Other Music Commons^™

Scores Of Nature (Volume 2), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Scores of Nature (Volume 2) is a collection of experimental notation and scores, which are created through serial, unplanned, and partially planned musical sequences overlaid onto natural scenes, spaces, or objects that the composer has taken photographs of in different places. This sequence is of five sets of images, many of them with curvature or lines that can be redesigned within an imaginative or manipulated musical staff with parallel or intersecting lines, clefs, time signatures, and other elements of a traditional score. In some cases the composer has offered a possible interpretation of the experimental score and notation through traditional …

Scores Of Nature (Volume 1), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

1. Bone & Stone Sonata;

2. Jellyfish & Seaweed Suite;

3. Bonfire Bay Sonata;

Three works of experimental music and notation are included in Scores of Nature (Volume 1), which include pieces written on beaches with fishbone and pebbles, a bonfire and bay in Sointula, and a piece recommended for solo 'cello, where the score is an image of a beached jellyfish in a bedding of seaweed, in which the musician needs to react to the image and play what they are imagining from that image. From the description provided in the score text: "In this piece, Jellyfish & …

Sound Chapel, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

The idea of "Sound Chapel" liturgies, in the manner of matins or vespers, is that a chapel space is darkened with only the light of a single or several candles available. The organ shall play sustaining notes in various, slow, elongated and sustained ways, at the discretion of the organist. The piece shall create a meditative space with the music being of "piano" (p/pp/ppp) or quieter levels. Various "liturgies" are suggested by the composer below, but may be altered and done ad lib by the performer(s) as the tone or mood of the early morning or early evening "sound chapel" …

Cereal Variations, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

The “Cereal Variations” are short works of experimental notation using different types of cereal or other grains (rice, wheat, bran, and “Honey O’s”), in order to expand the notions of the score. Each piece is very short (10 or fewer measures) and written in C—but this should not restrict performers from transposing or trying pieces in other keys. No tempo or instrumentation is given either, so that performers may use whatever instruments they want. It is encouraged that musicians use anything from percussion to strings and even attempt slow versions of multiple voice choruses. Performers may also want to try …

52 Nanotone Symphonies, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

The 52 Nanotone Symphonies is a work of expanding and contracting nature, which reflects the paradox of size, length, speed, and tone of a work: a symphony is traditionally a massive orchestral work with many interactive parts, while a tone is an elemental form of sound, at the foundational level of music. This work distorts and challenges those categories, allowing for each measure (in 12 + 4 time) to constitute an entire "symphony" of sound in miniature: using a single piano (keyboard or organ) instead of orchestra. Performers are encouraged to play each as slow or fast as they wish. …

Straubgetzeichnet: Organ Fantasy, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Organ fantasy written for Christopher Anderson in honor of the publication of his biography of Karl Straube. The title is a portmanteau of the words "Straube" and "Ausgezeichnet" ("excellent") in German, referring to Dr. Anderson's achievement in completing such an extensive work after nearly 15 years of labors.

Voyages D'Hiver ("Winter Travels"), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Between mid-January and late March 2022, these twenty-four preludes for solo piano were written as an exercise to portray the various changes in the seasons and the world, which is constantly in flux. They reflect travels by the composer, as well as reflections on current events and of cultural and arts events hosted at SMU during March ("the Festival of Form"), which provided insight and reconsideration of sound, time, and space. Many of the pieces are studies in contrast, especially the contrast in volume, tonality, and harmony. The preludes are also inspired by and written for the wonderful community of …

A Festival Of Form: Score, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

"A Festival of Form" was both an event at Bridwell and Perkins School of Theology and a conceptual piece of music that lasted several days. In this rendering, the "piece of music" was articulated in a fluid combination of activities that included works by other composers, including John Cage. The activities involved--from lectures, conversations, and meals to actual performances of both short works and especially the world-record breaking rendition of "Organ2/ASLSP" played by Christopher Anderson--comprise the entirety of "A Festival of Form" as performance piece. The challenge of this work is that unlike nearly any other music, it is purposely …

Broken Chair Chaconne, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

In March 2022, I was working at my computer when this increasingly rickety chair collapsed beneath me! It was time to get back to responsible eating and get a new chair. But amid the intensive planning and production of The Festival of Form: John Cage and the Infinite Human events, it occurred to me that I could play around with the ideas of music, sound, noise, and silence, and particularly the unconventional experiments of notation and scoring. Shortly after this chair broke, I took a sharpie pen to it and began to notate it like a score, along with some …

ÉTude De Canosa, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Étude written for friend of composer, pianist Raúl Canosa.

Bulkomito Fantasy, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Work for piano four-hands, or two pianos (two pianists). Written for friends of the composer, Anna Bulkina and Francesco Comito, thus the combined title name: "Bulkomito."

Easter Vigil, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Written for organ and church choir (SATB), specifically for the congregation of the Episcopal Church of the Annunciation in honor of the composer's mother on her birthday.

Dimër (Winter), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

This work is an original musical setting of the poem by Albanian poet Lasgush Poradeci (1898-1987). The work was written for the esteemed mezzo-soprano Etleva Shemai.

Trees On The River (For Solo Piano), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

One of three short pieces for piano, composed in early August 2017, for piano learners. (NB: RXZ)

Lost Bicycle (For Solo Piano), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

One of three short pieces for piano, composed in early August 2017, for piano learners (NB: RXZ).

Sonata Divina Commedia (Part I: Inferno), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Part 1 of planned 3-part violin and piano sonata modeled after Dante's "Divina Commedia." Part 1 "Inferno" is a wild modernist adventure for violin and piano, echoing the terrors of inferno. As the piece is incredibly virtuosic, the composer allows for variation, adaptation, and some minor changes if necessary for performers to execute the piece, as faithfully as they can. The work was written in honor of two superb musicians, who by random chance, the composer met or had connections with separately, before realizing the violinist (Mr. Kerr) and the pianist (Mr. Wallace) actually met and went to school together …