Category: Orchestral/Large Ensemble

I. Frontispiece/The Garden
II. Earthly Delights
III. Hell

Triptych was 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). The three movements of the piece correspond to the three panels of the painting (plus frontispiece). The piece evolves from the austere, uncertain beginnings of the world (Frontispiece), into the peaceful, but strange surroundings of the Garden. The middle movement is playful, sensual, and earthy (Earthly Delights); the last is relentless, mocking, and grotesque (Hell).

There is so much colour, symbolism and detail present in the painting; the music is simply a distillation of these ideas. The piece, like the painting, follows a sense of predestined trajectory. The opening material of the piece becomes a recurring motive throughout all three movements: from the very beginning, there is a sense of inevitability about where things are going.

• Commissioned by: Caroline R. Cloutier, Loyd Furnes, Colin Hamilton, Ralph Maundrell, Patricia Osoko, Christina Wolf, Mark Yeung, and Karl Zaenker.

• Premiered by Caroline R. Cloutier, Loyd Furnes, Colin Hamilton, Ralph Maundrell, Patricia Osoko, Christina Wolf, Mark Yeung, and Karl Zaenker, at Redeemer Lutheran Church, Vancouver, 27 September, 2009.

• Performed by Orchestra Armonia, at St. Mark’s Anglican Church, Vancouver, November 7, 2010.

• Performed (2nd movement only, with string orchestra, and Anne Bonnycastle, conductor) at the 2nd Annual Concert for the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, at Blusson Spinal Cord Centre, Vancouver, September 10, 2016.

• Performed (2nd movement only, with string orchestra, and Anne Bonnycastle, conductor) at the 3rd Annual Concert for the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, at Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver, September 9, 2016.

• Performed (2nd movement only) by Allegra Chamber Orchestra, with Janna Sailor, conductor, at Sofar Vancouver- “Give a Home 2017” event, September 20, 2017.

• Performed by Kensington Sinfonia at Hope Lutheran Church, Calgary, Alberta, February 11, 2018.

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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

• Written for the Hannaford Street Silver Band’s composing competition “Pieces in the Form of an Overture” (2008)

 

À travers la mer is based loosely on the idea of an ocean voyage — Jacques Cartier’s first of three trips from France to New France (Québec), in 1534. He was not the first European to arrive in the eastern parts of Canada. However, Cartier ventured into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which was still uncharted territory, and the voyage would have been extremely dangerous, and exciting, to say the least.

With no accurate maps to guide them, and no means of accurately measuring longitude (this did not exist until over 100 years later), the travelers must have been reliant on the heavens, and intuition, to guide them. I did not want to make this piece especially programmatic, but rather, I was interested in the various conflicting emotions that may have been in the air: excitement, memory/nostalgia, trepidation, and not least, the beauty and terror that the ocean must have inspired. The ocean and the stars are present in various shifting layers, as are fragments of a folk melody from Basse-Bretagne.

Read by the Victoria Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Tania Miller), at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, 2 February, 2007. Also read by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, as part of Jean Coulthard Reading Sessions, (conducted by Bramwell Tovey), at the Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver, 19 April, 2007.

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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

I have always been fascinated by architecture. Not just the architecture of buildings, but also that of nature. One of the most interesting aspects of the natural landscape is foliage, and its ability to transform completely over the course of the year. This piece was devised as a miniature set of variations, and it is like foliage in that it evolves from relatively simple material into something more complex, making use of variations in shape, texture, density and color as means of growth.

• Foliage received its premiere with the Turning Point Ensemble, as part of the Sonic Boom Festival, at the Western Front, Vancouver, 17 March, 2007.

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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

(revised 2007)

Think of a forest: not quite like the ones familiar here on the West Coast (BC, Canada), but perhaps something a little more surreal and enchanted.  This forest is home to the most beautiful as well as the most primitive forms of life, and much as we would like to believe that we’ve conquered our fears of the unknown, a solitary walk off the beaten path, at night, could easily prove us wrong…

This piece is an exploration of both the luminous and the darker colors of the orchestra– but is it possible that what lurks in the darkness here will reveal some of its secrets? Or will they remain intangible, dreamlike, locked beneath a grid of gnarled roots– an enigma?

• Winner of the Golden Key International Honor Society’s Performing Arts- Composition award, 2004

• Selected for reading by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, as part of Jean Coulthard Reading Sessions (conducted by Bramwell Tovey), at the Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver, 12 February, 2004.

• Revised (2007) version premiered by the West Coast Symphony Orchestra (Bujar Llapaj- conductor), 12 October, 2007.

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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.