New Works
I'm interested in writing for all performers who want to engage seriously with new music, whether this means premiering an existing concept I've been developing or building something from scratch around your instrument, ensemble, and programming context. I'm especially enthusiastic about working with performers who have little or no experience working with a living composer; the most important thing is a desire to explore new musical ideas in an open-ended and collaborative way.
My abiding compositional focus remains on pattern and constraint as a generative force: often inspired by literary or artistic work beyond music, I respond to my experience of the world with highly constrained systems and rules that produce their own peculiar senses of harmony and internal necessity. My work also focuses on listening and attention as both a material and an intentional act. For this reason, I'm drawn to writing for players who love to listen carefully across interlocking and coordinated parts and have strong and inventive opinions about the best way to communicate ideas, transitions, and dynamics that often unfold in static, glacial, jarring, or unconventional ways.
How It Works
A commission typically begins with a conversation about the occasion, the instrumentation, the duration, and what you're hoping the piece does for your programming. I work closely with performers during the process and regularly invite input on idiomatic detail, usually by sharing informal sketches and recordings. Timeline from commission to delivery is usually six to twelve months depending on scope, but I am open to more ambitious projects.
If you're curious about a specific existing work and whether a new piece in a related direction might suit your needs, that's also a good place to start.