Compositions

The Forging of the Gundestrup Cauldron (2024)

Written for Sō Percussion, this 15-minute work in 3 movements describes the creation of the Gundestrup Cauldron, its cultural context and origins, and its iconography.

The Broken Tree (2024)

This work for orchestra is a musical description of the lithograph Crookhey Hall, by Leonora Carrington.

This work responds to Leonora Carrington’s painting Red Horses of the Sídhe. The first movement, Peat, attempts to capture the lush darkness of which Carrington deftly wove the brooding sky above, and the engulfing bog below. I hope you will perceive the moment where that wisp of an other-worldly castle erupts from the rumbling portents. The second movement, Togail Bruidne Dá Derga (The Destruction of Dá Derga’s Hostel), is named after the source material for Carrington’s painting. It is the tale of Conaire, the High King of Ireland, who is beset and slain for breaking his geasa, or taboos. I found this tale fascinating in the convolutions of its ancientness, and you will hear the blurring of the line between the natural and supernatural that characterizes the work. The title comes from the way in which Conaire becomes king—fulfilling a prophecy by walking naked upon the road to Tara—and also refers to the writer’s block that I suffered while working on this piece.

Naked, Upon the Road to Tara (2023)

e/immigrance for violin and piano, with spoken word accompaniment written and performed by Soncera Ball

Chant for chamber ensemble and choir, text by Lena Molyneux

The Ride of the Sídhe (2022) for chamber ensemble, conducted by Maestro David Alan Miller. A musical description of the John Duncan painting “The Riders of the Sídhe,” this piece, written in a day and a half, engages with the concepts that each rider’s attire and held artifacts represent: love, wisdom, power, and fortune.

Themes from the Underland (2022) commissioned by the Little Orchestra Society, conducted by Maestro David Alan Miller. For a children’s concert, I presented the themes that, were I hired to score films of the book series “The Underland Chronicles,” would fill the soundtrack.

The Passage (2022) for chamber orchestra. Detailing the sun’s alignment with the hallway of the Mound of Hostages on Samhain, and reveling in the rich history of Irish passage tombs.

People of the Otherworld (2022) for string quartet. This just intonation work is a response to Leonora Carrington’s painting “The White People of Tuatha dé Dannan.”

Faded Glory (2023) for brass quintet. Written during a rehearsal after a drive through New York’s rust belt.

Blót (2022) for chamber orchestra

Tachycineta Bicolor (2021) for chamber ensemble. Commissioned by the Albany (NY) Symphony Orchestra. An adoring ode to the aeronautical exploits of the tree swallows that nest annually in my grandparents’ birdhouse.