Video of August 2nd, 2025 premiere at MASS MoCA for LOUD Weekend
This past summer the premiere of my first larger chamber work was performed at Bang on a Can LOUD Weekend. The three day festival was held at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA and was culmination of the 3-week Bang on a Can festival and workshop that I participated in as a composer fellow.
"Shadow Drawings No. 4" is a continuation of a series that started in 2022 when I was a resident artist at Atlantic Center for the Arts where I would spend daily sunset hours tracing shadows of the plant life projected onto boardwalks around the facilities. When I was tracing these shapes, the abstraction of the shadows over the course of time lended itself to graphic score-like imagery and sparked a new composition process for me. This epiphany alongside a transformative visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art during their "Surrealism Beyond Borders" exhibit - where I learned about these artists' subconscious drawing practices - coalesced into the beginnings of my "Shadow Drawing" series.
Over the past two years it has evolved into an automated drawing process of codifying graphic cells derived from memory recollection of my natural surroundings. I like the idea of recalling these images from the mind as vague imprints, almost acting as shadows of lingering layers that are never quite the exact image that your eye interprets in that moment. These cells are then organized across a timestamped grid to map out musical form and structure to then be translated into staff notation.
Image: first 3 minute sketch of "Shadow Drawing No. 4"
Though these images are used in the first drafts of my composition, I do not necessarily remain tethered to their exact details in terms of where I choose harmonic shifts, melodies or textures. I try my best to remain fluid with the "plan" based on where and what the music needs at each moment of composing. Through this process I have learned a lot about my musical taste and leanings. Complexity, abstracted gestures, and tension are all things that I find myself leaning towards, not because I like to write or listen to challenging music, but because I am more interested in experience and documentation. Music, for me, acts a means to recall upon memories and evoke such emotional experiences, and sometimes their interpretation leads to more challenging sounds.
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