ChristopherGKeene

I'm looking forward to hearing about how tichelli achieved these effects. Is there another piece I should start listening to?

Sorry this is so long in the making, I just finished the first week of classes and it was just very very hectic. You may be interested to know that I've rehearsed my arrangement of Deep River with my choir and they seem to enjoy it, I used a pen name on it that noone is aware of (Stephen Erik Horec, a perfect anagram for Christopher Keene) in order to get more honest opinions of it from choir members. I'll let them know it was my arrangement in a month or so. Without further adieu: at about 40 seconds I hear tonality moving to the dominant of the original key, I'm unsure as to whether the modulation is occurring on "see" or at the beginning of "this dark stormy..." For the next two minutes I don't hear a strong modulation, it could just be that they are too fast for me to pick up on them, but there are moments where it may seem to shift a bit to the minor or something, but it really feels like it's staying in the same key as "this dark stormy..." Around 2:50 is sounds like it shifts to the relative minor. At 3:20, the final chord before "peace" adds the b7 to secure the dominant feeling as it makes its final modulation to a new key for "peace", which I would guess is a subdominant movement, but I'm not positive.

I have heard of Tichelli, I know that he is known more as a band composer. In the Northeast, his "There Will Be Rest" is quite popular with choirs, and I have sung it with the semi-professional chorus I work with. I was not familiar with "Earth Song", and am really glad to have heard this awesome new piece. I lik the opening motive, I feel like this piece is a bit more chorally conceived as opposed to "There Will Be Rest" which seemed more instrumental in conception. I admire his approach to dissonance in this piece, as he carefully places half step dissonances in such a way as to gain the effect he desires without being distracting from the overall texture. His approach to dissonance also shows respect for the challenge of this harmonic language to singers, by approaching most minor/major seconds from the unison, and by resolving large melodic leaps with stepwise motion in the opposite direction. Listening to "Earth Song", I'm starting to get what you meant by 'contemporary choral modulation'. His modulations are effective and subtle, as well as being carefully placed to enhance the musical line. I like what Tichelli did in the like "in pain" after "the torn heart cries out", by seperating out the soprano for just a moment on the word 'in' to give the listener (and choir) a short break from the constant 4-8+ part texture. It also heightens the impact of the bass movement to not hear them for a moment. This sticks out to me because it's something I've had to work hard at in my writing, as it's easy to fall into the trap of picking a voicing (SATB, SSA, SSAATTBB, etc.) and just sticking with it the entire piece. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but contrast in voicing and texture should be an option to the composer, and it's something I have to remind myself of sometimes. Overall I really enjoyed the piece, I don't know if there is something specific you are looking for me to be listening for, but I enjoyed it. It is more of the slow pretty chords I am used to, but there are moments of melodic and harmonic motion that keep it moving a bit more than some other pieces in the genre. It definitely sounds more "Whitacre-esque" to me that the other Tichelli I have heard.

Sounds great! Thank you for your compliments, I really appreciate it! I am still young and relatively new to the contemporary choral game, I've been into it for the last 4 years, but only started really serious work 2 years ago. As I've said, I'm a conductor and singer by trade, but I feel like bringing the composer's eye to the music I work with will make me all the better conductor and chorister, and I also find a lot of joy in creating my own music! I've heard of a few of these composers, should I just start looking for any CDs and scores I can find, or are you going to be giving me a list of specific pieces to check out? I'm really excited to open my mind and my ears to some new music!

http://www.easy-share.com/1907474959/Aug18th (reduction).pdf

Hmm, I'm trying to upload today's work, but it keeps saying 'upload failed'... I'll upload it when I can figure out what's wrong.

Great! I look forward to it! Thanks!

Here's today's, I don't think it's my best, but I tried to do as much text painting as I could. I look forward to hearing what you think of my work so far. Aug16th-Blond Baby Boy (reduction).pdf

Sounds great! I have been trying to do as much textual composing as I can, do you have any suggestions on how to make that more clear? What I've been doing is reading the poem aloud repeatedly to get a sense of the rhythmic stress I feel in the piece, and then speaking it until I begin to hear sequences of notes in my head. Almost each of them I've done melody first, and then worked on an effective harmonization, but maybe I should try a different approach? I have versions with reductions too, I'll post those with this response :) August 9th-Cicadas is more aleatoric and doesn't really lend itself to a piano reduction, but the rest should be all set. Aug6th (reduction).pdf Aug7th (reduction).pdf Aug8th (reduction).pdf Aug10th (reduction).pdf Aug11th (reduction).pdf Aug12th (reduction).pdf Aug13th-Sit and Talk (reduction).pdf

PSS as for time, the Deep River arrangement was completed over the course of a week or so, the miniatures were completed one a day in between 1 and 2.5 hours.

what's your "style"? I like choirs. I have sung in choirs my entire life, and the sound of voices together will always make me happier than anything else in the world. As I said I haven't written much to date, but what I have written has been a capella, mostly SATB but a few instances of divisi. I prefer to do 'more with less' as it were, to keep my music accessible to choirs that can't do 13 part chords (although I sing with one of those choirs and must confess that that music is some of my favorite) I think a small but real part of the reason I prefer a capella is that I have limited keyboard ability and don't feel at all confident in my ability to write a respectable accompaniment. But I also just always prefer choral music a capella in general. Your favorite choral work you know? (if any) Contemporary classical, drawing inspiration from the standards, whitacre, lauridsen, clausen, some eclectics like joshua shank, eric william barnum, etc. I'm also a fan or Russian orthodox music, and I have an old unlabeled CD of Russian liturgical chants that I just find to be one of the most beautiful things ever. I also listen to and study Bach, and recently took a class in Bach style counterpoint (I had a 2-part invention I just LOVED that I wrote for this class, but lost it in a harddrive crash) ((incidently, I also lost my wonderful tonal 12-tone minuet and trio from theory class with a tone row that modulated from C to F# with tritone substitution, my teacher found it snarky)) My single favorite piece is harder to nail down, as it generally changes every month. Right now I'm particularly fond of Josh Shank's Color Madrigals, Gretchaninov's Otche Nash, and Part's Bogoroditse Devo. What would you like to FOCUS on? I'm really very open. As I've said, I have an extensive theory knowledge, I can read the old clefs, I know my key signatures and can sight-sign confidently, I can voice and resolve french italian german and neapolitan sixths and use a 12-tone matrix to construct a tonal piece. What I lack is practical writing experience. I want to write, and I want to see what I'm capable of, and have someone look at what I've written and offer advice on what to do next. I sort of feel that my brain has left the rest of my body behind, as I know so much but can't do a lot with it. I suppose I'm open to learning whatever you think you can teach me! Anything else I should know? I'm starting school on Tuesday, so I will be busy, but I have scheduled time to compose every day. I sing in half a dozen choirs, and conduct two small unauditioned choirs. I have about half a dozen private voice students. I have Finale 2008 and Sibelius 4 and am far more comfortable using the latter. I am happy to answer questions. I am smart and take criticism well and a very hard worker, but my teachers will tell you I have little patience for 'busy work' as I have so many responsibilities and demands on my time that I want to make everything I do worthwhile. The big thing I want to let you know is that I'm excited to work with you! My Work I've attached PDFs of an arrangement of the spiritual deep river that I wrote for one of the choirs I conduct and they will premiere it this semester, it was the first piece I ever really wrote. I also attached several pieces from a collection I'm working on based on short poems of Anthony Silvestri. There are 10 so far but I don't much like the last 2 so I'll upload the others. Would MIDIs be helpful? PS you'll notice that deep river lists the composer as Stephen Erik Horec, this is an anagram for Christopher Keene and I'm using it to get the opinions of the choir without the bias of them knowing it's my arrangement. I assure you it is my own :) Deep River.pdf Aug9th-Cicadas.pdf