I'm excited to announce that I will be attending Aspen Music Festival's Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies from 22 June 2022 to 21 August 2022!  The program provides 8-10 composers a full fellowship to study at the festival with composition faculty Christopher Theofanidis and Stephen Hartke.  I will be commissioned by the festival to write a 8-15 min chamber piece, have a 7 min orchestra piece read by the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra, and compose either an art song cycle or a choir piece while studying at the program.  

I was commissioned by CityMusic Cleveland to write a trio for viola, oboe, and piano for their 2021-2022 Equality, Justice, Hope chamber music series.  The piece will be performed on March 18th and 19th in Lakewood, OH.  You can find more info here: https://www.citymusiccleveland.org/current-season/hidden-treasures

About the series:

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. distilled a fundamental element of the human experience in these well-known words included in the address he gave at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on March 31, 1968. Hope is the motivation that drives the never-completed quest for just, fair, equitable and respectful treatment of every individual, regardless of belief, ethnicity, group, life style, occupation or any other characteristic. 

Social awareness has always been at the core of CityMusic Cleveland’s mission, and throughout its history the ensemble’s performances have featured works representing a wide range of traditions, countries, styles, eras and viewpoints, many of them commissioned from leading American and international composers. 

The 2021-2022 season is shaped around the essential concepts of Dr. King’s words — Justice, Equality, Hope — which are perhaps most powerfully embodied in Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, composed in 1940 at a German prisoner-of-war camp in Poland. A completely different cultural awareness is reflected in Pisachi (“Reveal”) by Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, which was inspired by Hopi and Pueblo dances. The upcoming season brims with such variety, with works from fifteen countries spanning 400 years that includes those of thirteen women composers, almost all premieres commissioned by CityMusic. 

Join CityMusic Cleveland this season to re-discover the joy of live performance as we gather together again to share music that renews the individual spirit as well as the ongoing quest to achieve Dr. King’s Justice, Equality, Hope. 

 Ⓒ 2021 Dr. Richard Rodda

This July, I attended the European American Musical Alliance Summer Institute.  During the program, my setting of Ross Gay's poem Thank You was read by vocal ensemble Variant 6.  

Listen to the recording

Text:

Thank You 

BY ROSS GAY 

If you find yourself half naked 

and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing, 

again, the earth's great, sonorous moan that says 

you are the air of the now and gone, that says 

all you love will turn to dust, 

and will meet you there, do not 

raise your fist. Do not raise 

your small voice against it. And do not 

take cover. Instead, curl your toes 

into the grass, watch the cloud 

ascending from your lips. Walk 

through the garden's dormant splendor. 

Say only, thank you. 

Thank you.

I am very excited to announce that in fall 2020, I will be attending the composition master's program at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music!  Alongside with admission, I was also offered an Associate Instructor position in Music Theory.  

I am grateful for all the people who have helped me and supported me through my four-year undergrad journey at Baldwin Wallace Conservatory.  I couldn't have grown to be the person I am today without all my teachers and friends at BW. 

I am looking forward to starting the next chapter of my learning journey at Indiana University, making more music, and making new memories!

On February 29th, 2020, my first new work of the year Three Xiangxi Folk Songs (for piano & violin) was premiered by Baldwin Wallace Conservatory faculty Dr. Sungeun Kim and Dr. Rotberg.  This set of three pieces was inspired by both the musical style of Chinese minor ethnic group Xiangxi Tujia and Miao, as well as my ongoing study of the western musical forms, including preludes and fugues.  For example, in the second movement titled Fugue, I tried for the first time to use a pre-existing folk melody to the subject and counter-subject of a fugue!  

Here's a link to the score if you were at Dr. Kim and Dr. Rotberg's recital and wanted to see how everything was notated after hearing the piece, or if you haven't heard the piece but want to check out the music: https://issuu.com/daisyyy0809/docs/three_xiangxi_folksongs

I wanted to also thank Dr. Kim and Dr. Rotberg for premiering two of my newest work on their recital alongside pieces by Ravel, Du Yun, and Robert Aldridge.  It was an honor to have worked with these amazing BW teachers!