Program Notes Memories about one’s own pieces are a strange thing. Three Scenes is a substantial revision of a string quartet I composed in 2019 that was read at Syracuse University at that time. My memory is that the reading did not go particularly well, and I therefore never felt happy with the work although… Continue reading Three Scenes
Sutter Buttes Theft in Variations
Sutter Buttes Theft in Variations by University of Iowa Center for New Music Ensemble; Samuel Chen – Conductor; Kevin Swenson – Composer Program Notes Although they are the smallest mountain chain in the world, the Sutter Buttes loomed large over the horizon of Yuba City when I was growing up. The materials for this piece… Continue reading Sutter Buttes Theft in Variations
Composition in the Age of Derivative AI Music
Cantata
I. The Words of the Mouth (Proverbs 18: 4, 8, and 21) — Chorus
II. How Will They Know? (adapted from John 13: 33–35) — Tenor & Chorus
III. I Saw a New Heaven (Revelation 21: 1–4) — Soprano, Alto, & Chorus
IV. When I was Hungry (adapted from Matthew 25: 31–46) — Alto, Tenor, & Chorus
V. Postlude: — Chorus
See the full post for full text and performer information.
The Pianist of Absence
This piece’s title is inspired by an essay by the German composer and theatre director Heiner Goebbels called “The Aesthetics of Absence.” In the essay, Goebbels writes of his desire to create theatre that is “a thing in itself.” A particularly radical example of this “aesthetic of absence” in Goebbels’s work is the play Stifter’s… Continue reading The Pianist of Absence
Spiraling (Just, Like Archimedes)
Program Notes In the past two or three years I have primarily composed instrumental music using the names of the performers for whom a given piece is written. In the Summer of 2024, however, I decided that it was time to try a new approach, and I composed a piece using the Sierpinski triangle as… Continue reading Spiraling (Just, Like Archimedes)
A Pathless Buchlidian Terrain
A Pathless Buchlidian Terrain is a semi-improvisatory work for Buchla Easel and live electronics that I perform myself. The title makes references to two distinct concepts. One is the imaginary world of “Buchlidia” – the place where the voltages that power the Buchla live and die. It is strange and unpredictable, with random voltages surging… Continue reading A Pathless Buchlidian Terrain
Two Sierpinski Pieces
Almost all of the music I have written in the last couple of years has been based around “name composition.” That is, I have been transforming the names of the players for whom a given piece is written into the basic pitched and rhythmic materials of the piece in question. In order to break out… Continue reading Two Sierpinski Pieces
scriptedDialogues
Can you hear me? Are you Listening? I am… Alive. scriptedDialogues builds on my previous work using the Yamaha Disklavier pianos. In this piece, the Disklavier serves as a medium through which a human performer and computer communicate. At times the human performer leads, and the computer responds with materials based on the input of the… Continue reading scriptedDialogues
Mercy in a Pathless Land
The Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti taught that “truth is a pathless land,” a saying intended to caution the listener against following gods and gurus. While composing this piece, I entered my own kind of pathless land. As in many of my recent works, I derived the piece’s materials from the names of the performers for… Continue reading Mercy in a Pathless Land