Our Picks

A solid, very successful medley for clarinet and orchestra with stains of jazz, colorful and well-executed contrasts and never-ending flow.

Good afternoon fellow composers! I am very excited to present my latest large scale work, the first movement of my Symphony No. 1. My plan for the symphony is for it to be a “complete concert experience” with two large scale movements surrounding two shorter and lighter movements. This first movement is thus quite long, clocking in at a little over 27 minutes. It is intended to be almost a “symphony within a symphony”, preparing tension to be resolved later in the work, while still functioning as a standalone piece in its own right.

Truly one of the treasures that makes one feel that he's dwelling in the right place. Thank you

So, here is the final (?) version of my very first, serious, String Quartet. 

I'm very excited about this piece -with its newly minted final movement. A bit of detail is in order:

I. Andante con moto: The first movement, in an expanded ABA form, is in Episodic Form. This form, patterned after both the Medieval Estampie and Baroque Fugal Forms, consists of alternating exposition and contrapuntal series. I took care here to focus the material to create a sense of ABA form itself -where as the material itself dictated. The chief material for this movement is the nomenclature for my first name: JASON =DbABbDE. This was arrived at adjusting the note to letter key by removing Fb and Cb -as I didn't feel comfortable having either in the score.... it just didn't seem right, lol. 

II. Moderately: This movement is more through composed in that the material dictated where to go next -with the exception of the end. This movement plays with the theme from the first movement and introduces a, rather stark, GCD motif (I'll let people figure out the meaning of this chord). This chord is not elaborated on or development -just sort of sits in the ethereal of the piece throughout. However, the chord does impact the material that comes after its introduction in a profound way.

III. Largo molto Sostenuto: Resignation to fate. I feel this movement is perhaps the strongest of the three -and the most interesting. While I love dense contrapuntal textures, this movement rests its laurels on a delicate suspension that begins with the GCD chordal motif introduced in the second movement. The JASON motif is imposed within the chordal motif using what I call the Shostakovitch crescendo (see his String Quartet no. 15). In a sense, that work deeply inspired this movement. 

I hope you enjoy! I may rework the second movement to make it less bulky at the ending -maybe fix the transitions? I'm not sure. 

Technicalities aside:

This work is rather personal -obviously since I used my name as the chief material. The hidden programmatic nature of the work is probably easily noticeable to many of us on here. We have all gone through vast struggles in our lives to get to the points we each find ourselves. This work is biographical in that respect. I won't bore you with details. 

Hello!! Even though I am heartbroken and it hurts a lot, I wrote a ballroom waltz titled "The Color of Your Eyes" inspired by none other than: her blue eyes lol. You can never go wrong with a cheerful waltz for any occasion right? 🙂





Let me know what you think and I hope you like it!





Video: https://youtu.be/ieZsZ04Rks0



Score: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Yef2wzSqjKo38y8tS92QPGPCAHKVzrHb/view

As a violinist, I've always felt today's musical landscape is missing something with the general absence of any modern violinist-composers along the lines of Paganini, Wieniawski, Sarasate, and so on to contribute new and exciting pieces to the repertoire. But since I'm both a violinist and a composer, I figure I might as well throw my hat in the ring and try to fix that. I've written four pieces by now, though I'd only ever performed two -- until recently, when I got to premiere the third.
I composed this piece back in 2020, shortly before the entire world shut down. But recently I finally found a good opportunity to perform it, so I gave the "world premiere" on November 9, 2022. Unfortunately it was not recorded except on a phone at the back of the hall, and the massive echo made it sound pretty muddy. So I got a recording session in today in order to get higher-quality audio. Here's the end result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WghXNdOc-VY
The indication "harm." in the part is not me being too lazy to make diamond noteheads -- it is the notation used by violinist Roman Kim (one of my biggest inspirations and another torch-bearer of modern violin composition) to indicate the use of the forced harmonics technique he invented. It sounds one octave higher than written, is fingered exactly as written, and always lasts until the following "ord." mark. They appear at timestamps 2:15 and 3:56. While exceptionally challenging to master, they unlock some sounds that would otherwise be impossible to produce, so I think it would be interesting if the technique could become more widely learnt and incorporated into more modern violin writing.

This is a piece for wind quintet that I've been at for the past few months. I really wanted to take a deep dive into quartal harmony, and it's been fun figuring out how to use this style for my own compositions. I'd love any kind of feedback, and hopefully you enjoy!