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PROGRAM NOTES
Discrete Structures
Clarinet & Piano
Duration:
15'
Year:
2024
- Clarinet & Piano edition -
Program note:
Discrete Structures is a set of connected miniatures, each sharing musical material and each movement completing each other. Sometimes they complete a movement that has already happened, sometimes they complete it before it even begins. However, they are all based on the same musical material, and as I was writing each movement that material became more and more clear, completely on its own. I wanted to create a sound world that connected to itself almost serendipitously, creating connections throughout the work. The music of each movement on their own are very structured, the building blocks of each are all manipulations of each other, keeping the entire piece connected. Some structures depict events that happened to me during the summer of 2024, for example, III: Survival Structure, inspired by an encounter with a homeless girl reading philosophy in the center of Bucharest, Romania; stay strong, tomorrow is another day. Other structures compare similar material however, from different perspectives: a wooden clock turns into gold then melts into a liquid. Serendipity can sometimes be joyous or can sometimes give pause. Events happen seemingly on the own but often have an impact, from moment to moment, measure to measure.
Discrete Structures
Soprano Saxophone & Piano
Duration:
15'
Year:
2024
- Saxophone & Piano edition -
Program note:
Discrete Structures is a set of connected miniatures, each sharing musical material and each movement completing each other. Sometimes they complete a movement that has already happened, sometimes they complete it before it even begins. However, they are all based on the same musical material, and as I was writing each movement that material became more and more clear, completely on its own. I wanted to create a sound world that connected to itself almost serendipitously, creating connections throughout the work. The music of each movement on their own are very structured, the building blocks of each are all manipulations of each other, keeping the entire piece connected. Some structures depict events that happened to me during the summer of 2024, for example, III: Survival Structure, inspired by an encounter with a homeless girl reading philosophy in the center of Bucharest, Romania; stay strong, tomorrow is another day. Other structures compare similar material however, from different perspectives: a wooden clock turns into gold then melts into a liquid. Serendipity can sometimes be joyous or can sometimes give pause. Events happen seemingly on the own but often have an impact, from moment to moment, measure to measure.
Discrete Structures
Oboe & Piano
Duration:
15'
Year:
2024
- Oboe & Piano edition -
Program note:
Discrete Structures is a set of connected miniatures, each sharing musical material and each movement completing each other. Sometimes they complete a movement that has already happened, sometimes they complete it before it even begins. However, they are all based on the same musical material, and as I was writing each movement that material became more and more clear, completely on its own. I wanted to create a sound world that connected to itself almost serendipitously, creating connections throughout the work. The music of each movement on their own are very structured, the building blocks of each are all manipulations of each other, keeping the entire piece connected. Some structures depict events that happened to me during the summer of 2024, for example, III: Survival Structure, inspired by an encounter with a homeless girl reading philosophy in the center of Bucharest, Romania; stay strong, tomorrow is another day. Other structures compare similar material however, from different perspectives: a wooden clock turns into gold then melts into a liquid. Serendipity can sometimes be joyous or can sometimes give pause. Events happen seemingly on the own but often have an impact, from moment to moment, measure to measure.
Discrete Structures
Flute & Piano
Duration:
15'
Year:
2024
- Flute & Piano edition -
Program note:
Discrete Structures is a set of connected miniatures, each sharing musical material and each movement completing each other. Sometimes they complete a movement that has already happened, sometimes they complete it before it even begins. However, they are all based on the same musical material, and as I was writing each movement that material became more and more clear, completely on its own. I wanted to create a sound world that connected to itself almost serendipitously, creating connections throughout the work. The music of each movement on their own are very structured, the building blocks of each are all manipulations of each other, keeping the entire piece connected. Some structures depict events that happened to me during the summer of 2024, for example, III: Survival Structure, inspired by an encounter with a homeless girl reading philosophy in the center of Bucharest, Romania; stay strong, tomorrow is another day. Other structures compare similar material however, from different perspectives: a wooden clock turns into gold then melts into a liquid. Serendipity can sometimes be joyous or can sometimes give pause. Events happen seemingly on the own but often have an impact, from moment to moment, measure to measure.
Discrete Structures
Flute & String Quartet
Duration:
15'
Year:
2024
- Flute & String Quartet edition -
Program note:
Discrete Structures is a set of connected miniatures, each sharing musical material and each movement completing each other. Sometimes they complete a movement that has already happened, sometimes they complete it before it even begins. However, they are all based on the same musical material, and as I was writing each movement that material became more and more clear, completely on its own. I wanted to create a sound world that connected to itself almost serendipitously, creating connections throughout the work. The music of each movement on their own are very structured, the building blocks of each are all manipulations of each other, keeping the entire piece connected. Some structures depict events that happened to me during the summer of 2024, for example, III: Survival Structure, inspired by an encounter with a homeless girl reading philosophy in the center of Bucharest, Romania; stay strong, tomorrow is another day. Other structures compare similar material however, from different perspectives: a wooden clock turns into gold then melts into a liquid. Serendipity can sometimes be joyous or can sometimes give pause. Events happen seemingly on the own but often have an impact, from moment to moment, measure to measure.
Discrete Structures
Oboe & String Quartet
Duration:
15'
Year:
2024
- Oboe & String Quartet edition -
Program note:
Discrete Structures is a set of connected miniatures, each sharing musical material and each movement completing each other. Sometimes they complete a movement that has already happened, sometimes they complete it before it even begins. However, they are all based on the same musical material, and as I was writing each movement that material became more and more clear, completely on its own. I wanted to create a sound world that connected to itself almost serendipitously, creating connections throughout the work. The music of each movement on their own are very structured, the building blocks of each are all manipulations of each other, keeping the entire piece connected. Some structures depict events that happened to me during the summer of 2024, for example, III: Survival Structure, inspired by an encounter with a homeless girl reading philosophy in the center of Bucharest, Romania; stay strong, tomorrow is another day. Other structures compare similar material however, from different perspectives: a wooden clock turns into gold then melts into a liquid. Serendipity can sometimes be joyous or can sometimes give pause. Events happen seemingly on the own but often have an impact, from moment to moment, measure to measure.
Dreadlocked
Flute, Clarinet, Electric Guitar, Piano, & Bass
Duration:
8'
Year:
2010/18
- 5X5 edition -
Program note:
Dreadlocked originally appeared in Mellits’ operetta M/W as well as part of the Paranoid Cheese Project. The music relies on rich thematic and harmonic development incorporated into a repetitive acoustical canvas. The rhythmic interplay creates a myriad of mathematical sequences, expanding and contracting as the musical lines shift harmonic planes. It is music that is tonal within modes yet eschews traditional tonality. The repetitive nature of the music propels itself into spiraling dances, always with a forward motion, into sometimes dark and sometimes bright areas of a spectral musical canvas.
Dreadlocked
Flute, Alto Saxophone, Violin, Cello, 4-hand Piano
Duration:
8'
Year:
2010/16
- Piccola Accademia degli Specchi edition -
Program note:
Dreadlocked originally appeared in Mellits’ operetta M/W as well as part of the Paranoid Cheese Project. The music relies on rich thematic and harmonic development incorporated into a repetitive acoustical canvas. The rhythmic interplay creates a myriad of mathematical sequences, expanding and contracting as the musical lines shift harmonic planes. It is music that is tonal within modes yet eschews traditional tonality. The repetitive nature of the music propels itself into spiraling dances, always with a forward motion, into sometimes dark and sometimes bright areas of a spectral musical canvas.
Eclipse
Flute, Clarinet/Bass Clarinet, Electric Guitar, Double Bass, Piano
Duration:
16'
Year:
2022
Program note:
“Eclipse" was commissioned by fivebyfive to commemorate the total solar eclipse occurring on April 8, 2024. The music begins with the sun slowly being eclipsed by the moon. Once the eclipse is underway, a world of shifting rhythms and hidden melodies start to appear. The music slowly points out contours and lines that were once hidden in plain sight, but now in the shadow of the total solar eclipse, have their one and only chance to “shine.” The moon gleams in dancing rhythms and funky lines that together, with the shadowed sun, present an alternate role reversed musical universe. “Eclipse” was premiered by fivebyfive at the RMSC Strasenburgh Planetarium in Rochester, NY, on January 20 & 21, 2024.
Escape
Alto Saxophone & Marimba
Duration:
14'
Year:
2016
Program note:
Google defines “escape” as to “break free from confinement or control.” The music for “Escape” does much the same thing. The two instruments in this work are often treated as two halves of the same musical machine. Their rhythmic and melodic patterns intertwine and play off of each other in order to create a musical entity that relies on each other and that, in effect, controls one another. This play and control gets shifted back and forth to the players sometimes complete, and sometimes partial. Eventually, musical ideas that can only exist with the other player will surface. This new material then often escapes and forms the basis of the next movement. Neither instrument can completely control this escape mechanism, and its process helps inform the musical material of the next section or movement.
Formally, the first three movements directly relate to the last three movements in the same order. They are separated by the middle movement “Escape,” which acts as a safe haven for harmonic ideas that have broken free and join up with melodic ideas escaping from other parts of the piece. The first letters of the other 6 movements spell “Escape,” so with this in mind, Escape escapes Escape.
-MM
Escape
Clarinet & Marimba
Duration:
14'
Year:
2016/18
- Clarinet edition -
Program note:
Google defines “escape” as to “break free from confinement or control.” The music for “Escape” does much the same thing. The two instruments in this work are often treated as two halves of the same musical machine. Their rhythmic and melodic patterns intertwine and play off of each other in order to create a musical entity that relies on each other and that, in effect, controls one another. This play and control gets shifted back and forth to the players sometimes complete, and sometimes partial. Eventually, musical ideas that can only exist with the other player will surface. This new material then often escapes and forms the basis of the next movement. Neither instrument can completely control this escape mechanism, and its process helps inform the musical material of the next section or movement.
Formally, the first three movements directly relate to the last three movements in the same order. They are separated by the middle movement “Escape,” which acts as a safe haven for harmonic ideas that have broken free and join up with melodic ideas escaping from other parts of the piece. The first letters of the other 6 movements spell “Escape,” so with this in mind, Escape escapes Escape.
-MM
Etudes
Piano
Duration:
11'
Year:
2006/18
Program note:
“Etude No. 1: Medieval Induction”
“Etude No. 1: Medieval Induction” was a gift to a good friend of mine, Andrew Russo. The day his first child was born, I hung the newly finished Etude on his front door which he found the moment he came back from the hospital with his wife and new baby. The music embodies overlapping strata of rhythm, layering and combining, taking pieces from one genetic line and combining it with another forming a unified rapid firing whole that represents the best of all elements that started its formation.
“Etude No. 2: Defensive Chili”
Writing music for me always starts with a seed, usually one chord, or one sound. An entire composition will then be built from this one starting point. “Etude No. 2: Defensive Chili” has an opening chord in the right hand which is this germinating seed. Thus, the entire composition is built from this opening sound. All of the harmonic structures and melodic material are derived from this initial sound, always keeping motivic cohesion in the work. Therefore, the opening chord dictates all the musical material throughout the work. It is turned upside down, on it’s side and arpeggiated, dismantled and recombined to form melodic material, and stretched out to form an overall harmonic scheme. Repetitive motivic patterns spanning across this harmonic landscape are all built from this same seed.
One can go to a competitive chili cook-off and taste many different chilis which are all built from the same building blocks. Mine would be defensive.
“Etude No. 45: Tweets of Orange Fear”
My third etude in my set, no. 45, was written entirely on Christmas Day, 2018. Titled, “Tweets of Orange Fear,” it is dedicated to Nick Phillips, in celebration of his #45Miniatures project. The music itself represents my attempt to take a form of communication, namely a world leader using twitter to try and create fear among his constituents, and turn it into something more lovely and beautiful. To turn pain and horror into beauty and art is, to me, the best reaction an artist can give in the face of terror.
-MM
Ex Machina
Saxophone Quartet
Duration:
17'
Year:
2016
Program note:
I am absolutely fascinated with machines, but also their ramifications into art. “Ex Machina” is in seven movements, with each movement representing a different type of machine-like structure operating in sound and space. My overall idea was to express the beauty locked within machines, through seven different type of musical constructions. The music itself is often layered, creating multiple levels of musical lines interacting with each other. The saxophones frequently interlock with each other, creating one musical line between multiple instruments, much like gears of a machine will interconnect and create one structure among them executing a single purpose. Layers then combine and create a musical structure that is hopefully more than merely the sum of its parts. As “Ex Machina” was written for a consortium of seven different saxophone quartets, I used each quartet as inspiration and a starting point for each movement, or “machine.”
-MM
Ex Machina
2 Clarinets & 2 Bass Clarinets
Duration:
17'
Year:
2016/18
- Clarinet Quartet edition -
Program note:
I am absolutely fascinated with machines, but also their ramifications into art. “Ex Machina” is in seven movements, with each movement representing a different type of machine-like structure operating in sound and space. My overall idea was to express the beauty locked within machines, through seven different type of musical constructions. The music itself is often layered, creating multiple levels of musical lines interacting with each other. The clarinets frequently interlock with each other, creating one musical line between multiple instruments, much like gears of a machine will interconnect and create one structure among them executing a single purpose. Layers then combine and create a musical structure that is hopefully more than merely the sum of its parts. “Ex Machina” was originally written for saxophone quartet and commissioned by a consortium of seven different saxophone quartets; I used each quartet as inspiration and a starting point for each movement, or “machine.”
-MM
Frost
Bassoon
Duration:
12'
Year:
2011/18
- Bassoon edition -
Program note:
In the northeast of the United States, the winter of 2010-11 saw incredible record-breaking snowfall. However, early March provided a brief stay from the cold and the warm weather started to thaw the frozen landscape. As the ice and snow began to melt, audible cracks in the frozen blocks could be heard. Icicles and snow drifts would exclaim a snapping sound as they cracked and then hit the ground, echoing through the neighborhood. I imagined these echoes turning into groovy loops of sound, rebounding off the houses and trees. Slowly melting sheets of ice yielded more introverted lyrical lines of sound. From its initial frozen formation, each movement warmed and metamorphosized itself into a sound portrait of the Rönmark family.
-MM
Frost
Tenor Saxophone
Duration:
12'
Year:
2011
Program note:
In the northeast of the United States, the winter of 2010-11 saw incredible record-breaking snowfall. However, early March provided a brief stay from the cold and the warm weather started to thaw the frozen landscape. As the ice and snow began to melt, audible cracks in the frozen blocks could be heard. Icicles and snow drifts would exclaim a snapping sound as they cracked and then hit the ground, echoing through the neighborhood. I imagined these echoes turning into groovy loops of sound, rebounding off the houses and trees. Slowly melting sheets of ice yielded more introverted lyrical lines of sound. From its initial frozen formation, each movement warmed and metamorphosized itself into a sound portrait of the Rönmark family.
-MM
Fruit Loops
Amplified Chamber Orchestra
Duration:
7'
Year:
1997
Program note:
Fruit Loops, by Marc Mellits, is based on loops of notes that shift the harmony one note at a time in a Bach meets Steve Reich fashion. The fast tempo gives the piece a blurring effect of a whirlwind of loops that move the piece from a slow and almost sad chorale at the beginning to fast and colorful finale.
Fruity Pebbles
Piano Trio
Duration:
18'
Year:
1997
Program note:
"Fruity Pebbles" is one of Mellits’ early masterpieces, a compilation of eight short, diverse movements that build a narrative through an expert use of contrast. These small movements are described by the composer as each having their own different ‘color’. Imagine them all sitting in a bowl of milk and you see the relationship between the work’s title and the iconic Post breakfast cereal. Written shortly after the death of the composer’s father, the last movement is a touching elegy in honor of Dr. Mellits. Four of the preceding movements are also dedications, including CIB - written for the composer's wife, 4LB - written for Leonard Bernstein, 4MG - written for Michael Gordon, and 4SR - written for Steve Reich. These movements all reveal something of the dedicatee's musical personality. Particularly endearing are the quotations in 4LB of the theme song from ‘The Brady Bunch’ - a popular 1960's American television program, and of the opening bar from Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto. Fruity Pebbles was written in 1997 on a commission from the Talesin Trio while Mellits was a composition fellow at Tanglewood. The subtitles of each the eight movements are:
I – Wood
II – Broken Glass
III – C.I.B.
IV – 4LB
V – 4MG: Shagadellic
VI – Blue
VII – 4SR (Lizzy’s Stomach)
VIII – Elegy for Lefty
-Andrew Russo
Gonzalo Speaks
Baritone Voice, Flute, Clarinet/Bass Clarinet, Violin, Cello, Piano, Marimba
Duration:
9'
Year:
2005
Program note:
Musical process and sonic integration are at the heart of Gonzalo Speaks. The musical material is derived always from itself; it is self-generating. Once a movement starts, all of the musical ideas come from what has occurred previously. The music is constructed, or built, much like a house or building. There is a “foundation”, in this case the harmonic underpinning, that the music is constructed over. The sonic integration of the instruments, each one depending on one another, creates a sound world that fits together, surrounds, and supports the voice. In this manner, the voice is not necessarily treated as a solo instrument and the others as background or accompanying instruments, but all the roles, including the voice, are integrated into the work. The voice stands, musically, within the others. The sound itself is pure and direct. The instrumentation lends itself to animated sounds and attempts to communicate directly with the listener. Each instrument is treated as only a part of the overall sound, and it is within the instrumental combination that the initial musical process is realized.
The text is from William Shakespeare’s, “The Tempest”:
I:
I’th’commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things. For no kind of traffic
Would I admit, no name of magistrate.
II:
Letters should not be known. Riches, poverty,
And use of service, none.
III:
Contract, succession,
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none.
IV:
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil.
No occupation: all men idle, all,
And women too, but innocent and pure.
Gravity
2 Vibraphones & 2 Marimbas, alternate Bass Marimba
Duration:
12'
Year:
2013
Program note:
While writing “Gravity” I found myself thinking about how musical notes and lines can become attracted to each other and follow one another. The opening of the work begins on a single pitch, D. Then, one by one, and with each instrument following each other, new notes are built into the pulsating sound. With a musical gravitational force, the lines follow each other then bounce back and forth together. The overall rhythm and tempo also shifts in a ‘gravitational’ way. The music continually gets faster and faster, always picking up speed as it falls, spiraling into a new tempo at each musical shift in texture. The music is written for a combination of Marimbas and Vibraphones, and the mixture of sound that these different materials make provide a spring board for the musical lines to intersect, bounce, and play off each other, always getting faster, always falling from the sky.
-MM
Green
2 Violins, Viola, 2 Cellos
Duration:
15'
Year:
2016
Program note:
Within each unique shade of green, therein lies a shade of music. Within the sounds of these five instruments, I tried to connect them in ways to reflect my own interpretation of each shade. The first movement, Emerald, is a bright and vivid shade of green, representing the gemstone; the music ‘locks’ together like properties of a stone. II: Mantis, it has been observed in the insect world that a female mantis often eats its male counterpart, after or even during sex, starting with its head. III: Paris, one of the most romantic cities in the world, is also the name of a highly toxic insecticide (and where the male mantis gets it’s revenge). IV: Harlequin, the dance-like color of the light-hearted servant of French and English renaissance theatre. V: Turquoise is sometimes described as a combination of two colors, pale blue and green; these two shades intersect to create music that is a combination of two thematic and harmonic ideas. VI: Teal green was once color of my car, fairly standard and timid on the outside, but in her mind a ferocious tiger mantis.
-MM
Hunger
Clarinet & Looper
Duration:
8'
Year:
2018/22
- Clarinet edition -
Program note:
Hunger is part of a series of pieces of mine that use looping technology. Everything is created live, there are no pre-recorded loops. The soloist presents the material, and using looping technology, the short fragments of melody are repeated, and then layered with additional loops of sound building an overall tapestry of sound. The technology utilized in creating the loops can be as simple as an Apple iPad, or as complex as a computer. As the music unfolds, various harmonic and rhythmic “games” are created as the soloist soars over the repeating sound of their own accompaniment. The sound itself weaves in and out of the texture, playing off the loops to create a hybrid sound between man and machine. Within this overlay, between both human and mechanical connections, my hope is to find the beauty that is at the heart of both.
Hunger was commissioned by RapidView for Diane Hunger in honor of the Hunger family and all the employees of IBAK.
Hunger
Alto Saxophone & Looper
Duration:
8'
Year:
2018
Program note:
Hunger is part of a series of pieces of mine that use looping technology. Everything is created live, there are no pre-recorded loops. The soloist presents the material, and using looping technology, the short fragments of melody are repeated, and then layered with additional loops of sound building an overall tapestry of sound. The technology utilized in creating the loops can be as simple as an Apple iPad, or as complex as a computer. As the music unfolds, various harmonic and rhythmic “games” are created as the soloist soars over the repeating sound of their own accompaniment. The sound itself weaves in and out of the texture, playing off the loops to create a hybrid sound between man and machine. Within this overlay, between both human and mechanical connections, my hope is to find the beauty that is at the heart of both.
Hunger was commissioned by RapidView for Diane Hunger in honor of the Hunger family and all the employees of IBAK.
Hunger
Trombone & Looper
Duration:
8'
Year:
2018/20
- Trombone edition -
Program note:
Hunger is part of a series of pieces of mine that use looping technology. Everything is created live, there are no pre-recorded loops. The soloist presents the material, and using looping technology, the short fragments of melody are repeated, and then layered with additional loops of sound building an overall tapestry of sound. The technology utilized in creating the loops can be as simple as an Apple iPad, or as complex as a computer. As the music unfolds, various harmonic and rhythmic “games” are created as the soloist soars over the repeating sound of their own accompaniment. The sound itself weaves in and out of the texture, playing off the loops to create a hybrid sound between man and machine. Within this overlay, between both human and mechanical connections, my hope is to find the beauty that is at the heart of both.
Hunger was commissioned by RapidView for Diane Hunger in honor of the Hunger family and all the employees of IBAK.
Izaya
Piano
Duration:
20'
Year:
2018
Program note:
Izaya is the name of my maternal great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, born in Lithuania in approximately 1735. Through DNA testing and online research, I recently became fascinated with my ancestry and was able to trace my mother’s family back to Izaya. Before this, I must confess that I knew very little about my ancestors beyond my grandparents, and was therefore elated, and inspired, to finally discover the names of people I had only previously dreamt about. Izaya was written as part of the “Response Project,” creating music for solo piano as a response to the music of Bob Dylan. Like Dylan’s songs, I decided to tell a (musical) story of my family. Izaya, and his immediate decedents, appear in the opening chord and melody. The music then progresses patiently, with many slow-moving chords, representing the slow-moving evolution of my family and the places we have lived, including the faster paced move to the United States. The faster material eventually gives way to reveal that at it basis, all along, it was a variant of the same material heard at the opening, which then finally culminates, at the very end, when Izaya returns.
-MM
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