for string quartet(14:12) 2000

I

II

III

I wrote this piece in 2000 in Baltimore,MD.
It was recorded by members of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra 7/2001 at the First Unitarian Chuch, Baltimore,MD

8/08 Getting Here for guitar duo will be published in the August/September edition of the GuitarDream magazine. The recording of which will also be included on the accompanying CD.

10/25/08 Stardust for string quartet and guitar at the Kama Hall- to be performed inside of a ceramics kiln

10/08 songs for piano(Naoko Hashimoto) and 2 sopranos(Mariam Tamari & Mie Komori)

(the following is in Japanese）

日本語

コンサート

8/08「Getting Here] ギター二重奏の為の曲はGuitardream ていうギター専門の雑誌に８月号に楽譜と録音を載せてもらう予定です

10/25/08 「Stardust」ギターと弦楽四重奏の曲は野村芳郎や森本千絵により釜のホールにて初演される予定

10/08 ピアノとソプラノの二人の組曲はNaoko Hashimoto Mariam Tamari & Mie Komoriにより初演される予定

for violin and guitar

I was really inspired by the movie “Dancer in the Dark” and the song “I’ve Seen it All” which Bjork sings in the movie. I wanted to capture the feeling of the movie in music. “Echoes” was premiered on May 17, 2003 by Chie Morimoto(vln) and Yoshio Nomura(gtr) at the Fushimi Denki Bunka Kaikan Concert Hall.

Performance History

7/16/06 at the Okui Gallery in Sapporo,Hokkaido at 6:30.by Chie Morimoto and Yoshio Nomura

7/15/06 at the Kinomura Mansion in Hokkaido at 3:00.by Chie Morimoto and Yoshio Nomura

5/07/06 at Panjo Hall in Osaka,JAPAN at 2:30.by Chie Morimoto and Yoshio Nomura

5/06/06 at Rokkomann Concert Hall(078-333-9000)in Kobe,JAPAN at 2:30.by Chie Morimoto and Yoshio Nomura

5/05/06 at Muse Salon in Nagoya JAPAN at 2:30.by Chie Morimoto and Yoshio Nomura

3/28/04 at the Matsuzakaya Mansion in Kakuozan. Chie Morimoto and Yoshio Nomura

3/27/04 in Hamamatsu. Chie Morimoto and Yoshio Nomura

6/29/03 was broadcast on Nagoya’s FM Danvo(76.5mhz) radio station

5/17/03 at the Fushimi Denki Bunka Kaikan Concert Hall. Chie Morimoto and Yoshio Nomura

for solo piano

I

II

Dreaming was written for and performed by Naoko Hashimoto. It was premiered at the Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall on June 12, 2004.

Howard Aibel, New York Concert Review, Winter 2005:

“The next piece is a world premire called Dreaming by
Jason Taylor. The two movements were titled First
Movement and Second Movement; a bit bland. The
writing was very vocal and had lovely melodies while
sounding impressionistic- a bit like early Ned Rorem.
That is to say French, in fact. The second movement
was in Toccata style with lots of ostinati. In these
two pieces, Hashimoto showed that she has good fingers
and an affinity for these works.”

Performance History

June 12, 2004 Weill Recital Hall, Naoko Hashimoto

(5:41)for flute solo

Cold Blue Noodle was premiered by Marcia McHugh (Kämper) on May 20th, 2000 at the First Unitarian Chuch, Baltimore,MD. My wife suggested the title- her image was just of a cold blue unappetizing noodle slithering off of a chair, my image was more of an ethereal noodle and the wonderful double-entendre contained within the title.

Performance History

October 17, 2004 by the Accessible Contemporary Music group at the Chopin Theatre in Chicago, Illinois

May 20th, 2000 at the First Unitarian Chuch, Baltimore,MD

for tenor and harp

Bare Ruined Choirs was commissioned by Takashi Nakamura. It was premiered on June 25th 2003 by Kaoru Kondo(harp) and Takashi Nakamura at the Aichi Arts Center in Nagoya.

Performance History

June 25, 2003 - Aichi Arts Center in Nagoya

works for chorus

works for voice

works for orchestra

works for chamber ensemble

works for solo instruments

for string quartet

Aubade for string quartet was premiered on August 26, 2005 at Nagoya’s Fushimi Denki Bunka Kaikan Concert Hall at 10:45am.This piece was commissioned by Chie Morimoto as a program opener for a morning concert- hence the title. It is a short one-movement work. An aubade is traditionally a dialogue between two lovers in the early morning before they both must part.  I was enamored of the idea of two lovers still entwined in dreams whispering to each other in the early morning.

Performance History

8/12/06 at Nagoya’s Fushimi Denki Bunka Kaikan Concert Hall

8/26/05 at Nagoya’s Fushimi Denki Bunka Kaikan Concert Hall

Here you find links to score and mp3 files

for baroque lute

I. INITIATION

II. TOY FOR LUKA

III. PUZZLE PIECE

IV. FAREWELL

This piece was commissioned by Shoji Nakagawa, and premiered February 23rd, 2007 at the Fushimi Bunka Kaikan Concert Hall in Nagoya.There are actually very few “new” pieces being written for this 300 year old instrument with 13 courses and about 16 strings. It was quite fun and challenging to write music idiomatic for the instrument. The titles of the first and fourth movements are self explanatory, but the second movement, “Puzzle Piece” refers to the idea creating a musical or rhythmic picture piece by piece, so that what you start out with is not exactly what it seems and becomes part of something much bigger than itself. “Toy for Luka” is sort of a pun, as in the baroque form “Toy” found quite prevalently in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. It’s the first movement of the four that I completed and I wanted to dedicate it to my son who was constantly around me when I wrote it.

Performance history

2/23/07 at the Fushimi Denki Bunka Kaikan Concert Hall performed by Shoji Nakagawa with a review in The Mainichi Newspaper

I Falling Through the Cracks

II Late Spring Brooklyn Night Through the Window

for solo guitar

Falling Through the Cracks was written in response to some wonderful mbira music that I fell in love with.

The story behind the first movement is at the time of writing the work I lost someone very important to me and someone else was in bad condition. I realized how easy it is for everything to change overnight as if you’re walking down the street and fall through a hole into another dimension. I also liked the idea of their being cracks in the rhythm of the piece- that the nuance of movement from one beat to the next can completely change given what you put in between those beats.

The second movement is dedicated to my old roommate from Brooklyn and his magic. One late spring night I woke up in the middle of the night and my window was wide open. I heard this amazing trance inducing drumming coming from somewhere around Prospect Park and felt almost compelled to follow it to its source. It was as if the drummers were calling me. I never ended up leaving the apartment but I wanted to explore what would happen if I had- and that is what this piece is about.

for two guitars

I Early Morning Departure

II Over the Water


III A possible, but most likely imagined Tribal Dance

IV Here

Getting Here was premiered April 29th, 2007 at the Yama no Hall in Nagoya by myself and Yoshio Nomura for whom the piece was written. The piece is based on the idea of soul delay. I read about it in Willian Gibson’s book “Pattern Recognition.” The idea is then your soul can only travel at about 100m per hour, so if you travel over that speed, your soul can’t keep up with your body. So, once you arrive at your destination it might take a few days for your soul to catch up with you. I really liked this idea and I started imagining the adventures my soul might have had on its way to Japan…a lonely early morning departure on silent seas…some turbulence and mythical creature sightings…a tribal dance in the shadows…arrival-cherry blossom snow and the final reunion celebrations.

Performance History

11/27/07 Getting Here(guitar duet)will be performed by the Uno Guitar Duo at St Edmond’s Church London 8:00pm.

11/17/07 Getting Here(guitar duet)performed by the Masini-Constantino Guitar Duet at the Hotel Armonia in Pontedera,Italy at 9:15pm.

11/09/07 Getting Here(guitar duet)will be performed by the Uno Guitar Duo at Teatro Sa da Bandeira Portugal, 8:00pm.

11/02/07 Getting Here(guitar duet)will be performed by the Uno Guitar Duo at L’Archipel Paris, 8:30pm.

10/09/07 Getting Here(guitar duet)will be performed by the Uno Guitar Duo at Music at St.Barnabas, Manette Street, Soho, London, WIV 5LB at 8:00pm.

9/05/07 Getting Here(guitar duet)performed by the Masini-Constantino Guitar Duet at the 6th Festival della Chittara 2007, at Centro Congressi, Marina di Massa, P.zza Betti, Massa(MS) 54100 in Italy.

I was born in 1975 in Wilmington, DE. I received a Masters of Music Degree in Composition at the Peabody Conservatory. My main teachers included Nicholas Maw, Chris Theofanidis, and Larry Lipkis. Additional studies with Bruno Amato, and Thomas Benjamin at Peabody, Dan Coleman in NYC, and George Tsontakis at the Aspen Music School. I was awarded 2nd prize in the Virginia Carty deLillo Composition Competition. My music has been performed in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, NYC’s Christ and St.Stephen’s Church; Esglesia de Santa Cristina d’Aro, in Girona, Spain; Pennsylvania; The Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska; Nagoya, Osaka, Sapporo, Japan, Aspen, Colorado,and Germany. MyOctober Dream for guitar quartet is published by homadream in Tokyo, a recording thereof was included in the May/June 2008 edition of the GuitarDream magazine. Recently, Cord Aria a German based guitar and flute duo have put out a recording which includes my piece Winter Light. They have performed the piece all over Germany and in the summer of 2007 they did a tour of Brazil with it as part of their repertoire. My work for two guitars “Getting Here” will be published in an upcoming edition of the GuitarDream publication.

in Japanese:(this will appear as gooblygook if you don’t have the Japanese fonts installed on your computer)

１９７５年、アメリカ　デラウェー州ウィルミントンで生まれる。２０００年　ピーバディー音楽院にて作曲科で修士号を修得する。　主にNicholas Maw 、 Chris Theofanidisなどに師事。他ではBruno Amato、ピーバディのThomas Benjamin, NYCのDan Coleman、そしてアスペン音楽祭では George Tsontakisなどにも師事。ピーバディー在学中にはVirginia Carty deLillo作曲コンクールにて２位を獲得。 現在は日本の名古屋で作曲、ギター日本の伝統楽器などを勉強し活躍している。ギターを野村芳生氏に師事。 今までに彼の音楽はNYのChrist and St.Stephen`s教会、Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall,スペインのGironaにあるEsglesia de Santa Cristina d`Aro、アメリカオマハネブラスカ州のThe Joslyn Art Museum,他にもシカゴ州そしてコロラド州アスペン大阪、名古屋、札幌などにて演奏された。「オクトーバー・ドリーム」（ギター四重奏）はギターアンサンブルフェスティバルinOSAKAで優秀賞受賞。そして ホマドリームから出版されました。

Here are the program notes
Getting Here is based on the idea of soul delay. I read about it in Willian Gibson’s book “Pattern Recognition.” The idea is then your soul can only travel at about 100m per hour, so if you travel over that speed, your soul can’t keep up with your body. So, once you arrive at your destination it might take a few days for your soul to catch up with you. I really liked this idea and I started imagining the adventures my soul might have had on its way to Japan…a lonely early morning departure on silent seas…some turbulence and mythical creature sightings…a tribal dance in the shadows…arrival-cherry blossom snow and the final reunion celebrations.