Category: Art Music

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Art Music Commissions Live

25, for orchestra (World Premiere)

This spring, I had the great good fortune to compose a new piece for the Calvin Community Symphony’s 25th-anniversary concert. Below are the program notes:

It may seem obvious—even unimaginative—to name a piece commissioned for a 25th anniversary concert “25.” What is perhaps less obvious is that the composition is in a 25/8 meter*.

One 8th note per year is not only a fitting starting place for a 25th anniversary piece, but it continues my long term exploration of rhythm. My compositions often draw on the rhythmic vitality of African, Celtic, Pop, and Minimalist music. In “25” you can hear the uneven rhythms of Eastern Europe folk music, Medieval dances, or even the Genevan Psalter.

If you listen carefully, you will also hear echoes of Ravel’s “Boléro.” Instead of Ravel’s famous snare drum rhythm, “25” begins with brushed snare, immediately announcing its connection to dance rhythms of our day, especially jazz. On top of the brushed snare, a series of solo instruments enter one at a time—flute, clarinet, etc—the beginning of a wedge that grows in volume, intensity, and range throughout the whole composition. Speaking of intensity, the piannisimo brushed snare rhythm morphs and grows throughout the piece, making a brash recapitulation at the drum set near the end.

Heartfelt thanks are due Maestro Varineau and the musicians of the Calvin Community Symphony for the love they’ve shown this new composition. Thank you for making me part of your 25th anniversary!

—Greg Scheer

*Technically, the piece is in a consistent four-measure pattern: 6/8+7/8+6/8+3/4. I’m nerdy enough to take on the challenge of composing in an odd meter, but not stupid enough to make the musicians read a 25/8 time signature!

Maestro John Varineau and the Calvin Community Symphony
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Art Music Demos FAWM 2019

#4 (piano miniature)

In the past few years, I’ve played through almost all of Scott Joplin’s piano music. His music is intelligent, full of life, and simply fun. I wish I was more of a pianist, because I really don’t do his compositions justice. Given my love of Joplin’s work, it made total sense to me that piano miniature #4 (in 4/4 time) should be an homage to him.

You can hear a bit of Joplin in the left hand stride pattern and the melody’s syncopated spring. Of course, mimicry is not my thing; I had to put my own stamp on it! The most striking feature of #4 is that the left hand lays down a march in 4/4 time while the right hand waltzes in 3/4 on top of it. Oil and water? You bet! Check out the PDF of the score.

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Art Music FAWM 2019 Finale demo

#3 (piano miniature)

This third piano miniature is–not surprisingly–in 3/4 time. It reminds me a bit of Erik Satie’s whimsical compositions. While the meter is the “straight man,” remaining in an elegant waltz tempo, the harmonies never seem to land quite where you expect and the melody leaps as if over-stepping its goal. I expect I’ll return to this sketch in the future to expand on these themes.

Want to play it for yourself? Here you go: PDF

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Art Music FAWM 2019 Finale demo

#2 (piano miniatures)

I was telling my son tonight that I feel like I’m working out my harmonic demons. Perhaps “demons” is too strong, but I do feel that I’ve been exploring a particular harmonic palette in depth lately. It’s not clear to me yet whether this is something I’m refining for use over the long haul or if it’s just something I need to get out of my system. In either case, a series of diminutive piano compositions is the perfect vehicle to develop some of these ideas.

I guess my recent harmonic language could be considered pandiatonicism, that is, the free use of the diatonic scale (as opposed to chromatic) stacked into harmonies without implying tonality. (Non-music-theorists: from this point, on feel free to let your eyes glaze over while nodding your head knowingly.) I’m trying to create a satisfying “musical gravity” without using any of the traditional trappings of I, IV, V chords, etc. I avoid tritones and dominant sevenths–intervals that would imply tonal movement. And I find myself using pentatonic scales for my melodic material.

Blah, blah, blah. You can also just listen to the piece and enjoy it (or not) without understanding the music theory behind it. Sometimes it’s better not to know how the sausage is made…

But if you do want to see the sausage, here’s the PDF.

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Art Music FAWM 2019

#1 (piano miniatures)

I often take part in FAWM–February Album Writing Month–as a way of keeping the creative juices flowing. The FAWM challenge is to write 14 songs in 28 days. This year I plan to compose 14 “piano miniatures.” (I’ll think of a better title later: sketches? bite-size compositions? Think Erik Satie’s “Gymnopédie” and you’ve got the right idea.) Just short pieces that allow me to work out some ideas in small form.

Tentatively, each piece will be numbered, 1 through 14, with a time signature corresponding to that number. The first is #1 and is in a 1/1 meter. This is not only a cute idea, stuffing a piece into the unusual 1/1 meter for show. Instead, I composed a piece that truly has a one-beat pulse and that doesn’t group into larger 3s or 4s. If you want to try this out at your piano, download the PDF score.

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Art Music Choir Church Live

Blessed Be!

Update 9/16/20: Sheet music for this song can now be downloaded here.

It’s hard to believe that this piece is 23 years old! This setting of the song of Zechariah (Luke 1:67-79) was written when I lived in Pittsburgh and is performed here by the Duquesne University Choir under the direction of Brady Allred.

You can email me for music (edit: see link above). It comes in a variety of flavors: a cappella, SATB/Piano, or with brass and rhythm section; the rap is optional (and yes, I’m serious: there is a rap). You can also email me if you want to commission the rest of the movements that would complete this set. It’s going to be amazing and I know you want in!

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Art Music Demos Finale demo

Crepuscular Ray

And the final sketch that lost to “Swampzilla”?: It’s called “Crepuscular Ray,” and is something of a minimalist piece for young players. The music sounded to me like shafts of light coming through the clouds at sunset. It turns out there’s a word for that: crepuscular ray. I couldn’t resist choosing a title that featured a word most people would need to look up.

Interestingly, director Erin De Young was already familiar with the term. Her young boys had been reading a book on animals one night and it explained that rabbits and deer are called “crepuscular” animals because they come out to feed at twilight. As fate would have it, the next day they visited a nature center where the guide asked what kind of an animal a rabbit is. She was probably looking for “mammal” or something simple, but Erin’s 5-year-old piped up without hesitation: “It’s a crepuscular animal!”

Even though this sketch lost to “Swampzilla,” I still think it has lots of potential for a high school orchestra. Feel free to contact me about a commission.

Browse the PDF score.

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Art Music Demos Finale demo

Amber Waves

I mentioned previously that the Rockford orchestras read through three sketches before choosing “Swampzilla.” You’re probably wondering which sketches lost to “Swampzilla” in the initial round of voting, right? Wonder no more!

“Amber Waves” is a sprightly, festive piece that felt hopeful, American, and…Coplandesque. I love the title “Amber Waves” because it’s lifted from “American the Beautiful” (“amber waves of grain”) but could also mean a girl named Amber waving.

Don’t judge me on how the Finale demo sounds! If you want to take a look at the draft, click here. If you want to turn this into a completed piece for orchestra, let’s talk.

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Art Music Commissions Live Rock and/or Roll

Swampzilla at Rockford High School/Middle School

I had the great pleasure of composing a new piece for the Rockford School orchestras this spring. Directors Erin De Young and Allison Holden wanted a piece that would work for their combined orchestras: 6th grade through 10th. That’s a huge range of ability levels.

Part of the fun of this commission was that I got to work with the students as I developed the piece. We started by talking about the composition process and getting a chance to hear each group play. Then I composed three sketches for them to try out and decide which they liked best.

We decided to go with “Swampzilla”–essentially a rock and roll piece for orchestra. “Swampzilla” is a fictional “hideous marsh man with a heart of gold.” The piece starts (programmatically speaking) with Swampzilla rising from the twilight mist, dancing surprisingly well for a creature that has just risen from the fetid slough. There’s a slower section in the middle, which is the love theme for Zilla and his love, Gator Girl. And then the two lovers dance off into the evening mists.

The premiere was incredible. The combined orchestra had over 200 players packed onto the stage, wings, and the first few rows of the audience seating! The score had simplified parts for the younger players and solo parts for the very best older players. They all got to slap their strings to create a backbeat. The auditorium was packed, too, with well over 1000 people. You can hear from the applause at the end that they loved it. It’s hard not to love 200 young people rocking out a piece called “Swampzilla.”

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Art Music Commissions Finale demo Live

A Million Miles Away

I had the good fortune of receiving two commissions from school orchestras last year. “A Million Miles Away” was written for the St. Cecilia Concert Orchestra with Patricia Wunder conducting. As Maestra Wunder and I began brainstorming about what type of piece might fit her group, she explained that the rest of her program would be pieces based on stories–Telemann’s Don Quixote Suite, for example.

I decided to maintain that theme, composing a programmatic piece with a yet-as-undetermined story. Here’s how I described it in the concert’s program notes:

A Million Miles Away is a phrase that dropped into my mind as I began composing this commission for St. Cecilia. It certainly describes the desolate, open harmonies that were emerging in the early stages of the first draft. Knowing that my piece would be part of a concert of compositions based on stories, “A Million Miles Away” sounded like the title of a novel or movie without providing a full story. In fact, I’d love it if you would listen to the music and create your own story based on what you hear.

The piece is arranged in three sections–stars, sea, and sand. You can almost hear the pinpricks of light appearing in a black sky as the piece opens. Then waves begin to well up and break, splashing from one side of the orchestra to the next. Finally, the sounds become bone dry and blow away into nothing. The first and last sections are “aleatoric” sections that allow the performers a certain amount of freedom. For example, play the sequence of notes, but in any rhythm you want. It was challenging for the students to have that much freedom!

The above MP3 is a mock-up of the piece I created in Logic Pro. Below is a video of the concert.