Videos

Dysphoria is my latest work (link goes to the performance video), composed for two pianos.  Here, the Truberry duo gives the premier at the California Institute for the arts in Santa Clarita CA on January 8, 2025.  Score video to follow....

from the program notes: 

 

"Dysphoria" illustrates an experience common to many people who are neurodivergent and/or have experienced trauma. In the autism community when this cascades into dysregulated behavior, we call it a "meltdown", which can be minor, or life changing, resulting in loss of job, home, relationships, injury or incarceration. Psychologist Dave Melnick of the Northeast Families Institute introduced me to the concept of "working upstream" with behaviors, so as to be able to identify where that person is in the cascade of inner events and tailor interventions. The interior experience unfolds in five overlapping steps, ending in visible behavioral dysregulation: 

 

1) physiological dysregulation 

2) an impulse 3) emotional dysregulation 

4) cognitive dysregulation 

5) a behavior 

 

Shame and regret is the universal aftermath.

Later does not mean never... is my new electro-acoustic sextet for flute, clarinet, string trio and electronics, premiered by the Playground Ensemble, ensemble in residence for the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in music composition.  This performance was July 18, 2024 at Colorado College.  Definitiely a work in progress, for which I am planning revisions.

 

Roger Zahab came to Vermont in May. He visited Old West Church here in Calais, and we recorded (informally) his duo for violin and flute entitled "caught unawares." I played the piece last fall in a concert at the same church with a virtual Roger, via mp3 on a battery powered Bluetooth speaker. So it was a lot of fun to revisit the piece in the same 200 year old church with a real Roger.... on his "new" 17th century violin. As old school as you'll ever get from a YouTube video. No electricity, heat or internet at Old West!  Here is the video:

 

This is an arrangement for flute and piano of the aria Tormani a vagheggiar from Handel's opera Alcina. The challenge here was "mesa di voce" many of which were in the violin part. The recomposition involved moving all of the mesa di voce into the flute part, since it would not be idiomatic on piano. I am asking the question what would Handel have done with this music if composing for a modern flute and piano? 

Here is a performance featuring flutist Lindsey Goodman and pianist Rob Frankenberry April 28, 2024 Charleston WV:

Here is a score video of the same piece with me on flute, and Rob on piano.  Vermont College of Fine Arts music composition residency,  Susquehana Universtiy January 2024.  To purchase this music please contact me at steve.owens.vt at gmail.com

 

Here is a score video of my wind quintet Music from where the veil is thin.... performed by The City of Tomorrow, resident ensemble at the Vermont College of Fine Arts music composition residency in January 2024.  It was inspired by my experiences at Old West Church in Calais VT, truly a place where the veil between worlds is very thin!

This is my recomposition of Handel's aria V'adoro Pupille from the opera Giulio Ceasare. The original featured two orchestras, a pit orchestra of the usual strings and continuo, and an on stage seven piece orchestra representing the seven muses. I t was a challenge to boil this down to a viable work for modern flute and piano. Enjoy, and contact me for the music if you would like to perform it! Rob Frankenberry is the pianist - he is residency faculty for VCFA. I am playing on a George Haynes "Master", a vintage flute I played for over 40 years. Contrast with Tormani a Vaggeghiar, which I preformed on my new (to me) Powell Conservatory flute.

A setting of "The Lamb", a poem by William Blake (1757-1827).  Composed in 2008 for my daughter and several of her friends to sing at Old West Church in 2008, it was performed again at Old West in 2022.  This performance is from the Vermont College of Fine Arts choral workshop at Susquehana University in January 2024, Rob Frankenberry pianist and conductor.

This is my "Sonata in one movement" completed in 1989.  Arguably my most successful work, performances include one by Fenwick Smith and Sally Pinkas.  This piece was also honorable mention on for Prairie Home Companion's "Talent from Towns Under 2000" and was featured on their website for several years.  This performance features me on flute  at the Vermont Composer's Consortium Festival in 1991.

Something fun - here's an old piece of mine from the 90's. While its most likely not playable by an individual pianist, it is playable on a midi piano. More specifically a Yamaha baby grand at Susquehanna University that is equipped to play midi files like an updated player piano! This is not a Tango in the Argentine sense so much as a highly stylized piece that evokes some of the rhythmic elements. I built it on what I call an "artificial harmonic series" where each ascending interval is a half step smaller (P5, d5, P4, M3, m3, M2, m2). I found the complete pencil manuscript in an old notebook the other day. 

 

At the VCFA Music Composition residency last January, Devin Barone, the assistant program director, was getting into this midi piano in a big way. I rushed back to my dorm room and managed to dig a version of this piece off my hard drive (probably Finale 3.7.2!) and quickly gussied up a midi file. Devin got it running on the Yamaha, and my advisor Roger Zahab stuck his IPhone on the piano and grabbed a fast and dirty recording that turned out better than I could have expected. Never thought I'd ever hear this thing.... 

 

"My God! What has sound got to do with music! Why can't music go out in the same way it comes in to a man, without having to crawl over a fence of sounds, thoraxes, catguts, wire, wood, and brass?" 

- Charles Ives