An Explosive Octet (2025) (6 min.)

Instrumentation: flute, clarinet in B♭, bassoon, 2 horns, trumpet in C, piano, violin (dbl. paper popper)

Premiered August 9 and 10, 2025, with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music Youth Ensemble
Zoë Huet, flute; Ava Storm, clarinet; Adler Blackmun, bassoon; Justin Saelee, horn 1; Jacob Stone, horn 2; Logan Manildi, trumpet; Jack Roche, piano; Benjamin Goodwin, violin, paper popper, and conductor

Program Note

An Explosive Octet is built upon imagery of explosions — some are big, some are small, some are magical, and you may hear some fireworks too. I wrote this piece with no explicit narrative in mind, taking the opening motif and deriving each individual section from its falling sequence of notes. The motif itself ventures through grand bursts of energy and light, wobbly grooves, before the dust settles each time. 

World premiere recording