Wind Ensemble

Brass Choir

Choir

Solo Works

Music for Two

Bull in a China Shop (2020) for alto saxophone and piano
Follow the Leader (2015) for tuba and piano
Super Groove (2011) for oboe and piano
Pistol Pete’s Passacaglia (2008) for violin and contrabass (solo strings)
Fantasy in Six Continuous Movements (2006) for alto sax [or Bb clarinet] and piano
The Red Thread (2002)for trumpet and organ
Sonata for Alto Sax and Piano (2001)

Duration: 14:00

First three score pages (pdf)

Excerpt 1            Excerpt 2             Excerpt 3            Excerpt 4

I. Forty Notes
II. Frenetic
III. Fractures

For me, Sonata for Alto Sax and Piano was a personal experiment to discover other ways of generating music from limited materials. I was interested in exploring different processes, shaping the results, and bringing them into my own musical language. The first step in the pre-composition of this work was the generation of the following scale (the same intervallic patterns continue above and below the pitches listed here):

Instead of repeating itself at the octave like diatonic scales, it repeats at the perfect fourth, minor seventh, etc. All of the pitches chosen come from this specific scale – no octave duplication. 

The processes or compositional “games” used in the three movements vary from section to section. For example, the piece begins with a sparse, barren presentation of the notes from the above scale. Their ordering was generated from a process that divided forty consecutive notes from the scale into five registers. The notes were then pulled one at a time from each register in a way that highlighted the minor seventh, an interval that figures prominently throughout the rest of the piece. The beginning of the third movement uses a more flexible process. The sax and piano both play only staccato notes at first, but after a while, they take turns holding different notes, as if those pitches get “stuck” for a while before they disappear. These held notes become more frequent and eventually pull us into the next section. Sonata for Alto Sax and Piano was written for saxophonist Kevin Towner.

Score and parts available for sale at Dorn Publications. (scroll down to D)

Re-Emergence (1998) for cello and piano
Two Pieces for Horn and Piano (1997)

Chamber Music for Larger Ensembles