I released Trinity on December 22, 2023 to streaming platforms. It is my first instrumental composition to be so released (by me). It is 12:03 long and is exclusively electronic. This blog post is for anyone interested to know more about what I intended by it, and how it was constructed. Both of these things are unnecessary to know for… Read more →

In the first days of January, 2005 when the news was dominated by the tsunami that had devastated a portion of Thailand, I was holed up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania at “The Farmhouse” and Dickinson College with Alarm Will Sound, as we all worked out what would become their breakout CD, Acoustica, comprised of acoustic arrangements of Aphex Twin’s music. Alarm… Read more →

25 years ago tonight, Feb. 17, 1993, I had my first orchestral performance. It was by the University of Michigan orchestra, under a student conductor named Claire Levacher, and it was of my master’s thesis composition entitled The Depth. It was also the only performance ever of that work, the largest instrumentation of an orchestral work of mine, and the… Read more →

On the 8th anniversary of my father’s passing (Feb. 4, 2010), I am posting a recording kindly given to me by Michael Haithcock, the band director of the University of Michigan, who studied conducting with my father when he was an undergrad at East Carolina University. This recording is of my father soloing on trombone with the Michigan band under… Read more →

It was just brought to my attention that Netflix released a series today called Wormwood chronicling and dramatizing the last days of Frank Olson, about which, you know if you have any idea who I am as a composer, I wrote an opera about with Gary Heidt in 2003-2007 entitled Man – Biology of a Fall. I have watched the… Read more →

I came across some old photos from the performances of my second opera, Nightingale: The Last Days of James Forrestal. The opera took place in the Lower East Side (of Manhattan) theater, long-defunct Present Company Theatorium. If you look closely you can see the Nightingale poster on the wall. The last time I drove by I saw it has become… Read more →

Prior to the brief studies heard in the blog posts immediately below this one, I pursued a large-form work in multiple tempi, Melancolia (2015-2016). The earliest spark for Melancolia came from a detail within Albrecht Dürer’s Melencolia I (1514), its magnificent magic square. I wanted to respond musically in some way to this mystical and mystifying square, or more specifically… Read more →

Back to using prime numbers. This invention maps the three parts onto a 2-minute interval. The voices proceed slowly at 33.5, 21.5, and 15.5 beats per minute. There is a 7-pitch mensural canon in play: each voice proceeds through the canon at its own pace, and each begins and ends on pitches outlining a collective D minor triad. For what… Read more →

Continuing with my polytempo inventions, I deviated from prime numbers for this 3-part Invention. Why? Because I had set out to base this on the prime numbers 569:359:137 and, after my preliminary math realized that I was essentially working with 570:360:138, which ultimately led me to 95:60:23, which better facilitates the primitive technology I am working with. I am currently… Read more →

There is a little more humor in No. 2. The ratio of 113:83 is around a 4:3 relationship. So I used Baroque figuration in a call response between both tempi, with the cracks and creases devilishly obvious. Upper voice is 113 beats per minute (and occupying 4/4 mostly) and lower voice is 83 beats per minute (occupying 3/4 mostly). One… Read more →

Today’s project was a two-part invention in two tempi. The tempi are drawn are from the prime numbers 139 and 97. This lasts about about a minute and  uses a harpsichord sound here.     The upper part is at the speed of 139 beats per minute; the lower part is in 97 beats per minute. This invention is, then,… Read more →

On Friday (4/29/16), Alarm Will Sound dropped their latest CD, “Modernists,” on Cantaloupe Records/bandcamp. It is quickly picking up great reviews. It dawned on me that is now exactly 10 years since I first began working on this arrangement, which began to take living form at the end of 2006.   At some point in early 2005 I had the… Read more →

DISSIPATING VARIATIONS is inspired by both the great Chaconne in D minor from Partita No. 2 and the Goldberg Variations for Piano, two of J.S. Bach’s most revered works. As has been much-talked about, these works are epic in their marriage of strict, lengthy form with deep and varied pathos. As one who is not generally prone to “follow the… Read more →

Nassau is a work I am very proud of because it brings together more threads of my creative, not to mention autobiographical, self in one place than anything else I have composed to date. It has many layers (references, styles, actualities, and some of my best original words and music, too). Audiences and performers alike had only basic insights with… Read more →

  –> NASSAU, Vol. 1 Librettino and music written or arranged and assembled by Evan Hause ding-dong NAS-saur Avenue. Stand clear. I. Telemachus Come on into the sun Up the grimy, rancid stairwell Out of the wine-dark subway The mighty G, snotgreen line Behold a beautiful June day Here on Nassau Ten blocks from home The last leg Polyphemerous, polyglottal… Read more →

  NASSAU, Vol. 2 Librettino and music written or arranged and assembled by Evan Hause XII. Cyclops ULYSSES Uh-oh uh-oh, here’s that guy. Baldo’s pizza “since 1953.” Hard-selling Baldo underneath his tree hawking his cheese. I really don’t need it. Big lug, maybe he won’t see me. CYCLOPS Come on in here. Fresh mozzarella. Only the best cheese, straight from… Read more →

  NASSAU, Vol. 3 “The Nostos” Librettino and music written or arranged and assembled by Evan Hause XVI. Eumaeus I come out by Busy Bee, Cross over Humboldt Street Around Nassau Town I have roamed Thinking of life, Gifts for my wife Three more blocks left, I wanna get home So hoist up the Busy Bee sail Cast off the… Read more →

The below is a modified re-post of a blog I had on a my MySpace page in late 2009. This is now connected to my website where you can hear the full composition. In 2007 I was commissioned by the Albany Symphony to write a musical composition commemorating the 400-year anniversary of Henry Hudson’s discovery of the Hudson River. A… Read more →