Trip of the Tongue (2024)

for orchestra 2222 /4211/full strings, tenor sax, and percussion
Duration: 8’
Written for A Little Night Music Orchestra, Vancouver; Alana Chan, conductor

Premiered by A Little Night Music Orchestra, Mostly Modern: Movies and More, March 11, 2024
conducted by Alana Chan

Salut d’amour (2023)

wind ensemble (flute, oboe, 2 clarinets, tenor sax, trumpet, horn, trombone, bass trombone)
Duration: 2’30, Arrangement of Elgar’s piece
Written for A Little Night Music Orchestra

Performed by A Little Night Music Orchestra, June 3 and 5, 2023
conducted by Alana Chan

The Orpheum Lobby (2017)

6 minutes
Open Instrumentation (3 parts)
Text from Vancouver Civic Theatre's website

A site-specific piece for written for Redshift Music Society and Ecstatic Waves's "Still Life With Echo" concert in the lobby of Vancouver's Orpheum Theatre. The piece integrates the Orpheum's 15-minute intermission recording, which plays chimes and reminders 5, 3, and 1 minute before the performance recommences. The piece creates the ambience of intermission chatter and the the sonic environment leading up to a performance.

Canadian Train Ride (2014)

Canadian Train Ride (2014)

for Concert Band (Fl/Cl/Alto Sax/Tpt/Tbn/4Perc)
commissioned by Alan Danahy

Written for Alan Danahy and the C.C. Pinckney Elementary School Band in Columbia, South Carolina, this piece presented me with the challenge of creating age-appropriate music for a non-standard collection of instruments.

The request was for a crowd-pleaser with the potential for integrated arts education. Canadian Train Ride references Canadian geography and quotes national tunes Land of the Silver Birch and O Canada - plenty of fodder for young inquiring minds. 

In a few senses, the players actually get to drive the train. Rich with driving rhythmic forces, players are definitely taken on a ride. And taking full advantage of Michael's skill with interactive music, the piece begins with the band (and the audience) chanting "chooga-chugga," speeding up the train as it heads off across Canada!

Unheard Futures of the Past (2012)

Unheard Futures of the Past (2012)

for Orchestra (2222/4231/timp+1/arpa/archi)

This 7-minute piece for orchestra develops materials from Michael’s earlier graphic novel collaboration, Futures of the Past using techniques of ostinati and efficiency of musical materials.

Unheard Futures of the Past was selected to be read at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s 2012 Jean Coulthard Readings:

Wednesday, March 28, 2012 

10am - 1pm

Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver

Click here for a PDF of the Score.

Parts are available upon request.

Program Notes:

Futures of the Past was the extravaganza that never happened. 

At the book launch, the video was screened for a room filled to the brim with comic book fans. We had challenged the conventions of graphic novels, and created something truly beautiful in our look at Chinese and Canadian rail transportation. And even though it had been published as words and images in a book, this video was my chance to let the music’s role shine through!

But those graphic-novel fans were all chattering away, distracted by a misguided emcee. And the audio was played through a pair of underpowered laptop speakers. 

The irony of this essentially silent presentation was not lost on this composer, and I vowed that one day, this music would reach attentive ears. 

Those ears are yours, and this piece is a re-appropriation of my own musical ideas. These are the Unheard Futures of the Past.

Peter Meets Susanna (2009)

Peter Meets Susanna (2009)

for Speaking Pianist and Chamber Orchestra

Written for my Master’s thesis, this piece was my first formal composition for Speaking Pianist. Using Wallace Stevens’ Peter Quince at the Clavier, this 20-minute piano concerto presents the unique challenge of requiring the pianist to speak while playing complicated, idiomatic piano writing. The chamber Orchestra is scored for: 1 Fl, 2 Ob, 1 Cl, 2 Bsn, Tpt, Tbn, Percussion.

Premiered by the UWO Thesis Orchestra, conducted by Jim McKay, with pianist Alison Wiebe, and narrated by Michael Park.

Click here for a PDF of the score.

Parts available upon request.