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Written for the 2026 spring Young composer competition this work for percussion quintet features a wide range of natural and man-made percussion instruments to represent the integration of man and nature. Few years back me, and a few of my friends decided that it would be a good idea to cure our boredom by bringing a already busted up child size guitar meant for learning and to "" sacrifice it into the woods.'' the reservoir is a large body of water near where I live so it was a short distance, which then led to an easy walk into a bunch of colonial ruins where we laid the guitar and watch it rot away. Far deep in the reservoir lays a broken destroyed child size guitar that my sister got for her birthday as a child or something like that it’s been ever since sitting around around in the house and had transfer locations from her room to the living room room to the my room to the wilderness it’s final resting place. My sister never had been fond of performing music in her life. In fact she is quite horrible at it so my parents smartly in intelligently got her a low quality guitar anyways fast-forward a few years later, and I am now experimenting with multi instrumelity. However, though I got fond of extended techniques, playing it like a hammered dulcimer and even bowing the thing after me becoming friends with the lead guitarist to my modern day chamber band sort of situation, he starts to play it and at that point it only had two remaining strings. We all anonymously decided that we should bring it to the reservoir maybe hide a secret note in it after all the band was just a bunch of board teens, wanting something interesting to do with our lives, so what ended up happening was we snuck into the Reservoir found a foundation of an old colonial house and threw the guitar in it other than impact damage ever since the guitar has been rotting away however, though quite often me and my friends still visit it’s resting place only to see it in more final pieces I’m pretty sure I got rid of the note since it had some secrets that I do not want people finding and still to this day. It’s been resting there ever since. Percussion five has a lot of handmade instrument specifically for this work . The alcoholics shekere; is just a bucket with crushed up beer, cans, or soda cans is meant to be played in a similar style to a traditional shekere . the facidrum; faci- Latin for bundle, a bundle of resident sticks attached and tied up to a frame . Chopping block; a semi resonant piece of wood meant to be played like a table and a practice pad All of the other instruments should be self-explanatory Keep note that since because this was written in musescore bunch of playback loopholes has been exploited, although that there are more than five staves these are to represent each instrument in the set up rather than the actual part parts of represented by the groups that are bracketed. This is to create custom percussion set ups, and to satisfy an easier workflow with sound fonts. ' Sacrificed to the wilderness.mp3 Sacrificed to the wilderness.pdf

Thanks Wieland Handke for your review of my piece and your impressions about each sententia often amounting to a detailed review of it. Indeed I also consider the sixth one to be the best realization of the “sententia” form as well as perhaps the best of this set. Regarding the link of the composer Thomas Handke that you mention, I wonder whether he is realted to you as he has the same surname. I listened to his “Partita für Fagott solo, op. 33” and enjoyed it. It is also performed well by the performer. Thanks for the link! I have only composed one solo piece for fagott which is the bassoon in English, and consider it an instrument with a voice full of feeling. Regarding the 11th measure of Sententia No. 5 in ¼ and with only a rest, it was done for practicality since otherwise the repeat sign would have to be made in the middle of the bar (in case I changed it to 5/4), a practice which I have the impression is not desirable if not incorrect. Or I would have had to write out a new bar as a separate continuation of the repeat.

Dipping my toes back in music composition after a hiatus. Last year, I wrote this piece in honor of the Detroit Medical Orchestra. This orchestra comprises volunteer musicians from the medical profession in the metro Detroit area, including doctors, nurses, dentists, medical students, and more. Their mission is to bring healing through music, and they perform free concerts throughout the region to achieve this goal. I’ve been a part of this wonderful orchestra for many years, and I wrote this piece to celebrate its 15th anniversary. This piece is somewhat an unofficial sequel to the very first piece I posted here on this website, as it continues to explore Greek mythology. (https://www.youngcomposers.com/t34170/nocturne-for-orchestra-an-ode-to-nyx-goddess-of-night/#comment-1186668533) More information of the piece can be found in the short program notes in the PDF score. The Detroit Medical Orchestra had the opportunity to perform this at a local hospital. I'm linking the performance here, as well as providing the audio MIDI mockup. Any comments/feedback is highly appreciated :) Asclepius.mp3 An Ode to Ascelpius, God of Medicine and Healing - Full score.pdf