Over the Summer of 2023 I made the decision to dedicate my time and energy to math full-time. As part of that decision, I dropped the composition major that I had been working towards for my first two years at Bard. I’ve kept this part of my website as an archive of my compositions. Since making this transition, I’ve also been exploring writing prose as a way to stay creatively engaged. I have a few pieces up on my Medium page under the pen name Jules Bell that I write as I have the time. Likewise, I have a Musicboard account where I write reviews of some of my favorite albums. Both of these are linked below and updated every couple of months.
Compositions
You Say You Said
You Say You Said is a critique on war-time rhetoric. The original poem was written as a response to the US’s neutral foreign policy stance during World War II. Moore adopts a grateful tone in her address to Germany, claiming “I hate you less than you must hate yourselves”. In a subversion of expectations, this feeling comes as a relief to Moore, as she can be unburdened in her criticism.
The piece was written as part of a workshop with Missy Mazzoli in the Fall of 2022, and subsequently performed in February of 2023 by Jun Mo Yang and Nielsen Chen.
Curtains through the pane
Curtains through the Pane is a reflection on the kinds of barriers that we let societal influences impose on us. It is based off of a short poem that I wrote, which I recite at the beginning of the piece (note that I had some errors in my recitation that are corrected in the transcription of the poem).
It was written in 2022 for two members of the Da Capo Chamber Players, Molly Morkoski and Curt Macomber.
NOVA
At Nova’s core are the ideas of ambition and distance. There is a “perspective” depicted which grows progressively closer towards an ambition as the piece unfolds, as if reaching towards a star. There are obstacles along the way--the heat of the star, a pull back towards the ground--but ultimately the perspective prevails as it is surrounded and engulfed by the star: Consumed by its ambition.
Nova was written in the Spring of 2020 for the Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists’ Orchestra program. Unfortunately, its debut performance with the ensemble was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Autumn Gale (Draft 1)
Autumn Gale follows a storm progressing from its beginnings in the rain, to its growing potential in the clouds, to its release in the form of lightning, and finally to its resolution--found in a rainbow.
The piece was written in the Summer of 2019 for a professional string quartet local to the Twin Cities area. It was written and edited over a period of two weeks, and ultimately performed and recorded at The Lathe Room in Minneapolis as the culminating feature of a Summer-long workshop taught by Adam Conrad.
Glacial Surroundings
Glacial Surroundings was the product of a collaboration between Wyatt Snyder and Josh Krienke in the winter of 2019. The composition follows a winter storm through harsh, biting textures--in search of the few moments of pause which lie at the heart of the piece.
It was written for a chamber ensemble during the span of a week, and subsequently performed after two weeks of rehearsal. This work reflects the intentions of each composer, and the players for whom it was written. Josh focused on orchestration and harmonic development, while Wyatt tied the piece together with his melodic writing. Wyatt’s responsibilities are most featured in Rehearsal Marks B and E, while Josh’s correspond with sections A, C, and D.
Hammock in the Breeze
Hammock in the Breeze focuses on the duality between shame and intimacy. It exists in the liminal space between the two, creating a somewhat ambiguous mix of ideas and conflicting emotions.
The piece was written in response to a composition prompt to write a piece under 3 minutes which depicts “subdued joy” in some capacity. It was written over the period of 3 weeks in the fall of 2019, though it underwent significant revisions a year later in the winter of 2020.
Crystal Veil
Crystal Veil was produced in response to a prompt to find, arrange, or compose a minimalist piece for performance given a restricted timeline.While not strictly a minimalist composition, Crystal Veil was inspired by the slowly evolving textures and tonalities present in much of the genre.
The piece was written during a weeklong period for a chamber ensemble at the Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists, rehearsed for two weeks, and performed. Some parts of the performance were rearranged to accommodate for the limitations of the ensemble, but the score reflects the intentions of the original concept.
Written Work
Float
Float is a dedication to the New Year as an expression of the present. It draws from a number of my favorite memories celebrating on New Year’s Eve, particularly from ones when it felt like there was no wish greater than the exact moment we were gathering.
Tilting
Tilting is a piece I wrote as a testament to my habit of fence walking. Many times during my first year away from home I would be pacing outside on the phone or listening to music, and found myself walking by a low, sturdy wooden fence. Eventually I started taking my calls on the fence, walking the length of it back and forth. It then grew into a way for me to process anxiety and recenter my often cluttered brain.
The story was written for and submitted to the Bard literary magazine “Feeding the Crows”, where it was published in the 5th issue, Warp.
Testing Resistance
Testing Resistance is a family of short works that center a pressing towards friction. Speedway investigates the limit of approaching burnout. Montage is a window into an internal experience of that pressing. Puddle reflects on the external view of such an experience, and prescribes inaction.
The collection of works were written for a class, with the prompt to write a piece under 300 words.
Tides
Tides is a letter addressed to time and change. It’s an exploration of the selves we leave behind as we change, and our response to that loss. Metaphors of death and wounds are used to highlight the loss of an old self as permanent and to frame our response to change through grief.
While the piece isn’t a light read, it’s meant to be optimistic. The tides of change are inevitable, and so there will always be selves for us to leave behind and grieve. However, there is also a rebirth in change. At it’s core, Tides is a celebration of this rebirth and the fact of our ever-changing impermanence.
The Blackberry vignettes
The Blackberry Vignettes is a love-letter to my hometown in Northern California. It’s a piece blocked out by a few small windows into my memory of that place and time. I tried to write this piece with an awareness of the kind of romantic dilation that is easy to gravitate towards when writing on things past. I either write with honesty or ambiguity in acknowledgment of my own gaps in memory.
This story was originally written as an orchestral piece before its form was adapted to the medium of prose. It was submitted to and published in the 3rd issue of a Bard student-run literary magazine called “Feeding the Crows”. The issue’s theme was Nostalgia, and this piece fits in nicely with a handful of other student-written pieces on the same topic.
intentions
Intentions is a piece I wrote half a year after moving out of the composition program at Bard. It’s a reflection on how my relationship with work had changed and grown in the time since transitioning to math full-time. It also came at a time when I was missing some creative outlet, and set my sight on writing as a new form to express my thoughts at the time.
So I set the intention to start writing again. However, as part of this I said that I would only write when I had something to say. Thus, even though I’ve only written a few pieces since Intentions, I feel as though I’ve been writing things that serve some purpose to my interest in communicating ideas that are resonant.
- Album Reviews -
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My Dessert Island Album
A question once posed by a friend: “If you were stranded on a desert island with the discography of one artist to keep you sane, who would you chose?” My answer would, undoubtably, be Bill Evans. And, if it had to be one album, I would have to bring Waltz for Debby along. Introduced to me by a friend almost 4 years ago now as my first introduction to Bill Evans, Waltz for Debby has somehow managed to maintain its novelty after what has to have been hundreds of plays at this point. This is an album I will continue to enjoy when I’m working at the library, up at 4am alone in my room, out for a walk on a snowy day, or just in need of a smile and some comforting tunes. Timeless.
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My 2023 Album of the Year
säje by säje was my 2023 Album of the Year. I chose it to honor the people behind the project who seem to radiate a joy for music that reminded me of how I fell in love with Jazz. For some background, I was introduced to Jazz through Jacob Collier, who was both featured on this album and shared that same joy that seems to be present in this budding group of women. And while their debut album reminded me of arrangers such as Jacob Collier or Michael Mayo (who are starting to carve out their own subgenre of the medium), säje also felt like a project that is uniquely of these four people. You can hear how different songs have different styles of arrangements and how different singers are brought forward in different contexts, but there is a cohesiveness to the way they all support each other and make space for each individual voice. It is, above all, music created by real people, in the present, at some of the highest degrees of musicality. And that’s what’s at the core of what makes Jazz, and säje, exciting to me.
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Laufey has Arrived
Bewitched by Laufey had my heart in the first 30 seconds, and then proceeded to break it at least 5 times over in the proceeding 48 minutes. I first heard Laufey’s music over 2 years ago when “Love to Keep me Warm” came out, and Bewitched feels like Laufey’s arrival in full blossom. “Dreamer” is the long awaited answer to her first song “Street by Street”, as she harkens back to the metaphor of a town again to loudly announce that she has in fact, “taken back her city” and it’s on a “cloud up by the Milky Way” now. Likewise “Haunted” borrows the chilly bossa nova + hazy string chords from “Fragile” off of “Everything I Know About Love” and elaborates on a more present experience of the past—a one of haunting rather than remembering. This album is so clearly Laufey and it’s a joy to see her coming into her own in front of more than just my eyes now.
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An Everything Everywhere,All at Once Album
Drunk on a Flight by Eloise was my “Most Listened to Album of 2023”, which should be testament enough to my love for it. There isn’t the words really to say why this album is as good as it is, but it blends styles so seamlessly to create a cohesive style that I can’t quite pin anywhere else. It has the jazz/R&B flavors influencing songs like “Drunk on a Flight”, a rock/pop angle that we hear in ”Therapist” and “Giant Feelings”, and then some movie-magic that I can only remember feeling listening to “Build A Problem” by dodie on “In Another Year”. It hits the full spectrum of what I’m looking for when I listen to music, putting it in the rare collection of albums that put story over genre and dare to banner its multiplicity in full display.
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Gardenview: Learning to Love
Gardenview by Nataly Dawn is one of the albums that lets you appreciate the quiet things when everything just seems too big. A year and a half after this was released and I listened to it with my mom cooking dinner together, I’m still picking out little phrases and ideas that resonate with me. “Joy” of course sticks out as a song that perfectly matches tone with message, and clearly speaks to something I think so many people need to hear: “you don’t need to worry about life going to easy on you”. The rest of the album also grapples with these abstract, inevitable feelings of what must be doubt, anxiety, and sadness—lovingly called “The Void”—and reframes them through a relational lens. Nataly tells this “Void” that “If I can’t make you leave, I guess I’ll have to love you” in “All Bad”. And this is her “Gardenview”: learning to love the parts of you that have thorns or the parts of your past that still haunt your present. Wake up and see that “everything is fine”.
For more album reviews, visit my Musicboard account: