While hiking in the Grand Canyon in the summer of 1996, this sonic image came to mind: a syncopated gesture played pizzicato in the lower register, then a flash of sound in the higher register and finally a dissipation of the radiating energy. This idea came to fruition as the opening six bars of Out Of Time. Working within an intuitional framework with little regard for pre-compositional system, I generated most of the ideas heard later in the piece from these opening gestures. The work is divided into three movements played without pause. The first movement is moderately fast and energetic, the second slow and reflective. the third very fast and frenetic.

LUMEN Contemporary  Music Ensemble 
Susan Hampton, flute/piccolo
Kathy Matasy, clarinet/bass clarinet
Heidi Braun-Hill, violin
Emmanuel Feldman, ‘cello
Sandy Herbert, piano
Bill Manley, percussion
Conducted by the composer
Unitarian Church, Arlington, MA
March, 2000

Transmogrifications II continues my planned series of works for solo instrument and computer generated sounds.  Like the first piece in this series (for horn and tape), the generated sounds utilize sampled sounds of the solo instrument as source material.  Through the use of sound effect techniques such as filtering, reverberation, granular synthesis and randomization, the sampled flute sounds were transmogrified into timbres that sometimes resemble the flute and at other times seem rather surprising.  

Tara Helen O’Connor, flute
Miller Theatre, New York, NY
October, 1996

These two pieces are showcase pieces for the clarinet based on jazz idioms. They are influenced by such jazz greats as Sidney Bichet and Benny Goodman. Steeplechaser is in two movements: a slow ballad followed by a fast swing movement. Triple Crown is in three movements: a light swing movement, a slow ballad and a fast movement based on twelve bar blues. Both pieces were commissioned by the Omega Ensemble and were written for the extraordinary clarinetist, Jean Kopperud.