COMPOSITIONS
FILM SCORE / NEO CLASSICAL / JAZZ / AVANT GARDE
NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY / THE NEW SCHOOL
NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY
While studying music as an undergraduate at Newcastle University, I studied composition with multi-instrumentalist, composer, sound artist, and professor, Dr. Bennett Hogg, specifically contemporary compositional techniques of the 20th century. This included techniques and styles such as serialism and using a pitch matrix, combining modes in polymodal composition, and creating melodies using monophony, homophony, heterophony, and polyphony.
I composed the piece below, 79 Days, Ways of Together (2016) for composition assignment using pitch matrix in the style of serialism. Inspired by John Cage’s Second Construction in Metal, where phrases are loosely structured in to bars of 4, 3, 2 ,3, 4, creating 16 bar cycles. In keeping with serialist methods, I created a rule where noted could not be repeated until the end of a phrase - a bar of 4, then 3, then 2, then 3, and so on. Although, I did make exceptions for the sake of motifs and musicality. Click the button below to view the full score.
THE NEW SCHOOL
Studying under Joan la Barbara, vocalist, composer, sound artist, and professor, as well as a frequent collaborator of Steve Reich and Philip Glass, I studied composition at the New School while completing my masters degree. Exploring composition for different contexts, we examined writing scores for voice, instruments, and for film and television, among other things.
I composed a piece to be set to the Denis Villeneuve film, Arrival, which I called When She Fell to the Light (2021). The piece was written to be used in segments at varying points throughout the film and makes strong use of motifs to snap the viewer back to certain moments, feelings, and instances throughout the film. Click the button below to view the full score.
