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I recently gave an interview about our activities at Sequenza 21 to the blog A Closer Listen. I also curated a mix for them, consisting of selections by composers who participated in our 2011 concert.

You can read the article and hear the mix here.

I’ve been asked by organist Joe Arndt to write a motet for Grace Church Newark’s 175th Anniversary, celebrated on the Feast of Ascension (May 19 2012 at noon). The church has requested a setting of “Alleluia, Ascendit Deus,” a text most famously set by William Byrd. I’m keeping Byrd’s vocal divisi – SSATB (during his time, probably AATbB), but emending the text used in his version.

Instead of blending words from two psalms as Byrd did (fusspot that I am, I don’t like liturgical mixing and matching), I’m setting the verse below.

Ascendit Deus in iubilatione,
et Dominus in vocae tubae. Alleluia.
Dominus in caelo paravit sedem suam. Alleluia.
Psalm 46 (47): 5

God has ascended with jubilation,
and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet. Alleluia.
The Lord has prepared his seat in heaven. Alleluia.

Once Copernicus got Westerners to realize that heaven might not be “up there,” and Sputnik gave us an even greater reality check, the Ascension of Christ has been one of the passages in the Bible that most vexes literal-minded readers.

I love what Anglican theologian N.T. Wright has to say about this. In the book The Resurrection of Jesus (coauthored as a dialogue with John Dominic Crossan), he rhetorically poses the “laws of physics” question about the Ascension. Wright doesn’t to dodge the issue. He responds that Christ didn’t need to ascend all the way to heaven to present a miracle to the disciples, he only needed to get past the first clouds to demonstrate a transfiguration!

A rebuttal such as this certainly helps an ecumenically minded composer to set to work. If all goes well, the music will reach that first layer of cumulus handily!

In a similar vein to yesterday’s post, here is a reading list for composers. Once again, there are several omissions for the sake of manageability. But if an undergraduate student read all of these books and articles during his/her course of study, they would be in good shape for grad school entrance exams. (Forgive the inclusion of my Shapey article. This semester I’m using several of his pieces in score study sessions with students).

Suggested Reading

Adams, John Luther. Winter Music: Composing the North. Middletown, CT:

Wesleyan University Press, 2004.

Babbitt, Milton. Ed. by Stephen Dembski and Joseph Straus.

Words About Music. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987.

Blatter, Albert. Instrumentation and Orchestration. New York: Schirmer Books, 1997.

Brant, Henry. Textures and Timbres: an Orchestrator’s Handbook. New York:

Carl Fischer, 2009.

Cage, John. Silence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966.

Carey, Christian. “Mother Lode Issues: Shapey’s Worksheet and the Late Music.”

Perspectives of New Music vol. 47 no.2 (2009): 249-265.

Carter, Elliott. Ed. by Nicholas Hopkins and John F. Link. Harmony Book.

New York: Carl Fischer, 2002.

Cox, Christopher and Daniel Warner. Audio Culture. New York:

Continuum, 2004.

Duckworth, William. Talking Music. New York: Schirmer Books, 1995.

Friedmann, Michael L. Ear Training for Twentieth-century Music. New Haven:

Yale University Press, 1990.

Hindemith, Paul. Elementary Training for Musicians. New York:

Associated Music, 1949.

Morris, Robert. “Compositional Tutorial.” (personal website, 2010):

http://lulu.esm.rochester.edu/rdm/pdflib/Composition.Tutorial.all.pdf

Morris, Robert. “Compositional Spaces and Other Territories.”

Perspectives of New Music , Vol. 33, No. 1/2 (1995): 328-358.

Partch, Harry. Genesis of a Music. Boston: Da Capo (enlarged edition), 1979.

Schubert, Peter. Modal Counterpoint Renaissance Style. New York:

Oxford University Press (2^nd Ed.), 2007.

Schubert, Peter and Christoph Neidhöfer. Baroque Counterpoint.

Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2005.

Schwartz, Elliott and Barney Childs with Ed. Jim Fox. Contemporary Composers

On Contemporary Music. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998.

Shapey, Ralph. A Basic Course in Music Composition. King of Prussia, PA:

Theodore Presser, 2001.

Slonimksy, Nicolas. Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns. New York:

Amsco Publications, 1986.

Straus, Joseph N. An Introduction to Post-tonal Theory. Upper Saddle River, NJ:

Prentice Hall (3^rd Ed.), 2004.

Wuorinen, Charles. Simple Composition. New York: Longman, 1979.

Sixty Postwar Pieces to Study

Recently, a couple of the undergraduate composers in the program at Westminster Choir College asked me for lists of postwar pieces to study. Given the vocal and choral emphasis in our program, I’ve compiled the list below to provide a different vantage point. Hence the emphasis on instrumental music and a preponderance of post-tonal composers that they might not encounter when learning their own recital repertoire. Given a different student population, composers like Jennifer Higdon, Christopher Theofanidis, and Donnacha Dennehy could just as likely appear on a listening list such as this.

And, of course, it is frustrating what one must leave out to keep a list manageable in size. Note that I am not attempting to give them the “greatest hits” of the past sixty-five years. Instead I strove for a diversity of selections, both watershed masterworks and vibrantly interesting pieces that merit attention, even if they may not be the first ones that come to mind for the given composer. On a different day, we could come up with sixty different pieces: a composer must be prepared for a lifetime of listening, score study, and learning. Even after that, they must also be humbled by the fact that they will only get to a fraction of all the good stuff out there!

Let’s say that an undergraduate composer began working with this list or a similar one at the beginning of their junior year; listening to and, if possible, studying the score for one of these pieces every week. Between their own performance experiences, WCC’s theory and history courses, and this survey of recent works, by the time that they were ready to consider applying to graduate programs in their senior year, they would have a decent grounding in the repertoire.

1-     Adams, John C. Nixon in China (1987)

2-    Adams, John C. Chamber Symphony (1992)

3-    Adams, John Luther. Red Arc/Blue Veil (2002)

4-    Andriessen, Louis. La Passione (2002)

5-    Babbitt, Milton. Philomel (1964)

6-    Babbitt, Milton. Arie da Capo (1974)

7-    Berio, Luciano. Circles (1960)

8-    Birtwistle, Harrison. Secret Theatre (1984)

9-    Boulez, Pierre. Le marteau sans maître (rev. 1957)

10-  Boulez, Pierre. Répons (1984)

11-  Cage, John. Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (1948)

12-  Cage, John. Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1958)

13-  Carter, Elliott. String Quartet No. 1 (1951)

14-  Carter, Elliott. String Quartet No. 5 (1995)

15- Chin, Unsuk. Akrostischen-Wortspiel (1993)

16- Crumb, George. Ancient Voices of Children (1970)

17- Czernowin, Chaya. String Quartet (1995)

18-  Davies, Peter Maxwell. Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969)

19-  Feldman, Morton. Rothko Chapel (1970)

20- Feldman, Morton. For Samuel Beckett (1987)

21-  Ferneyhough, Brian. Bone Alphabet (1991)

22- Ferneyhough, Brian. Terrain (1992)

23- Foss, Lukas. Echoi (1963)

24- Glass, Philip. Satyagraha (1980)

25- Grisey, Gérard. Les espaces acoustiques (1985)

26- Haas, Georg Friedrich. In Vain (2002)

27- Harrison, Lou. La Koro Sutro (1973)

28- Kurtág, György. Kafka-Fragmente (1986)

29- Kurtág, György. Stele (1994)

30- Knussen, Oliver. Where the Wild Things Are (1983)

31-  Lachenmann, Helmut. Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern (1990)

32- Lang, David. Little Matchgirl Passion (2007)

33- Ligeti, Győrgy. Atmosphères (1961)

34- Ligeti, Győrgy. Violin Concerto (1993)

35- Lim, Liza. City of Falling Angels (2007)

36- Marshall, Ingram. September Canons (2003)

37- Messiaen. Olivier. Éclairs sur l’au-delà… (1991)

38- Monk, Meredith. Songs of Ascension (2008)

39- Nancarrow, Conlon. Three Canons for Ursula (1989)

40- Nono, Luigi. …sofferte onde serne… (1976)

41-  Pärt, Arvo. Fratres (1976)

42- Penderecki, Krzysztof. Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (1960)

43- Reich, Steve. Music for Eighteen Musicians (1976)

44- Reich, Steve. Different Trains (1988)

45- Riley, Terry. In C (1964)

46- Saariaho, Kaija. L’amour de loin (2000)

47- Scelsi, Giacinto. Prânam 2 (1973)

48- Sciarrino, Salvatore. Vento D’Ombra (2005)

49- Schoenberg, A Survivor from Warsaw (1947)

50- Shapey, Ralph. Millenium Designs (2000)

51-  Stravinsky, Igor. Variations (Aldous Huxley in Memoriam) (1964)

52- Stockhausen, Karlheinz, Kontakte (1960)

53- Takemitsu, Tōru. From me flows what you call Time (1990)

54- Turnage, Mark-Anthony. Blood on the Floor (1996)

55- Xenakis, Iannis. Pléïades (1978)

56- Xenakis, Iannis. Tetras (1983)

57- Varèse, Edgard. Poème électronique (1958)

58- Wolpe, Stefan. Quartet for Trumpet, Tenor Saxophone, Piano, & Percussion (1954)

59- Wuorinen, Charles. A Reliquary for Igor Stravinsky (1975)

60- Young, LaMonte. The Well-Tuned Piano (1964-present)

With just a day to spare, I managed to get an entry into Hilary Hahn’s Encore Contest.
Below is a Soundcloud embed of a midi demo of “Aphorism,” a brief duo for violin and piano. I like creating miniatures – and love that Hilary is running this contest – so this was doubly fun to write.

The Big Room

Excited for tomorrow. Organist Joe Arndt is performing a free recital at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Included on the program are two of my Spiritual Variations for organ. Joe’s also playing works by 19th Century organist-composer Alexandre Guilmant. The show is at 4:30 PM. Hope to see some of you there!

Last weekend, mezzo-soprano Megan Ihnen and violinist Joseph Kneer premiered a new version of “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” (2011) on the Federal Hill Parlor Series. They are going to perform the piece again on Saturday in York, Pennsylvania. Below is a YouTube video of the 1/25 performance  (the first I’m aware of that features one of my compositions).

I’ve finally taken the plunge and decided to offer some of my recordings on Bandcamp. The Gilgamesh EP includes incidental music from Immortal: the Gilgamesh Variations, a 2011 adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh, produced at the Bushwick Starr in Brooklyn. I made the score using electronics, prepared piano, piano, voices, and percussion. It was great fun to hear my music as part of a play, albeit on tape.

The next step for the Gilgamesh project: creating a concert suite from the score for live instruments. On August 24 at Riverside Church in New York, Locrian Chamber Players is going to premiere Gilgamesh Suite, a newly composed work based on selections from the incidental music. Written to celebrate the 2012 Cage centenary, its touchstone work is “Sonatas and Interludes.” The score, written for the entire Locrian cohort, will feature prepared piano, harp, and string quartet.

You can stream all of the tracks on the EP at Bandcamp and the bonus track “Duo” is available for free download. But, if you are so inclined to buy the EP (name your price), all of the proceeds will go towards funding the Gilgamesh Suite project. Hope you enjoy!

1/1/2012 – Despite my stepping back, editing, and taking stock, I still managed to finish one more piece in 2011: a short unaccompanied SATB setting of “My Kiss is a Journey…”, a poem by Stephen John Kalinich. Stevie is an accomplished poet, songwriter, and lyricist. He’s probably best known for his poems “If You Knew…” and “A World of Peace Must Come,” as well as for supplying lyrics for several songs by the Beach Boys. But these works just scratch the surface of his varied and prolific career.


I began corresponding with Stevie a few years ago, after writing about his CD A World of Peace Must Come. He was kind enough to allow Kay and I to read one of his poems as part of our wedding ceremony in 2009. I’m delighted that Stevie allowed me to set some of his poetry to music.





My kiss is a journey
From Gods lips
Who blew me into being
You can hear a faint echo
If you listen intently
Beyond the silence is the Hmmm
Of Creation continuing

-Stephen John Kalinich


I posted a MIDI demo of the piece over at Soundcloud (embed below). Instead of vocal “oo’s” and “ah’s,” the “out-of-the-box” software synth solution, I opted to substitute clarinets for the voices. If any choirs are interested in the piece, please be in touch.


My Kiss is a Journey midi demo by cbcarey


Stevie’s latest recording is California Feeling, a compilation of various artists recording his songs, lyrics, and poetry.

12/30/11 – Composing is often thought of as constantly adding notes.

But sometimes whittling or paring back what you’ve already written is an important part of the editing process.

Keep only the essentials; clear out the filler, the redundant, the indulgent, the showy, the superfluous.

Today was a day where, despite having the double barline in sight, I stepped back from the urge to finish a piece, and instead took stock.

I took away notes instead of adding them.

That can be a good day of composing too; one of the best.

12/31/11 – But of course, compositional ‘whittling’ is only part of a process that, if we’re fortunate, does indeed end in a double barline.

And, as we near the double barline of 2011, I wish you all many more notes added than whittled, be they written, played, or listened to, in 2012.