UCSD Archive

Selected Works
Date - Date

were running through the woods….

“The material of were running through the woods….is derived from transcriptions I made of women screaming in some of my favorite horror movies. I explored a spectrum of literalness from untouched transcriptions to screams that were chopped up, stretched, transposed, reversed, and violinified.”

— Clint McCallum

More on were running through the woods…

[link to dma 1 program notes]

Reading  
by Batya MacAdam-Somer

Snippet:

“In reading the two parts are independent of one another in the sense that the strictly notated parts are played simultaneously as solos. There are certainly correspondences between the music and the sections, denoted by letters, are of almost equal lengths. The music, thus, ‘goes together' but not always at the same speed.”

— Nils Vigeland

More on Reading.

[link to dma 1 program notes]

Berio Sequenza VIII

Snippet:

silver light 

grays and browns stop and go continuously 

it's breakable, 

shattered 

grainy 

fine 

moving along reflective surfaces. 

it falls, it bounces 

suspended 

sinking 

the wind stings your skin. 

softly frayed edges hammered bells 

the sound continues on

Listening to the Berio Sequenza VIII reminds me of a professor at the Manhattan School of Music who spoke of “off by one” being a technique used in musical composition. 

Berio writes unisons that become “off by one” by morphing into clusters of pitches that surround the original unison note by a half or whole step.

More on Sequenza VIII.

[link to DMA 2 program notes]

Four Songs
by Bob Pierzak

Snippet:

“It is interesting to watch someone vocalize while trying to hold a violin at their neck near their throat. Visually, the violin looks like some kind of weird growth or super-vocal box of the singer/violinist. The violin's voice becomes an extension of the human voice and vice versa.” 

— Bob Pierzak

More on Four Songs.

[link to DMA 2 program notes]

Lied/Lied

When performing a Nick composition I often feel that I am exposing areas of vulnerability in myself/my instrument so that the balance of sincerity and play is always coming into question.

More on Lied/Lied.

[link to dma program 3]