New Classical Music by an emerging voice.

13 MP3 Songs
CLASSICAL: Contemporary, ELECTRONIC: Experimental



Details:
Etched in Twilight (a trio for horn, violin, and piano) is dedicated to
Neesha Joseph, whom I met at Stanford during the summer of 02',
and who was the catalyst for the piece. Neesha translates,
roughly, to twilight. The piece blends together microtonal, Neo-
classical, and serial treatment of pitch, synthesizing abstraction with
affectation. The work's drones and microtonal inflections allude
to Neesha's Indian heritage, it's clave rhythms to her passion for
Latin culture, and its open lyricism to her tenderness.

The Well-tuned Synthesizer was written for a synthesizer whose
tuning can be adjusted in real time, so that a lot more notes can
be used then the usual twelve per octave. This work uses integer
ratios tuned to the nearest cent, creating pure, beatless sonorities
not possible in conventional tuning. Intervals alien to classical
Western music such as frequency ratios of 8:7 and 7:6 are prevalent.
Each inflection is finely carved down to the minutest detail. The
work's slow, sub-chromatic descents move through a large variety
of shades whose differences are obscured in standard tuning.

Étude and Meditation for Marimba was actually an exercise in which
I was instructed to write a composition using transformations of a
single five-note cell of my choosing. The freely composed first
movement develops the motive of parallel fifths moving down a
minor third, but the cell from the second movement is foreshadowed at
several key moments.

Shades of White is a theatrical production that intertwines spoken
word, spectacle, incidental music and musical settings of textual
collages drawing from a multitude of sources. Orlando mixes
sections of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey,
and Coleridge's Dejection: An Ode and Aeolian Harp; Statue
Plays is performed by a statue of a violinist that becomes animated
when a quarter is dropped in its moneybox; and Dance is a dance
scene involving spirits that takes place at a café.

Duluth 99' is a duet for flute and percussion consisting of three
movements, each inspired by a different personal experience in
Duluth.

Gnossienne starts off calm, moody, and introspective, much like a
Satie Gnossienne, but as the theme is developed, it shifts away from
Satie, towards my own more elaborate idiom.





Joshua Musikantow is a Chicago born poet and composer with a
special interest in microtones. He graduated with honors from
Lawrence University and Conservatory with a BA in English and a
BM in theory/ comp from the studio of Joanne Metcalf.
He is currently pursing his masters in composition at the University
of Buffalo.

offbeatjm@aol.com