A truly amazing time at the Alba Music Festival Composition Program. Heard a lot of great music, taught private lessons to the very talented composition fellows, ran every morning, and had a lot of fun getting to know all of the composers and performers. Connected over delicious meals and entertaining excursions with Aaron Jay Kernis, Elliott Miles McKinley, Erich Stem, and Carl Schimmel. Many thanks to SOLI Chamber Ensemble violinist Ertan Torgul and pianist Carolyn True for such a gorgeous performance of A Grey Dream. And special thanks to Elliott for organizing such a fantastic composition festival and for inviting me to be a part of it. As bittersweet as it is that the festival has come to a close, I’m leaving with new friendships and beautiful memories.

Cuatro Canciones de las Últimas Horas

Bass singer Norman Espinoza asked me to write him a new song cycle with text by Pablo Neruda. He chose four sonnets from the book Cien Sonetos de Amor, a collection of 100 love sonnets by Pablo Neruda that were categorized by Mañana (Morning), Mediodía (Afternoon), Tarde (Evening), and Noche (Night). Click HERE to view the texts and translations.

I am playing piano, and we recorded these songs from February – March 2024.

For my new album, Long These Days, these songs will also include electric guitar featuring Tasos Peltekis. The combination of electric guitar with Norman’s voice sounds unique and haunting, and I can’t wait to share these once the album is released by EMITHA’s Lexicon Classics on August 16, 2024.

Performing my piece “Indigo Nocturne” with Shawna Pennock at the March 20th Nextet concert at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas . I’m so happy Shawna asked me to write this new version of the piece, and it was so special to me that I got to perform it with her!

Click HERE for more info about the piece.

The Gustavus Wind Orchestra, under the direction of James Patrick Miller, premiered the version of my piece NOIR for tenor saxophone, electric guitar and wind ensemble on February 3, 2024 in Las Vegas at the Community Lutheran Church.

Score and parts will be available soon at JW Pepper. For more info, click HERE.

I composed a new, expanded version of Noir for the Georgia Tech Concert orchestra under the direction of Andrea Pérez Muksi. It was premiered September 26, 2023 and featured jazz saxophonist Daniel Juárez and electric guitarist Nat Condit-Schultz.

Click HERE for more information about the piece.

For this new version, the piece has been extended to feature both the sax and electric guitar, along with giving the orchestra a more prominent role in various sections. Furthermore, I grew up listening to a lot of progressive rock, and wanted to incorporate more of that stylistic influence into this new composition.

The tenor sax melody at the beginning is originally from my art song composition, Nightingale (2011). In 2013, I decided to create an instrumental jazz version, which I titled Noir referencing the dark and mysterious atmosphere throughout. The chamber jazz version was premiered at the 2013 Rochester Fringe Festival, and the 2014 big band version was the winner of the Seattle Women’s Jazz Orchestra Contest and performed at the Ear Shot Festival featuring alto saxophonist Grace Kelly.

Gorgeous performance of “Echo” from my song cycle, “A Smile and a Sigh,” at the Nextet concert on September 18th! There is a short video clip on my Instagram page, and if you want to hear the entire performance, click HERE to access the video.

Olivia and Tasos will be recording the entire song cycle for release on my new album (release date TBD 2024).