WORK
Selected Music
CHAMBER
glass, evaporate[d] (2020) Duration: 5'00
Three Quarter-Tuned Pianos
Within the first month after its premiere on "A Night of Robert Black" (with pianist, Lindsay Garritson), my piece lips evaporate for double bass and piano received several performances and recordings from around the United States. While mixing and mastering the recordings, my curiosity spiked after accidentally displacing certain tracks within the mix session. glass,evaporate[d] is the plunderphonic amalgamation of this experiment. Commissioned, performed, and recorded by Jacob Mason.
yellow drips from my head (2020) Duration: 10'00
Flute, Violin, Percussion, and Prepared Piano
This piece was inspired by a poem I wrote in the days after surviving a white supremacist assault...
Not everyone has the freedom to speak out against injustice. Many cower in false prophets and half truths. I hid in the confines of my traumas and my assailant's threats to those I love. Our oppressors win if they silence us... and for a long time, they did. My skin, a vessel for their hatred. My body, the perpetuating product of ignorance. My silence, deafening.
I ask not for your sympathy, for I am a victim no more: I am a victor. But my love for my friends and family outweighs the stains of my trauma. To provide sanctuary for those I love most, I ask for your voice and action to uphold what I cannot.
HUMAN (2020) Duration: 9'00
Saxophone Quartet
HUMAN (Art Miniatures II) was inspired by Mia Rickenbach's Create Freedom, an online community of artist advocates that surround the issues of trafficking and modern slavery with hope, joy, and art. Rickenbach, an active social entrepreneur and artist, notes:
"To make art is a bold statement: that it's worth it to create something new. To buy art is a bold statement: to declare "this of value" and add life and color to your spaces. Together, we are creating freedom."
HUMAN selects six different pieces of art that examine social issues in different regions of the world such as Israel, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Each miniature depicts the issue(s) at present while musically exploring the creative style of each artist.
I. Street (Pierre Kleinhouse)
II. Frogs (Shimon Engel)
III. Failing Windows (Ohad Zivony)
IV. Mineral II (Davy Evans)
V. The Project (Kseniya Che)
VI. Create Freedom (Mia Rickenbach)
Commissioned by the Invicta Saxophone Quartet
UM.SCI Composition Competition Winner - Robert Black Residency
Double Bass and Piano
lips evaporate (2019) Duration: 12'00
lips evaporate was inspired by the poem North Star, written by my wife, Maria Confer, to me.
Premiered by Robert Black and Lindsay Garritson at the University of Miami - Frost School of Music, Gusman Recital Hall (11/19/19)
Brass Quintet
Broad Street (2019) Duration: 4'00
Broad Street is a fifteen-mile long road located in Richmond, Virginia. Much of Richmond's history is laced in the commercial establishments that live on the stretch, such as the Broadberry, the Camel, and branches of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Broad Street is home to the music that has heavily influenced me as a musician, such as the music of Charles Owens, Marcus Tenney, and No BS! Brass Band.
Commissioned by Braeburn Brass Quintet
Published by Brass Editions
Dedicated to Jonathan Forbes
Solo Piano
Art Miniatures (2018) Duration: 6'00
National Federation of Music - Hatz Award
Art Miniatures reflects on some of the artists that I have met over the last few years, as well as their unique artistic styles. The primary focus of the work is the exploration of artistic style and detail through rhythmic and harmonic densities. Each miniature then selects specific aspects of each piece of art and explores it musically.
I. Sunset Over Court (Patrick Connolly)
II. Trust Me (Natasha Levandoski)
III. Spotlight: RVA (Paul Donahue)
IV. Rising (Vivienne Lee)
LARGE ENSEMBLE
Remnants (2019) Duration: 9'00
Orchestra
Remnants is a two-section work for orchestra that utilizes George Russell's "Lydian Chromatic Concept" in which color, harmony, and shape act as structural pillars for each movement. The piece shifts between varying levels of the Lydian Chromatic Scale, inherently creating systematic variations in texture and harmony within the system. The three shape-based motifs heard throughout the work function at micro-levels within the form. The title symbolizes two women who have heavily influenced me as a person but are no longer a part of my life due to extreme circumstances.
Ohio University, Masters Thesis
Large Ensemble and Fixed Media
Inheritor (2018) Duration: 16'30
“We the inheritors of a failed state take no pleasure in our youthful invective.
The basic contents of our being enrage the most powerful of snowflakes: those who gift bronze statues in return for deference but continue to look upon us with negative stars. A perfect paradox… a tether we’re unequivocally bound to… The sins of the past often define the present. Will we rise to the occasion, painting gold over black, or recede into the ashes of our own crusades?”
ELECTRONICS
Stereo Fixed Media
[wanton hush] (2019) Duration: 6'45
A response to Greg Watson's internal bleeding room for fixed media. [wanton hush] is an open improvisation of controlled feedback using a no-input mixer and, like Watson's piece, the title is a reference to nothing.
...grind... (2018) Duration: 8'15
8-Channel Fixed Media
Each year, approximately five-hundred billion plastic cups are used, of which roughly six billion cups end up in landfills every year. ...grind... utilizes a single sound source: a one-second sound file of a plastic Keurig coffee pod hitting the floor. The sound is then morphed into more destructive sound forces, symbolic of the faulty business and political ideologies that ultimately contribute to a lack of environmental sustainability.
JAZZ ENSEMBLE
Jazz Ensemble
Daffodils in the Desert (2018) Duration: 5'30
Daffodils in the Desert was dually inspired by the events that occurred in Charlottesville, VA (Aug. 11-12, 2017) and by a poem authored by NYC-based Saxophonist Logan T. Beaver. This piece is a musical personification of the heartbreak and sorrow caused by these events, but also exemplifies concepts
of reality; that good and evil will always be at war, and that every candle lit will also cast a shadow. This piece is also a reflection on the state of the union and
the giant steps we are still to take as a nation.
Enter the Four (2015) Duration: 5'30
Published with Talent Music Publishers
Jazz Ensemble
Enter the Four is a medium bluesy funk groove song that leaves the audience wanting more. This is a great piece suitable for a grade 4 big band. Enter the
Four is dedicated to four of Ryne’s close friends, all of which coincidentally have the same first name, Jeremy.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Under an Osmian Rain
For Mixed Sextet
For Piano, Live Electronics, and Flexible Instrumentation
Wanderings in a Palmetto Sunshower
Reconceptualizing the Lydian Chromatic Concept
Pure Lydian Chromatic (Theoretical Research)