Obscure Songs

for SSAA Voices (TTBB and SATB versions also available)

total duration app. 8 minutes

A Dream Itself (after Shakespeare) – 3’

there are some who believe... – 2’30”

MASS-if BINARY – 2’

Obscure Songs is a collection of homage pieces I wrote for use in an ArtSounds collaboration in April of 2010. The style, although not completely my own, nonetheless resonated with me and I felt that they would work well as a small set for four voices or a treble choir.

“A Dream Itself” is modeled after a line from Hamlet. The beginning of a line is repeated the same three times, each time ending differently. The repeated notes in the voices is intended to make a rhythmic disjunctness akin to beats in non-perfect intervals.

“there are some who believe” uses a form of Arvo Part’s tintinnabulation as the basis for a philosophical treatise by Bertrand Russell. The whole piece is very static, with a lone, interesting resolution near the end.

“MASS-if BINARY” is in the Palestrina style (almost). The text is binary code for the word “alone”, although the first four digits of each letter (a binary letter has eight numerals) has been left off since it is relatively inconsequential. Remember I said it is almost in the Palestrina style. Certain liberties were taken to create something slightly more interesting than an exercise.

I have really grown to love these little pieces and I hope you do as well.

–Ryan Jesperson 4/11/2010, Kansas City, MO.

 

Obscure Songs were performed and recorded for use in an ArtSounds event on April 13th, 2010. The concert version has not yet been performed.

 

Fall, 2012: Joseph Abad will premiere a new Saxophone Sonata.

Fall, 2012: Jordan Jacobson will perform fragments and memories in CT.

Spring-Summer, 2012: Jeux pour Jumeaux will be performed in San Francisco, CA.

Spring, 2012: Bobby Watson and the UMKC Big Band will premiere Rhapsody for Dean Moriarty in Kansas City, MO.

Spring, 2012: Ashly Evans will premiere Birdsongs in Houston, TX.

Spring, 2012: BA(da)SS will be performed by Ryan Ford in West Hartford, CT.

Spring, 2012: Jordan Jacobson will perform fragments and memories in CT.

Spring, 2012: Not Death, but Love will be premiered by Ineo Saxophone Quartet.

Spring, 2012: David Tayloe will perform A Page Out of Zen in CT.

May, 2012: The Invisible, Magic, Soccer Phone will be premiered in Middlefield, CT.

April, 2012: The UMKC Opera Dept. will perform portions of Songs from Behind the Curtain.

April, 2012: David Tayloe will premiere A Page Out of Zen in NY.

Feb. 17th, 2012: The 016 Ensemble will be perform Romanza for Alto Saxophone and Violin in Manchester, CT.

Dec. 3rd, 2011: Ryan defends his dessertation, Songs from Behind the Curtain at UMKC.

July 17th, 21st, 24th, 2011: Music Faculty from the Sebago-Long Lake Music Festival will perform ...and those seven dwarfs in a series of concerts in Western Maine.

June 16th, 17th, 23rd, 24th, 2011:Orphée Redux will be performed by Rhymes With Opera on their East Coast Tour (NYC, Baltimore, Hartford, Boston).

June 12th, 2011:Selection from Songs from Behind the Curtain will be performed at the John Duffy Composers Institute in Norfolk, VA.

May 13th, 2011: The Ineo Quartet will perform the 1st movement of Not Death, but Love on their Fischoff Competition program in South Bend, Indiana.

March 19th, 2011: The Ineo Saxophone Quartet will perform ...and love is fire... from Not Death, but Love at the NASA conference in West Point, NY.

Feb. 25th, 2011: I. Jest will be premiered by Robert Olson and the UMKC Orchestra in Kansas City, MO.

Feb. 14th, 2011: Hebdomas Squatinae will be performed at the Nebraska at Kearney New Music Festival.

EVENT HISTORY