2024
In Paradisum (for mixed choir)
In Paradisum is a delicate lament, written during the ongoing war in my country as a musical prayer for peace, composed originally for string orchestra and later arranged for choir, with Latin text from the Requiem Mass. Gently and softly, the work sees its own idea, looking inwards to find serene heaven. The piece revolves around the pathos of the interval of the minor 2nd, around which it builds worlds of thought and feeling. The work, essentially monothematic, grows around its initial melody, developing with it through different harmonic landscapes. After communicatively and with luscious harmonies expanding into a climax, the work at once returns to its beginning - but here, the world opens and all expands, as layers are added and consciousness is raised to a new level, until all that is left is a slow ascension heavenwards.
GRAVITY (for 12 players)
"Two forces rule the universe: light and gravity." - Simone Weil
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing" - Stephen Hawking
The force of Gravity is a mechanics which is one of the defining properties of existence, and one which has astounding dramatic and lyric implications. This piece musically develops historical conceptions of the phenomenon, and relates it to both musical note-to-note attraction and their relations to tonal or atonal bases, as well as to its wider implications towards attraction, inter-body relations and existence within our cosmos.
The opening Prologue presents visceral pre-gravitational, outer-space harmonies and textures using third-tones in the strings.
The second movement, The Aristotelian, explores Gravity as it relates to the natural elements: Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and the Godly element Ether, which according to the Aristotelian notion of Gravity, are ordered in that way from bottom to top, and each thing, being primarily of one of these elements, is drawn to its place in that hierarchy. In the first half of this movement, The Lesson, the players act as students, learning and playing with the different elements (with the piano playing the role of the teacher). In the second half of the movement, The Learning, the elements are embodied in the music. They begin in chaos, going further into disarray before finally, by cause of their innermost properties and internal forces - seemingly even against their knowledge or will - they converge upon order.
The third and final movement, The Cartesian, concerns Cartesian vortex theory, according to which Gravity and other celestial phenomena are explained by the planets being situated in vortices - large circling bands of material particles, and these vortices interlocking to form the universe. According to a planet's centrifugal tendency, it may be locked into a ring or vortex band when its centrifugal tendency is balanced by an equal one in the particles forming the vortex. Thus according to a planet's centrifugal tendency, it might also move from vortex to vortex. In this way an object's Gravity is determined by its movement and inertial force and not inherent physical qualities, as was in Aristotle. Similarly, the music of the movement revolves around these fields, created by a murmur of minute musical particles, induced through pizzicato in the piano, key clicks and breath noises in the winds, among other techniques. The movement traverses through the force and energetic worlds of different vortices of sound, acting as a planet caught in motion between them. In the implosion and explosion of differently coloured tonal and atonal worlds, each marked by their modes and techniques, the movement travels between these hypothetical vortices of the universe.
GRAVITY won third place in the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music's 2024 Composition Competition and was premiered in the Winner's Concert on June 25, 2024 by the Israel Contemporary Players, conducted by Zsolt Nagy.
Cantata on Poems by John Donne: A Burnt Ship (for mezzo-soprano, 3 sopranos, trumpet, bassoon, 2 cellos, piano and piano four-hands)
This cantata, loosely based on Bach's model, uses 4 poems by 16th-17th century English metaphysical poet John Donne, arranged by myself so as to form a narrative. The first poem concerns men on a ship fired upon by enemies, all forced to burn or to drown to death. The banging, unceasing ostinato of the pianos, representing the attack on the ship, contrasted with the simultaneous Baroque music of the rest of the instruments and with the distressed, yet even thirds of the choir all combine to create the image of destruction. The second movement, the first mezzo-soprano aria, tells the thoughts of one of the men, about to die, releasing himself from life. Pensively and with heartbreaking harmony and a contrapuntism inspired by Mizrahi Jewish music, his thoughts weave themselves in the music, until he must face the abyss of death. There, the pianos chromatically bring the abyss to music, terrifying in its depths and roar. Now free, the voice returns, finally glorious in his triumph over worldly life. The third movement, the second mezzo-soprano aria, is the confessions of a sinner, shown through music in a manner almost reminiscent of the music of Rossini, quick and nimble, making special use of the bassoon, until finally he, too, is free, no longer restless. The final movement is an ode against death, revealing it for its falsehood. Donne, in his Christian belief in the day of judgement, tells death: “Death, thou shalt die” - the music interprets this in an altogether different spirituality, one that proves eternal life within itself and believes in Donne's words no less than he himself. From ruin, death and sin have emerged life, victory and beauty as eternal truths.
Cantata on Poems by John Donne: A Burnt Ship was premiered on March 12, 2024 by Noot Cohen (mezzo-soprano), Mika Cohen (soprano), Chen Remi (soprano), Lauren Mimouni (soprano), Noy Rosenberg (trumpet), Lahav Ganchrow (bassoon), Omri Levitan (cello), Omer Zarfati (cello), Yoav Sened (piano), Romi Nevo (piano) and Razan Khoury (piano), conducted by Maria Sokolovsky.
2023
In Paradisum (for harp and string orchestra)
In Paradisum is a delicate lament for harp and string orchestra, written during the ongoing war in my country as a musical prayer for peace. Gently and softly, the work sees its own idea, looking inwards to find serene heaven. The piece revolves around the pathos of the interval of the minor 2nd, around which it builds worlds of thought and feeling. The work, essentially monothematic, grows around its initial melody, developing with it through different harmonic landscapes. After communicatively and with luscious harmonies expanding into a climax, the work at once returns to its beginning - but here, the world opens and all expands, as layers are added and consciousness is raised to a new level, until all that is left is a slow ascension heavenwards.
In Paradisum was premiered on August 5, 2024 by Silva Babloyan (harp) and string players from the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music and Israel Conservatory of Music Tel Aviv, conducted by Temur Kvitelashvili Jr.
The Gardens (for Pierrot ensemble and percussion)
This piece represents a new exploration for me, of indeterminate techniques, of navigating through different tonal and atonal languages and of formally constructing a piece of varying themes and styles into a unitary dramatic work. Owing to this transitory nature, I named this piece so, as if listening to it traverses some otherworldly gardens, smelling, delighting and marvelling at their flowers. After a brash opening, there ensues a quasi-cadenza for the piano, freely remaining in the air before plunging into the body of the work. After traversing new textures in the ensemble, eventually working with a limited tone-bank defined by resonance of the previous section (thus refining the connection of the sections). By such means, the sections naturally evolve into one another, until in the middle of the piece, in bar 82, what is revealed to be the main theme of the piece springs out organically. The work's destiny is now set, and is explored till the piece's end, from intimacy, to a glorious uprising, and finally finishing softly in a dream world, pensively continuing on, until finally, the vibraphone seems to say - wake up.
The Gardens was premiered on February 13, 2024 by the Israel Contemporary Players, conducted by Zsolt Nagy.
Cavatina Interrotta (for viola and piano)
Beginning joyously, this piece for viola playfully dances around itself in ecstasy, until suddenly interrupted. Hence it becomes a mysterious, disconsolate exploration of its new motifs. The dream has been exploded, and all of a sudden, we are plunged into the depths - now, climbing out of them is impossible.
Towards the Living and its Dead (for voice and piano)
Setting a text by the Israeli poet and playwright Avraham Shlonsky, this art song views the text’s themes of primordial night, and the eternal recurrence of creation through a post-romantic harmonic motto, trudging onwards into that eternity. In the middle part, when the text calls, “Listen to the garden and the song! Be wise and bloom like they!”, the harmonic language of the song changes into a lush, modal language full of passion and tender sentiment. The return of the first part heralds the inevitabilities of mortality, ending on a profound conclusion.
Charming Nonsense (for mezzo-soprano, woodwind quartet and piano)
Composed for my younger sister, mezzo-soprano Noot Cohen, and her friends, Charming Nonsense takes as its text one sentence from a poem by the scandalous 17th century English poet, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester: “As charms are Nonsence, Nonsence seems a Charm.” The work does not admonish nonsense, nor charms, but celebrates their youthful energy and their seductive, feminine allure. Variously extracting different modes of pathos, humour and meaning from the sentence, the piece creates a temporal break from the 17th century's time, to our time, through musical time's escape from rectilinear time.
Charming Nonsense was premiered on September 14, 2023 by Noot Cohen (mezzo-soprano), Ella Hanani (flute), Matan Hadaya (oboe), Nir Barkai (clarinet), Itamar Dub (bassoon), Toam Horowitz (piano) and Or Amoyal (piano).
Schckola Fugue (for organ)
Combining Baroque techniques and contemporary musical-aesthetic sensibilities, the Schckola Fugue creates its own language. Originally intended as a group composition, the work uses a theme based on the eS-C-H-(kol)-A motif (an homage to my teacher's, Josef Bardanashvili, idiosyncratic Georgian manner of speaking, in this case of calling a school of composers), while the main theme of the fugue, representing perfectly its aesthetic, is one which appeared to me in a dream.
2022
In the Vortex of Chaos (for orchestra)
"The vortex is the point of maximum energy. All experience rushes into this vortex… All the past that is vital, all the past that is capable of living into the future, is pregnant in the vortex, NOW." - Ezra Pound
As in all my works, my aim in In the Vortex of Chaos was to convey the richness of life and the world through the coloration and cathartic power of music. Across the work, its themes explore the limits of the harsh and the soft through the group dynamics of the orchestra, with each instrument often taking upon different dramatic and characteristic roles and interacting through the framework of the piece's themes. The work is written and breathes through the dynamics of the vortex, traversing its movements and depths, and mapping its tribulations, while being primarily created from the absurd, molecular and pure chaos upon which all is based. Across a wide breadth of musical languages, I wish to convey within this work an unignorable, infectious, vivacious energy to shake up the listener emotionally and energetically. The work is intended to bring the listener to catharsis through engaging with this vortex, and to the understanding that their whole life is lived In the Vortex of Chaos. The work opens with a brash, explosive opening, which quickly makes way for the first theme group, consisting of three sanguine themes, showcasing different groups within the orchestra. After these themes come to a climax, the second theme group, possessing a mystical, hushed quality, is introduced. In the development section, the piece traverses emotions, orchestral textures and dramatic fields, finally leading to the recapitulation and closing fugal section on a new theme, ending with the cyclical return of elements of the introduction.
Rondino Erratico (for flute, violin and cello)
This boisterous rondo explores the limits of performance, attempting to maximise expression through a violent, psychotic eruption, psychologically remaining constantly on the edge, unbearably anxious and troubled. The erratic thought returns obsessively. In the middle section, we are suddenly in the Yves-Tanguy-like desert, until the obsession returns, its movement, intensity and blood pressure increasing until the final catharsis, in a sort of twisted chorale prelude, the cello and flute fluttering endlessly around the violin, releasing at last and in whole the condensed energetic and psychic tensions.
Rondino Erratico won 2nd place in the 6th National Composition Competition, Junior Category, Israel, and was premiered in the Winner's Concert by the Meitar Ensemble on July 6, 2023.
La Grande Guerre de la Nuit (for violin, 2 violas and cello)
An homage to Baroque composer Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, the piece takes her keyboard pieces as basis, drawing atmospheric and formal ideas from them to create a new narrative, beginning in familiarity as a rondo, until suddenly perverted, as the great war of the night arrives, forcing all to react and abandon their familiarities. Finally, as day rises, all seems to vanish into thin air, leaving the other world we had reached as only a dream.
DIALOGUE (for speaker and electronics, using MAX software)
Originally written for child speaker and electronics, the piece aims to create genuine dialogue between man and machine, connected through the inherent randomness in both their hearts. When man is speaking, machine responds, regurgitating various samples (scouring pop music, field recordings and all manner of curious sounds) at different speeds and times. When man and machine listen to one another, they may reframe the ideas of dialogue in new ways, and open both their worlds.
DIALOGUE was premiered on July 7, 2022 by Nitzan Rom (speaker) and Lyle Cohen (electronics).
Chasing a Flea in a Room Full of Elephants (for brass quintet)
This irresistibly fun piece uses the full dynamic and textural range of the brass quintet to discover a theme piece by piece, idiomatically and joyously trampling over itself in order to create itself.
Awakening (Festive Overture) (for orchestra)
The festive overture Awakening explores a theme which intensely occupies my thought and creation - that of gaining consciousness. Through a modified and expanded rondo-sonata, the piece portrays the story of a people’s gaining consciousness and awaking to the world’s truths, and after struggling through the lies of our world, deciding to go forwards into the victorious promised land of harmony and peace. Inventively and extensively orchestrated, the piece displays my ideal of a free pantonality, exploring different tonalities and atonalities to fit the drama of the music.
Anxiety (for mezzo-soprano, oboe, clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), trombone, celesta, viola, cello and contrabass)
In 2020, I set to music part of the text of W. H. Auden’s monumental eclogue, The Age of Anxiety, as an art song. Later, realizing the text still had a hold on me, I orchestrated the song for voice, oboe, clarinet, trombone, celesta, viola, cello and contrabass, and composed two further songs from the text. This was not without struggle - in handling the long and verbose text, I learned much about my standards for my own music, working with text and knowing when to cut out text and even parts of music I had already written, which has always been challenging for me to do. After finding the performers and conductor, including playing the contrabass part myself and bringing my incredible sister, Noot Cohen, to sing, we began rehearsals. Rehearsing proved a new challenge - I had to revise the piece, as well as deal with personal work with all the performers, delving deep into my own music and with the nature of musical collaboration, and to omit the final movement from our performance, so as to better prepare the first two. By the end, our humanly imperfect preparation had led to a performance which felt inexplicably transcendent to us all. The text is excerpted from several parts of the gargantuan original poem. The first movement presents the musings of a man towards his own reflection. Alienated and despondent, he ponders. The music, in turn, shows the turning of his thoughts, returning to harmonic and melodic ideas and shifting them about, as the mind does in thought, conscious and subconscious. The second movement deals with the worldly philosophical musings of a character, and through creative thought, contrapuntally seeks to explore the world around it, finally ending in its complete destruction. The final movement takes a more balanced, deeply spiritual view of the world, mixing personal and collective to create a shifting narrative that graciously and powerfully creates the world in music, the voice weaving intricately with the instrumental body.
The first two movements of Anxiety were premiered on June 7, 2022 by Noot Cohen (mezzo-soprano), Yehonatan Agam (oboe), Yuval Akuni (clarinets), Dor Arkush (trombone), Eden Yarkoni (piano), Brenner Rozales (viola), Yevheniia Krivych (cello) and Lyle Cohen (contrabass), conducted by Temur Kvitelashvili Jr.
Variazioni Ponderate e Intime (for piano)
These variations take an unusual original theme and explore it through many lenses, delving into its intricacies and exploring it through stretching and distorting it across the piano. The piece exists as a psychological dive into a mind, going to the deepest depths and finally, chaotically emerging outwards, fleeing and yelling out to the world.
Variazioni Ponderate e Intime was premiered on May 31, 2022 by Yaniv Khristoporov.
Una Muy Buena Semana (for piano)
Based on the Jewish Ladino folk tune, Buena Semana, these variations leave the original melody unaltered, and weave musical textures around it, starting with a unique, lush harmonic language, continuing through boogie-woogie and finally reaching a serial interpretation.
2021
5 Short Gibberish Songs (for 2 female voices, flute, clarinet and 2 violins)
In August of 2021, I traveled with my sister, Noot, to Salzburg for the Salzburger Festspiele Opera Camps, where I participated as a double bassist, and she as singer and pianist. Together with the other participants, we were meant to put on a production of Luigi Nono’s opera, Intolleranza 1960. However, misfortune struck when by the second day, one of the participants was revealed to have contracted COVID. For this reason, once the camp was finished, some of the participants, us included, had to stay for another week. I found it a perfect opportunity, and composed for us my 5 Short Gibberish Songs, to a nonsense text of my own writing. We rehearsed and performed them, to our great joy of creation and friendship, turning around any hardship and isolation into cathartic, loving fulfilment. The music is light-hearted, and yet uses the subjectiveness of the text's seeming meaninglessness to evoke worlds beyond our own, painting miniature images of alien landscapes, with all too familiar affects and passions.
5 Short Gibberish Songs was premiered on January 10, 2023 by Rim Awad (soprano), Mika Cohen (soprano), Rita Gutin (flute), Habib Jadon (clarinet), Tamir Tavor (violin) and Roni Oved (violin), conducted by Yuval Barak.
2020
Sonatina (for piano)
A ferocious one-movement work, the Sonatina for piano is written in sonata-allegro form, yet thematically is as far removed from it as can be. With themes reminiscent of Prokofiev’s war sonatas and of Rautavaara, and a development section exploring ideas of minimalism, the piece is a burst of energy, a flash of blinding light.
Places (for piano, clarinet (doubling piccolo clarinet) and cello)
The first two movements, Été à Sotchi and Souvenirs de la Russie, are more mature reworkings (and reorchestrations) of the first two movements of Places (for orchestra), of which more is written below. The final movement, Rondo-Toccata-Fantasia-Coda-Finale: Woo-Hoo! (La Malédiction de Fauré), was composed after a hopeless Friday day - an unfruitful composition lesson, followed by general creative frustration and gloom. Come nighttime, I decided to take a walk by the sea, still haunted by the question - why can’t I write like Fauré?! Returning home, I was suddenly struck by inspiration, and the final movement was begun and finished by the end of the weekend.
Places was premiered in January 2021 by Itamar Prag (piano), Elad Navon (clarinets) and Tamar Deutsch (of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra) (cello).
Tosca-na (for orchestra)
At first glance a stream of consciousness, in fact based on a single textural idea explored at different angles, this brief, hopeful and visionary piece is inspired by the colours of Puccini’s Tosca and the Tuscan countryside.
Improvisation (for contrabass)
Commissioned by Hillsborough Community College Dance Department, Tampa, FL, USA, I composed and recorded an improvisation for plucked contrabass, mixing the styles of free jazz and contemporary classical music, exploring the different colours and ranges of the instrument and creating a unique soundscape, which the Dance Department at Hillsborough Community College then beautifully and evocatively choreographed.
2019
Impressions de Deux Voyages (for orchestra)
A revised, reorchestrated version of the second and third movements of Places, of which more is written below.
Métamorphoses Phrygiennes (for piano)
An introspective and atmospheric free-flowing piece, stemming from a harmonic Phrygian idea, and growing from itself outwards into the world.
Métamorphoses Phrygiennes won 2nd prize in the International Composers Competition "Artistes En Herbe" Luxembourg 2020 - Section Junior, and was premiered on June 15, 2021 by Michael Hag.
Places (for orchestra)
Three movements, based upon my travels to Sochi with my grandfather, my memories of Russia and a moment from my travels to Boston with my father. The first movement intensely and emotively evokes the new emotions I felt, transforming them to the language of music. The second movement is a theme and variations, on a south Russian theme from Balakirev’s anthology of Russian folk tunes. After continuous exploration of the theme across the orchestra, the final variation is an extensive canon, leading to the final movement. The final movement, involving a solistic vibraphone part portrays a train station in Boston - the noise of the passing trains, the chimes of the PR system, and the turning inwards one inevitably feels in a bustling, uncaring urban atmosphere. After turning to complete disarray, the human spirit of the world suddenly emerges, triumphantly proving itself from the depths of seclusion.
Demain dès l'aube (for piano)
A piece in 3 movements for piano, based on Victor Hugo’s poem of the same name. Painting my impressions of the poem in tones, each movement representing a stanza, the first movement portrays the sun, rising upon the traveler in gentle, Dorian tones. The second movement shows the traveler’s march - unbeknownst to the reader but perhaps revealed to the listener to be a funeral march, canonically stating its path. The final movement is a melancholic, yet bright portrayal of the wind and the chimes at Harfleur, and the flowers being laid upon the traveler’s daughter’s grave.
Demain dès l'aube was premiered on August 5, 2024 by Lyle Cohen.