Work Samples
The work samples contained on this page offer a brief overview of performance-based artistic research and include detailed information about the piece and/or project.
Further recordings and videos are available on my Soundcloud and YouTube pages.
Karlheinz Stockhausen: XI vom MONTAGs GRUSS aus LICHT
Prize-winning performance from the 2013 Stockhausen Courses in Kürten, Germany.
Shanna Pranaitis (Gutierrez)
Recording begins at 0.48 seconds | The lighting and movement are specifically prescribed.
Xi as a Greek letter has the meaning "unknown quantity" and in the case of this piece, the "unknown quantity" refers to unknown musical qualities produced as a result of timbre changes and individual variance in realizing the microtonal steps in the score. The MONDAY-Segment of the musical super-formula for LICHT is comprised of three synchronous formulae, stretched into a melody that subdivides intervals into as many as 7 steps within a minor second. The dominant character of MONDAY is EVE (character) who is represented by melody often presented as gliding melodies or glissando.
Keiko Harada: Third ear deaf II b' for flute/bass flute and accordion
Collect/Project: Trial. Repeat. Failure Tour
Bunkerrauschen: 10th Anniversary Concert series, Hamburg
23 April, 2016
Eva Zöllner, accordion
Recording begins at 0.20 seconds
Third ear deaf II b' is an adaptation of Keiko Harada's work (Third ear deaf) for Shô and Recorder, which she reworked the piece for flute and accordion in 2003 for the Wolfgang Jacobi Competition. As both flute and accordion 'breathe' in their own ways, the inherent timbres of the original instruments are maintained. One of the important pieces of music for flute and accordion.
This performance was part of Collect/Project's Trial.Repeat.Failure tour in Germany during April 2016 and was part of the 10th Anniversary Concert Series at the esteemed Bunkerrauschen in Hamburg. We were hosted for rehearsals at the Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, and performed in Berlin, Essen, and Hamburg. The ensemble is a flexible instrumentation consisting of flute, voice, accordion, and electronics, and appears in various combinations in any given concert or tour.
Fredrick Gifford: Shadow Play (2016) for bass flute and electronics
World Premiere Performance
Ear Taxi Festival, Chicago, October 9, 2016
Francisco Castillo Trigueros, electronics
Commissioned and premiered by Shanna Pranaitis (Gutierrez) as part of Bass flute UNLEASHED solo disc pending release.
MOBILE 2016 is built around two concepts: the dramatic structure of ancient shadow plays, and sounds from Dante Alighieri’s Inferno. Here, the words are taken from Dante by sampling the Inferno for cantos containing the word ombra – shadow. The bass flute and electronics are both actors and shadows in this play: their “words” at once generate the surface and stand behind all the sounds in this mobile.
This is part of my commissioning project for bass flute works that explore all the sonic possibilities of the open-hole bass flute and is part of a pending debut solo album.
Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf: Kurtág Cantus II for solo piccolo (2013)
2016 Studio recording for pending release on NEOS of Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf's complete flute works
Written for and premiered by Shanna Pranaitis (Gutierrez) (2014)
Kurtág-Cantus II is a reworking – in the sense of an extension and redistribution of the morphological material – of the piccolo part from Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf's work Hommage à György Kurtág.
This piece highlights the glissando and microtonal possibilities of a special open-hole piccolo, which Lillian Burkart created for me. I worked closely with Claus-Steffen to fine-tune the 1/8-tone pitches for this piccolo part, and some changes have been made to the score. This is the second of three pieces which Claus-Steffen has written specifically for me (and my ensemble Collect/Project). The final bass flute solo will be premiered in 2017 and is the final piece on the disc of his complete flute works.