DIRECT TO THE PUBLIC

   This musical project takes one on a unique and meaningful journey through the world of text, music, sound, and the relationships between them. Improvisation, on a structural, emotional, and traditional level, of musicians playing with, and listening to each other and engaging in musical dialogues is a really important part of this project. I have some great friends helping on this CD. 

     The poetry of four amazing poets drives the entire construction of The Four Settings - through very obvious relationships, to some relationships that are deeply personal - and many in between.  More than just setting text, these works attempt to articulate the truly salient features between the disciplines; features that coalesce into a total production, and end up residing in a new world.  Seven years in the making, I am glad it is complete.

     In it’s inception, Junk Bonds/Junked Bombs was a work that wanted to point out a number of inequities & obscenities in the fabric of our culture; from the social environment to the material environment. And it did. Years later, sadly, it remains relevant. JBJB takes three narratives; the Los Angeles riots of 1992 (which I lived through), the Einstienian approach to the development of the bomb, and the evolution of blues, civil rights, and multiculturalism in America, and weaves them into an improvisational palette for me...many self-referential musical quotes abound, as well as recognizable musical and aural tidbits. The strings emerge as a direct result, and an almost reverential topping to this rich and complex tapestry of sound.

    7 simply lets us explore some of the more asymmetrical meanings of existence.

    Six Last Reflections For String Quartet is a string quartet written for the principals in the Crooked Tree Youth Orchestra. http://www.crookedtree.org/general.phtml?catid=18I wanted young musicians to converse in a complex musical vocabulary without difficulty. I kept the work short and rhythmically simple.  In this work I conclude a compositional period of my life that was involved with a five note sonority from which I based many pieces.  Currently I have a seven note sonority that I am using in some new works.  This will occupy seven years, so I thought it a good idea to retire previously used notes.  In between these periods, not surprisingly, I had a six note structure of which I was particularly partial.  I don’t know if I’m done with it yet but you get the idea.