Index

Work Sample #1

Work Sample #2

Work Sample #3

Work Sample #1

String Quartet No. 4 (2021) “Kaddish”

16 minutes

You may access the perusal score here: String Quartet No. 4, “Kaddish” Perusal Score

The fourth string quartet is the finale in a triptych cycle of quartets, and the first one to be premiered. My first foray into bringing Yiddish music into my compositional practice, the single-movement work explores loss and mourning through two Jewish folk melodies sourced from the Ruth Rubin Legacy archives through the medium of a large. expansive Passacaglia. Writing this work was, for me, an act of Kaddish, and the act of saying Kaddish musically was through these folk songs. And as the Kaddish is a prayer of mourning and death without referencing these themes directly; both folk songs indirectly reflect on death, dying, romance or loss.

Work Sample #2

Four Yiddish Folksongs (2021)

For soprano, clarinet, violin, and piano

20 minutes

1. Sorele, Dushinke (Little Sarah, My Soul) - שרהלע דושינקע
2. Bay a Taykhele (By a Brook) - בײַ אַ טײַכעלע
3. Hob Ikh Mir a Shpan (I Have a Coach) - האָב איך מיר אַ שפּאַן
4. Oyf di Felder (On the Fields) - אויף די פֿעלדע

Program Notes

Four Yiddish Folksongs is scored for soprano, violin, clarinet, and piano, based on field recordings from the Ruth Rubin Archives of Yiddish Folksong. The source recordings are of Jewish immigrants and refugees to North America (before and after the Holocaust). The Project was a commission from the Institute of Jewish Research (YIVO).  

The composition blends multiple musical traditions such as several genres of Ashkenazic Jewish music (folksong, klezmer, cantorial, etc.), 12th – 14th secular medieval music, some spectralist techniques, 17th-18th century schematic practices (Partimento), as well as contrapuntal form, such as chorale, choral prelude, canon, and Fugue.     

Like so many people, I was alone for much of the pandemic. With time to myself, I explored field recordings of Yiddish folk songs from the Ruth Rubin Collection. I was enraptured by the soul, humor and pain of this forgotten world that lived in the hearts of many but in the memories of few. Stunning performances emerged from ordinary people recalling songs of their youth and past lives. As every note inspired me, I dreamt of writing something based on these recordings, but it remained on the back burner while I was engaged in other projects.

Coincidentally, I received a phone call in early 2021 from The Institute for Jewish Research (YIVO), who wanted to commission a piece as part of an art song project inspired by Yiddish field recordings. Having buried my head in the Ruth Rubin Collection for almost a year, I was already full of ideas and writing down the notes merely felt like dictation.

Four songs in particular mirrored my life at the time, expressing how I viewed certain people in my life and how I convey pain and love. One song, “Bay a Taykhele,” depicts my emotional state following a destructive romantic relationship. Another, “Hob Ikh Mir a Shpan,” is about a friend who experienced suicidal ideation during the pandemic. The last song, “Oyf di Felder,” conveys how I fall in love and struggle with unrequited desire, while the music itself derives deep inspiration from the Bach cantatas I immersed myself in during this period of isolation.

“Four Yiddish Folksongs” was commissioned by The Institute for Jewish Research (YIVO) and premiered by Megan Jones, Collin Lewis, Blanche Darr, and Sung-Soo Cho at the Bard Conservatory of Music on April 21, 2021.

Work Sample #3

Clarinet Quintet (2022) - קלאַ רנעט קװינטעט

“oh World, Goodnight” - אױ װעלט, גוטע נאַכט

for clarinet (B♭/A/BCl/E♭), string quartet, and optional offstage vocal quartet

50 minutes

Program Notes

Written over the span of a year, the Quintet expresses a deeply personal internal world amongst the fears and anxiety of an ever destabilizing world. The four movements explore these themes through many different forms and styles: from Concerto, Minuet, Theme and Variations, to a Double Fugue, Chorale Prelude, and Klezmer and Jewish Cantorial styles. The work opens as a bouncy Concertino, to later traverse through Hora-like figures, descending into a double fugue and chorale prelude, to finally return to a wild dance. The Sarabande, written first, captures my anxieties, insomnia, and horror of impending collapse of global civilization. The Scherzo, with alternating minuetti and scherzi, wrestles with the dybbuk (malicious possessing spirit). For movements I, III, and IV, I found myself drawn to this chorale by J.C. Bach: “Es ist nun au smit meinem Leben”, which obsesses about one’s death. It was rather terrifying than comforting for me, and while it haunts both the first and third movements, its theme stands front and center in the fourth. In the fourth movement, with the variations preceding the theme, all hell breaks loose musically at the delayed entrance of the theme. And in the midst of the insanity, we come back to the final stanza of the Kaddish, the distant sound of prayer.