Author: debmin

A Cellist on the Skytrain

stereo electroacoustic track
5 min.

A Cellist on the Skytrain was composed in 2004, while I was an undergraduate student at Simon Fraser University (in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada). Being a music student, and a cellist, I would often have to lug my cello with me up to school, a journey which involved two bus connections and a skytrain. I have always been fascinated with the musicality of Metro Vancouver’s skytrains—the audible glissandi, the harmonic overtones, and the rhythmic motion of the trains were all things I could relate to as a string player. The piece is simply a field recording taken of one such journey to school, with a superimposed cello counterpoint.


Earthly Delights (String Quartet)

string quartet

4 min. 30 sec.

Earthly Delights is the second movement of a longer work, Triptych, originally composed for string octet by Elizabeth Knudson. The piece is playful, sensual, earthy and colourful— inspired by one of the most well-known paintings ever made in that genre: The Garden of Earthly Delights, by Flemish master, Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516).
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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

Earthly Delights (Saxophone Quartet)

SATB saxophone quartet

4 min. 30 sec.

Earthly Delights is the second movement of a longer work, Triptych, originally composed for string octet by Elizabeth Knudson. The piece is playful, sensual, earthy and colourful— inspired by one of the most well-known paintings ever made in that genre: The Garden of Earthly Delights, by Flemish master, Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516).
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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

Theme for Pascale Boinot

solo piano
2 min. 30 sec.

Theme for Pascale Boinot was composed for a short film, directed by Cat Mills, which was screened at Empire Granville 7 Cinemas, Vancouver, Canada, on April 28-29th, 2006. The solo piano was meant to evoke something sensual and human– mirroring the dynamics between two lovers/characters in the film. The musical language is simple, yet elegant– much in the style of Erik Satie’s “Gymnopédies”.

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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

Hexagonal- Electroacoustic Version

SATB saxophone quartet and stereo electroacoustic track
5 min. 20 sec.

‘Hexagonal’ was written for saxophone quartet (soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone). The piece takes a playful approach to working with various patterns of six, inspired by some of the most common and beautiful patterns found in nature. The beehive, and the snowflake, for example, and of course many flowers and leaves are all based on the hexagon shape. Transposing some of these visual ideas into musical phrases, and exploring some of the colour and textural variations in musical language, this piece is very much about enjoying the simplest pleasures that the natural world has to offer.

‘Hexagonal’ received its premiere (as an acoustic work) with the Cobalt Saxophone Quartet, at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, New York, NY, USA, on November 16th, 2024. The electroacoustic backing track was created in spring 2025. The track takes its material from only two sound sources: a commuter train, along with some springtime birdsong— an interesting blend of the urban and natural elements of the soundscape in Vancouver, Canada.

Sheet music for this piece is available through the Canadian Music Centre:

cmccanada.org/shop/80689/

Type A

stereo electroacoustic track
5 min. 35 sec.

Type A is a stereo electroacoustic sound-object piece, which was composed using only two sound sources: a long, hollow plastic tube and an old-fashioned typewriter. It was created using both analog and digital studio equipment. The sounds were processed in many different ways, including (analog) tape loops, pitch shifting, filtering, echo, reverb, and granulation.

Type A has been performed at various locations, including the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada, 2003, the Sonic Boom Festival, at the Western Front, Vancouver, Canada, on March 10, 2005, and selected as part of the International Women’s Electroacoustic Listening Room Project, 8th Annual New Music Festival at California State University, Fullerton, California, USA, March 21, 2009.

Storge

stereo electroacoustic track
2 min.

Storge is an electroacoustic work, taking its name from the Greek word meaning “familial love”— the natural, instinctual bonds of affection that family members feel for one another. The piece incorporates two short quotes (both spoken in German language): one taken from a text by author Maureen Hawkins, and the other a short Biblical quote from 1 Corinthians 13:4. Weaving a soundscape around these spoken words, is a diaphanous melody played on the piano,accompanied by various other familiar, gentle, soothing sounds, including rain on pavement, springtime birdsong, a distant church bell tolling, a saxophone, and a baby laughing.

Storge was commissioned by early music ensemble La Petite Écurie, and premiered on May 18th, 2025, at Schloss Schwetzingen, Germany, as part of the Schwetzinger Festspiele.

Lost Lake

6 min.

Lost Lake, for piano trio, was inspired by two beautifully unrelated sources: a verse of 17th-century Japanese poetry by Matsuo Basho, and a couple of melodic phrases from a work by 12th-century abbess and composer Hildegard of Bingen.

These two ideas came together in the barren month of November, a time when everything seems pared down to its most essential parts. Somewhere in this bleak landscape though, I believe is something pure– a vision, perhaps.

“The moon glows the same:
It is the drifting cloud forms
Make it seem to change.”

-Matsuo Basho

Lost Lake received its premiere as part of Vancouver Pro Musica’s Sonic Boom Festival, with Reg Quiring- violin, Luke Kim- cello, and Noel McRobbie- piano, on March 14th, 2025, at Pyatt Hall, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Sheet music for this piece is available through the Canadian Music Centre:
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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

September Songs

chamber quartet (two erhu, viola & cello)

12 min. 45 sec.

September Songs was written for erhu quartet (two erhu, viola, and cello), and is comprised of three movements: “The Hummingbird”, “To the Rising Moon”, and “Tunnels of Light”. The first movement, “The Hummingbird”, captures the light, delicate movements of these tiny feathered creatures. Featuring trills, tremolo, quick rhythmic patterns, and short melodic phrases, the energy of this movement leads into something more calm and a bit mysterious in the second movement.

“To the Rising Moon” opens with the first several notes of a Gregorian plainchant melody found in the “Graduale Romanum” (c. 8th century). This melody develops gently, making use of canonic phrases, and the idea of mirror images—as the moon rises to its peak in the sky, before sinking again behind the trees. This movement was also inspired by a short work by the 13th century poet and mystic, Rumi:

“There is a way
From your heart to mine
And my heart knows it
Because it is clean and pure like water

When the water is still like a mirror
It can behold the Moon.”

This gentle interlude melts back into the energy of the third movement, “Tunnels of Light”. Inspired by the ongoing movement of clouds in the sky on an overcast day, and the fleeting moments where the sunshine suddenly bursts through in brilliant, colourful rays– there are several short melodic and rhythmic motifs at work in this movement, combined and recombined playfully.

September Songs was commissioned by Vancouver-based erhu player, Lan Tung, and its creation was funded with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts.


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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.