Blink premiered in November 2024 in Taipei. The Taiwanese Ministry of Culture in collaboration with Yi-Ta Hsu and the Drumily Percussion Group commissioned several US composers to write new pieces utilizing traditional Chinese instruments. Of the many rich and compelling options, "Blink" uses traditional hand, Jing, cymbals primarily as light blocking figurative shutters. The chorography is graphically noted and synchronized with sampled camera sounds: zooms, beeps, snaps, clicks, and button presses. The duo is separated respectively by left and right audio channel panning, and by left and right halves of one body as metaphorical eyes and arms. Throughout the piece is an expansion of metric chasing and overlapping (6/4 against 7/4 grows to 7/4 against 8/4 and onward), creating a natural unfolding of various unison and composite rhythms. (note by Casey Cangelosi)
Unveiling was composed in 2025, commissioned by the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. In an interview with the Festival, Vu says that, for the past six or seven years, her music “has tended to draw inspiration from poetry, time, and sounds and laws from the natural world. But regardless of the source of inspiration or topic…. what remains constant is my awareness of music as a time-based art form: I’m always aware of form, proportions, and the psychological journey of the listener when experiencing my music.”
Guest performers for this piece:
Violinist Patrick Shaughnessy has been hailed by Strad Magazine for “creating soaring melodies, and warm joyous sound.” Mr. Shaughnessy was the founding member of the Heimat String quartet, with whom he gave his Carnegie debut in 2019. As a member of the quartet, he has traveled extensively performing in Nova Scotia, Quito, Hamburg, and Weimar Germany. A lover of chamber music, Mr. Shaughnessy performs regularly with the Felicity Chamber Players in Charlottesville, Virginia and on the Caravanserai Chamber Series in Staunton Virginia. An avid teacher, Mr. Shaughnessy maintains a full studio at The Catoctin School of Music in Leesburg Virginia and will additionally be Guest Professor of Violin at James Madison University for the Fall 2025 semester. As an orchestral player, Shaughnessy has been guest concertmaster and principal 2nd violin with The New Orchestra of Washington and will be guest concertmaster for The Waynesboro Symphony for their fall 25/25 season. In the Summers, Mr. Shaughnessy teaches at Lyricafest in Lincoln, MA, and in Wisconsin at the Birch Creek Music Festival.
Brooke Mahanes performs professionally on violin and viola with Melodious Strings, Cville Strings, Bloom Trio, Listeso Music, the Roanoke Symphony, and in various music concerts and festivals around Virginia. She teaches private and group lessons (violin, viola, cello, bass, and piano) at her music studio in Crozet, Virginia. She is an orchestra teacher at the Village School in downtown Charlottesville, a private middle school for girls. Brooke has a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from James Madison University, an Artist Diploma in String Quartet studies from Shenandoah Conservatory, and a Master of Music in Violin Performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Rhapsody No. 2 is the second of a set of 6 intended solo works, each of which is inspired by an historical composer. This virtuosic piece was commissioned by and written for Michi Wiancko and is inspired in part by Béla Bartók. (note by Jessie Montgomery)
Preludes for Piano
Beginning in 1997, I have been writing short preludes for piano. The first one was written for Peter Henderson, who was performing a recital of nothing but preludes, from the 17th century to the present, and who wanted one composed for the occasion. I wrote several more in the next few years, including No. 4 in 2002. Then, there was a long gap of more than 20 years before the next two were written, in 2024.
No. 4 is concerned with a repeating pattern of chords that grows and changes over the course of the piece. No. 5 is a slower piece with a delicate background and more prominent melodic lines that emerge from it. No. 6 is another piece with a repeating pattern, this time an energetic, irregular one, with groups of 3 or 4 notes alternating, and sometimes groups of 2 or even 5 notes overlapping with them. (note by Jason Haney)
Among the Trees was conceived after a long bicycle ride along a creek path in the Springtime as the green leaves began to unfurl among the trees. Rhythmically, I wanted to depict the motion of the breeze flowing through the leaves, the rustling of the wind, and the sunlit shadows dancing beneath the canopy of trees on the path below. The theoretical “trunk” of this piece is constructed from a single trichord consisting of three intervals: a whole-step, a half-step, and a minor third. I then constructed “interval trees” where permutations of the trichord branch out from this trunk in various directions. The result is a plethora of “leaves” derived from the same trichord. This piece was written for Bluestone Contemporary Ensemble and is dedicated to my daughter, Daphne, who accompanied me on the bicycle ride. (note by David DeVasto)
Otoño (“Autumn”) is a short, lyrical piece for alto saxophone and piano. It was commissioned by Timothy McAllister, whom I’ve not only had the great honor of admiring as a performer for over two decades now, but know him as a friend and colleague since our days in music camp at Interlochen.
Otoño is a whistful but optimistic piece. It is a love song to middle age, and all that it brings. (note by Armando Bayolo)