Featured Works
View recent audio and video recordings of Alistair’s works.
Broadacre City (2022)
for flute and string quartet; performed by Tara Helen O’Connor, Alexi Kenney, I-Jung Huang, Teng Li, and Sophie Shao
Commissioned by Chamber Music Northwest; Gloria Chien & Soovin Kim, artistic directors; Duration: 14’
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Broadacre City reflects on Frank Lloyd Wright’s abandoned designs. The form of the piece tries to capture their trajectory: a sudden, relentless genesis of ideas and material that slowly strips away and disintegrates to total stasis. Overtime, ghost-like versions of those ideas find a new footing - all of which trying to convey the effect these forgotten designs had on the craft and consciousness of their creator.
PERFORMANCE HISTORY:
July 2 & 3, 2022: Chamber Music Northwest premiere featuring Tara Helen O’Connor, Alexi Kenney, I-Jung Huang, Teng Li, and Sophie Shao
Piano Trio: “Field of Iris” (2021)
for violin, cello, and piano; performed by Emma Meinrenken, Matthew Christakos, and Thomas Weaver.
Commissioned by The Juilliard School as winner of the Gena Raps Chamber Music Prize; Duration: 12’
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Piano Trio: “Field of Iris” is the first piece I wrote coming out of quarantine. During that time, I also began my process of coming out to my family, friends, and community. Writing this piece was used as a touchstone during that recent time in my life.
PERFORMANCE HISTORY:
December 11, 2021: Emma Meinrenken, violin; Matthew Christakos, cello; Thomas Weaver, piano
April 26, 2022: Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center
Gold Girl / Dark Doves (2023)
for Soprano and Orchestra (Version for chamber ensemble also available.) Premiered by Ashley Marie Robillard and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra
Jeffrey Milarsky, conductor
Poetry by Federico García Lorca, translated by Sarah Arvio
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Poetry by Federico Garcia Lorca
Translated by Sarah ArvioI. Of the Gold Girl
The gold girl
was swimming in the water
and the water turned goldWaterweeds and branches
in shadow shadowed her
and the nightingale sang
for the white girlThe clear night came
dark with bad silver
and the bare hills
under the dusky windThe wet girl
was white in the water
and the water blazedThe dawn came spotless
with a hundred cow heads
stiff and shrouded
in frozen garlandsThe girl of tears
swam in the flames
and the nightingale wept
in its burned wingsThe gold girl
was a white heron
the water turned goldII. Of the Dark Doves
In the branches of the laurel tree
I saw two dark doves
One was the sun
and one the moon
Little neighbors I said
where is my grave —
In my tail said the sun
On my throat said the moon
And I who was walking
with the land around my waist
saw two snow eagles
and a naked girl
One was the other
and the girl was none
Little eagles I said
where is my grave —
In my tail said the sun
On my throat said the moon
In the branches of the laurel tree
I saw two naked doves
One was the other
and both were none“Of the Gold Girl” and “Of the Dark Doves,” translations of the poems entitled “De la muchacha dorada,” and “De las palomas oscuras” by Federico García Lorca, c. Sarah Arvio. Excerpted from her volume Poet in Spain (2017) by permission of Sarah Arvio and Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Concerto for Violin and Strings (2018)
Written for violinist Soovin Kim and commissioned by the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival.
Performance by Anna Lee and the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra.
Moonshot (2019)
for string quartet; performed by the Abeo Quartet
Commissioned by Glenstone for their first anniversary. The video recording was filmed in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, produced for the 2019 Smithsonian Year of Music; Duration: 16’
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Moonshot was inspired by a triptych of “date-paintings” which chart milestones of Apollo 11, created by Japanese-American artist On Kawara and on-display at the Glenstone Museum. The piece is in three movements to reflect each painting: I. July 16, 1969, launch; II. July 20, 1969, the lunar landing; and III. July 21, 1969, people throughout Earth reacting to and reflecting on this watershed moment.
PERFORMANCE HISTORY:
October 3-5, 2019: Premiere and residency at Glenstone Museum with the Abeo Quartet
June 28, 2021: Performance at Chamber Music Northwest by Soovin Kim, Kristin Lee, Melissa Reardon, and Michael Katz
July 12, 2022: Performance at Chamber Music Northwest
Winter 2023: Upcoming performance by Viano String Quartet
Notebook Fragments (2022)
Written for solo piano and commissioned by pianist Amy J. Yang. Based on a poem by Ocean Vuong of the same name.
Premiered at the Curtis Institute in December 2022.
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I. I sounded like a fire, for no reason.
II. 6:24 a.m. Greyhound station.
One-way ticket to New York City: $36.75
III. My hands were daylight all through the night.
IV. The way they formed brief churches over the table as he searched for the right words.
V. I promise to stop soon.
VI. I'm going to lose it when Whitney Houston dies.
VII. Maybe rain is 'sweet' because it falls through so much of the world.
VIII. Here. That's all I wanted to be.
from Ocean Vuong’s “Notebook Fragments” which appears in his collection “Night Sky with Exit Wounds”
Opalescence (2021)
For sinfonietta and moving image. Written as a virtual ensemble piece for the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, led by Jacob Niemann. Accompanying film directed by Julian Elia. Digital premiere in April 2021.