Composer
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.
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.
solo piano
1 min. 15 sec.
Slow Waltz (Falling Leaves) was written for solo piano, as a vignette inspired by the melancholy beauty of the changing seasons.
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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.
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:
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.
two violins, viola & cello
12 min. 45 sec.
September Songs was originally written for erhu quartet (two erhu, viola, and cello)– this is an arrangement of the same piece, for string quartet (two violins, viola, and cello).
The piece 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.