Quartet Chocolate
for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano
I composed this little suite for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano in 2011, my freshman year as a composition student at CUA. The premier performance was at the composition devision recital in the spring of 2011. The inspiration of this came Bartok’s Romanian Folk dances and the score of the 2000 Lasse Hallstrom film, Chocolate (one of my favorites), composed by Rachel Portman. The idea of naming the movements after various treats was taken from Tchaikovsky’s Nutchracker Suite.
Etude Ostinato
for Soprano Saxophone and Harp
Head of a Man, Tête d'homme, 1907, Oil on canvas
This piece was compose for an assignment my freshman year at The Catholic University of America. The assignment had three parts, to compose a miniature piece that could not exceed one minute in length, he instrumentation was soprano saxophone and harp, and I had to use the word ostinato as my inspiration in some way.
This was my first time composing for both instruments. The soprano sax part was easy enough but composing for the harp was tricky. The fist draft of the harp part contained chord much too big for the hand reach so I had to rewrite them with a close voicing. I also had to alter some of my harp glissandi.
I used the opening idea as an ostinato throughout the piece while the saxophone embellishes variations in an almost improvisational klezmer nature. Looking back, I am really pleased with the pie
ce. It would be fun to compose a few more pieces for the same instrumentation and have a whole set on miniatures.
Piano Trio
for flute, violin, and piano
Art is amazing in that what you end up with can be vasty different from what you started with. This trio original started out as an assignment for one of my composition lesson in college. The assignment was to write a few bars of music for 2 instruments using only 2 intervals. The instruments I chose were oboe and violin and the intervals were the minor second and the major third.
Having strict rules and parameters in your art forces you to look at things with fresh eyes and helps you decisions you normally would not have made. Sometimes it is ok to let the rules lax after you got what you needed from them. In this piece the interval limitation helped me generate the melody and the harmony. Those limitations were great when I was only assigned to compose a few measures. However, when I decided to expand it into a piece of music I realized it needed a little bit more contrast and variety. Ultimately, I decided that this piece would benefit from breaking my own rules and I used more intervals. Eventually the piece changed even more as the oboe became a flute (it is easier to find flautists to play your music) and I added the piano to make a fuller texture.
I am extremely happy with this piece and am considering expanding it to a more lengthy composition.
Melissa Hefferlin, Chamber Music With The Nymphs
Circle One, Limbo
for unaccompanied viola
Dante and Virgil in the first circle of hell, meeting classical poets, including Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan, who were virtuous in life but are condemned to Limbo because they were never baptized; engraving by Gustave Doré
The concept of Limbo is that of a region on the edge of hell for those who are not saved even though they did not sin. Dante's Limbo--technically the first circle of hell--includes virtuous non-Christian adults in addition to unbaptized infants. We thus find here many of the great heroes, thinkers, and creative minds of ancient Greece and Rome. For Dante, Limbo was also the home of major figures from the Hebrew Bible, who, according to Christian theology, were "liberated" by Jesus following his crucifixion.
This piece is my own depiction of Limbo. I imaging its inhabitants growing weary with nothing but their own thoughts for all eternity.
The Stymphalian Bird
for unaccompanied flute
Herakles Fights the Stymphalian Birds.
Mrs. Lang, The All Sorts of Stories Book, ed. Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1911).
According to legend the stymphalian birds were man-eating birds with beaks of bronze, sharp metallic feathers they could launch at their victims, and poisonous dung. They were pets of Ares, the god of war. In order to escape a pack of wolves they migrated to a marsh in Arcadia where hey bred quickly and swarmed over the countryside, destroying crops, fruit trees, and townspeople.
The Stymphalian birds were defeated by the hero Hercules in his sixth labour for Eurytheus. AcHercules could not go into the marsh to reach the nests of the birds, as the ground would not support his weight. Athena, noticing the hero's plight, gave Hercules a rattle which Hephaestus had made especially for the occasion. Heracles shook the rattle and frightened the birds into the air. Hercules then shot many of them with arrows tipped with poisonous blood from the slain Hydra. The rest flew far away, never to plague Arcadia again. Hercules brought some of the slain birds to Eurystheus as proof of his success.
This piece for unaccompanied flute is my musical interpretation of these treacherous creatures. I envision them slowly stalking through the swampy reeds waiting for some poor, hopeless wanderer to stumble into the midst of their deathly nest.
Hail Mary
for four female voices
Madonna and Child by Marianne Stokes, painted in Dubrovnik
This vocal quartet was composed for my senior composition recital at The Catholic University of America, Benjamin T. Rome School of Music in Washington DC.
Hail Mary full of Grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed are thou among women and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.
Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners
now and at the hour of our death
Amen.
Harp Etudes
Maria Wilhelmina Wandscheer (Dutch, 1856-1936). A harpist
One of my current projects is a series of etudes for harp. The series started simply because two of my friends are harpists (and also happen to be sisters.) I figured composing a bunch of harp music would be the easiest way to get hang out with them more...and to learn more about the harp I guess...
Anyways, These beautiful harp sisters have both mentioned a few times that I should compose some harp music for them. In the past I have shied away from writing for harp because it is vastly different from any other instrument and there are so many special techniques and notations (also, I never knew a harpist before.) So, After piddling around the idea for some time I finally decided take my friends up on their offer and use the experience to learn as much as I can about the harp. As a composer it is alway exciting when you have a chance to work closely with a performer, In doing so you learn so much more about techniques and performance practices than you can from an orchestration text book.
The first few etudes in the set are fairly simple. As I learn more about the harp I hope to write some etudes showcasing the many colorful extended techniques capable on the harp.