PHILOSOPHY

It is important for any composer of this age to ask themselves ‘how did early 20th c. composers, who were overwhelmed by the imposing figures of the late Romantic period, break free of the traditions and common practices of the past?’ Tonality (tonal centers with specific functionality of chords) ran its course by the dawn of the 20th century. What solutions did they have then? Likewise, composers of the early 21st century must also ask themselves, ‘what is their voice, what is next?’ This was the first compositional impasse I found myself in.  
The Modern period (1st half of the 20th c) began an exploration of new structures and harmonic languages. But how did they allow their own voices to speak, and not just have their predecessors dominate them? The main grip on music for centuries had been “tonality.” One of the principle methods in the 20th century, to free itself of this slavery, was to control musical structures numerically, as did for example Arnold Schoenberg. This particular way of organizing sound has spawned different approaches over the past century. All of which are ways of experimenting with the reality of how the human brain perceives and organizes sound.  
Once on course with this numeric understanding and control of musical parameters, I ran into a  second impasse, which has led me to what I feel is my life’s work in music composition. Since it has been my mission to compose sacred music for the Catholic Church, the great problem is how will I embrace the experimental, the new, and the fresh, alongside the traditional and that which is practical in the church setting? I can imagine in the early 14th century the ordinary people of the time walking across fields to go to mass at Notre Dame Cathedral, and on their approach they must have heard the brand new sounds of Guillaume de Machaut. He was an Avante-garde composer who wrote the first mass that was not built from multiple sources. He was one of the early inventors of harmony. I’m sure this music was beautiful and otherworldly to even the untrained ear at the time. They had an advantage, however. They didn’t have centuries of harmonic practice and expectation drilled into their perception from childhood, like we do today.    
 Ultimately, my goal musically is that otherworldly beauty, and a sort of elegant complexity that will hopefully fit into the realm of the church.  To understand this, my recent choral/piano/string work, “Magnificat”, and other works will be the best demonstrations and solutions to these compositional problems.