This piece explores the ideas of light and shadow and the interplay between them. The title comes from a passage by one of my favorite authors:

In that moment [he] understood the singing of the bird, and the language of the water falling in the basin of the fountain, and the shape of the clouds, and the beginning and end of the wind that stirred in the leaves; it seemed to him that he himself was a word spoken by the sunlight.

Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)

Spoken by Sunlight

Live recording from the 37th Annual Myrna W. Brown Competition, commissioned by the Texas Flute Society. Winning performance by Leslie Richmond:

river – for wind ensemble (2022)

// river was written during my year as Composer-In-Residence with the Arizona State University Wind Ensemble. The piece is inspired by the San Marcos River, a spring-fed river which begins in San Marcos, Texas. I lived near the headwaters for a few years, and swam there often. Through the wind ensemble, I tried to depict my many overlapping experiences of the river, different aspects of it that flow through my memory. Some of these ideas include: sunlight glinting on water, rippling textures, a rush of multiple currents, letting things pass you by, and peaceful moments of stillness and suspension around river bends.

river

Knots – for solo bass (2021)

// Knots seeks the dissolution of discrete sonic elements. Several musical parameters are treated as spectra and materials are stretched, explored, tangled and knotted together. This piece was composed in remote collaboration with bassist Kyle Motl.

Knots

Knots performed by Kyle Motl at MATA Festival 2022

Fridgesong – fixed media (2021)

// Field recording of a refrigerator analyzed, resynthesized, and edited in Klingbeil’s SPEAR.

The Rhizosphere – for percussion sextet (2022)

// For my dissertation piece, The Rhizosphere, I researched pieces that address soil health, subterranean sounds, and the rhizosphere, the microbiome around a plant’s root system. The piece explores the dynamic flux, temporal multiplicity, and interrelationships of this underground microbiome.

The Rhizosphere