matt geer, composer
composer, organist and conductor
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New composition: One to Five

1/13/2019

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This 20-minute piece for electric guitar and drum kit plays on the maximal diversity of the chromatic 'turnaround'. Movements 1, 3 and 5 contain eroding and lengthening structures, whilst movements 2 and 4 act as a mechanical respite - although within this there is a slight corrosion within the rhythmic system. The original material is simple and familiar, which is further presented in an aesthetic with a very clear and audible configuration. 

The score can be found below:

PDF download

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Two new compositions: 'Miss Harrison's Secateurs' and ' Message'

1/8/2019

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Miss Harrison's Secateurs

Late last year, the Royal Horticultural Society began a hunt to find 'Miss Harrison' as she was denied a horticulatural scholarship in the early 20th century on the basis that she was a woman. This celebrates piece echos my enthusiasm in the hunt to find her. More information can be found below:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/22/unsung-women-emerge-from-footnotes-of-history

The score can be found below:

PDF download

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Whisky kilo november alpha

A simple piece based on four ways of presenting combinations. 

The score can be found below:

PDF download
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Two new pieces for New Years Day: 'doad' for solo cello and 'horn study' for oboe and piano

1/1/2019

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'doad' for solo cello continues my interests in maximally diverse entities, this time using dyads (or 'doads') to generate a static, unchanging texture. Placed in groups of threes, the rhythmic ordering is true to its process which contrasts the order of dyads, which are mapped onto the rhythms using three random generators. 

I hope to write three more pieces of exactly the same length, (one viola piece and two violin pieces using exactly the same process, where the dyads will be relative to the instrument). The option then will be for these to be played either as individual pieces for solo instrument, one after the other (violin 1, violin 2, viola and cello respectively), or all four pieces simultaneously.

The score can be found below:

PDF Download
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The title for Horn Study has a rather humorous back story. The idea was to mirror the pitch process used in the piece by using two randomly generated words, one 4-letter and one 5-letter. I went to my random generator and, completely by chance, the two words that came out were 'horn' and 'study'...the worlds first horn study not written for horn! 

The piece is built using quartal and quintal harmonic fragments and 'Feldman-esque' shifting 5/4 cells that run throughout. 

The score can be found below:

PDF Download 
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New composition: 'some jazz harmony and sounds'

12/10/2018

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This piece started life as a work for solo piano, exploring maximal diversity of different 'found' encyclopedias of jazz chords. It evolved after finding a list of jazz scat syllables, eventually becoming a piece for quintet. 

The works texture is unchanging and, in some way, links to my current interests in 'single-idea music' and use of process. 

The score can be found below:

PDF download
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New composition: Things moving up and down

11/20/2018

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Written for organ in November 2018, this piece is in keeping with my current interest in presenting process in its most basic form, allowing the listener to hear exactly how the piece is written - with no added extras, no accentuations or intuition during the compositional process. 

I have made two recordings so far of this piece, the first where both manuals and pedals use one single 8' flute and the second where the sounds for each manual and pedal are different (although all still at 8' pitch). I was undecided which way to lean in specifying registrations, so I have left it down to the performer. 

The score can be found below:

PDF download
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voices and me (and me)

1/18/2018

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a bit of background

since I was 14 years old, I have suffered from auditory hallucinations on and off. however, the past couple of years has been quite intense. I was diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder (a mixture of schizophrenic and bipolar symptoms) after two hospital admissions totalling about 5 months. 

I've recently started writing a piece called 'lithium' that is inspired by the mood part of the condition, going between mania and depression. it's been an interesting journey hearing voices as a composer, as an almost cage-like view has changed my behaviour and reaction to hearing them. 

​intervoice are an amazing hearing voices movement that internationally raise awareness of hallucinations, I've linked them below:

http://intervoiceonline.org

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Élaine Radigue, trilogy and prolongation

9/30/2017

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My first post is regarding the French-born electronic music composer Élaine Radigue (b. 1932). Famously using the ARP 2500 modular analogue synthesiser almost exclusively until the early 2000's, she has a stylistic ambient technique  of producing an extended sound canvas where small shifts in texture create a microscopic shift in the listeners perception of change. After the premier of her piece Adnos I in the early 1970's, she was introduced to Tibetan Buddhism, where she ended up spending three years in training after converting. After being sent back to her musical work, she produced many works relating to her studies; most notably Songs of Milarepa (1983), II and III of her piece Adnos and her three-hour piece Trilogie de la Mort, which took her a year to complete. 
Since her composition I'lle Re-sonate in 2000, she has exclusively dedicated her time to writing for acoustic instruments, notably the three part work 'Naldjorlak' and Occam I for solo harp. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKb0IvnCXtk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLYJWFQbNKo
​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RrsiGmLp_E&t=285s
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