Compositions — Jonathan Booker

2020 | 8:30
[voice, trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet]
Commissioned by the UMKC Conservatory of Music & Dance for Loadbang Ensemble

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Program Notes
A coalescence. The convergence of flows of material processes (unfoldings, fusions, vaporizations, sublimations, erosions). Energy arises from the collision of body and instrument. Forms (asymmetries of matter) are forged/assembled/woven, which is to say that they are chiseled out of the void of limitless uniformity. They are warped, fractured, stretched, compressed, and smeared. The instrument is fixed with the body (consubstantial). The noise (unbound by time; existing forever in the now) is corporeal—churning, crystalizing, grinding, spiraling, gurgling, filamenting, erupting, dissolving.

(asymmetries of matter) contains within it four shorter solo works—one for each of the four instruments—that have been dissected and reassembled within the larger chamber work. These asymmetries may be performed independently or in sequence collectively.

2019 | 6:30
[solo harp]
Commissioned by the Lyra Society for the 6th Annual Costello Competition

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Program Notes
“(1) I suppose that what has no greater unity than the logs in a bundle of firewood or logpile, or bricks placed one on top of the other, is not properly one entity, but rather entities, although one name can be supposed for them all.

And this is true whether they are close together or far apart, and likewise whether those bricks or logs in the pile are arranged together in an orderly way or not, for this does not give them greater unity; likewise the individual parts may have some motion in common, or anything else that can be predicted of them all.

(2) I also suppose that nothing is intelligible in a body other than extension, i.e. what has parts beyond parts.

(3) Finally, I suppose that everybody is actually divided into several parts, which are also bodies.

From this it follows:

First, that there is no such thing as one body.

Second, that there are no such things as bodies either, these being nothing but one body after another.”
– EXTRACT FROM G.W. LEIBNIZ, "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ONE BODY." (ca. 1678-79) THE LABYRINTH OFTHE CONTINUUM (YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS)

xylem takes the form of a mass of musical tissue. It is comprised of overlapping trajectories of material (or, perhaps, just the semblance of material), where forms invade and collapse into other forms, and the boundaries between matter and non-matter are blurred. This liquid mass, being as much a mass as a profusion of masses, churns within itself, sometimes revealing and at other times obfuscating musical objects.

The conceptual architecture of this work relates to the vascular tissue systems of many types of plants, of which xylem, along with phloem, is a primary component. Xylem functions as a mechanism for the conveyance of water from the roots to the rest of the plant. It is comprised of a labyrinthine network of narrow, hollow, and elongated cells and vessels that often exhibit complex shapes like rings, ladders, and helices. Xylem forms in the stems and roots of growing plants. As a plant matures, xylem dies, creating a hard material that constitutes the majority of the plant’s structure, while new water-conducting xylem emerges around it. In this way, xylem is at once a part of the plant and the plant itself. This process is evident in trees, as annual xylem rings indicate a tree’s age.

2019 | 1:30
[two violoncelli]
Commissioned by 2CellosKC

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Program Notes
When Meredith and Susie approached me about composing a piece for 2CellosKC, we talked about creating something that paid homage to Kansas City’s rich history of jazz. Charlie Parker, who was born in Kansas City, Kansas and began his career performing in the city’s numerous jazz clubs, immediately came to mind.The story of “Ko Ko,” one of Parker’s first masterpieces, is as unique and colorful as Kansas City itself. In fact, it was never even meant to exist. When entering the WOR studios in New York on November 26, 1945, Parker and his band made up of Miles Davis, Sadik Hakim, Curly Russell, and Max Roach intended to record “Cherokee,” a tune that was likely introduced to Parker by fellow Kansas City musicians Count Basie and Lester Young. The first problem that arose on that day was that the pianist, Sadik Hakim, lacked a New York City union affiliation and therefore could not perform on the record. Parker’s mentor, Dizzy Gillespie, who was in the studio originally as a spectator, subbed in for Hakim. Fascinatingly, this change in personnel led to a controversy that persists to this day over whether it was Gillespie or Miles Davis who played trumpet on the recording. The second problem came thirty-three seconds into the band’s first take of “Cherokee,” as producer Teddy Reig announced that the studio would not pay royalties for the tune, so it could not be recorded. As a replacement, Parker, using the skills that he had developed in Kansas City, improvised over the chord structure of “Cherokee,” and, thus,“Ko Ko” was born.

To create Ko [C]o, my own reflection on Parker’s tune, I extracted segments from his highly virtuosic solo and used them to invent new melodic gestures with varying degrees of identifiability with the original. I then placed them on a twelve-bar blues framework—a hallmark of the Kansas City style. Finally, I ask the cellists on several occasions to make sounds on their instruments using slightly unorthodox means as a way of harkening back to the truly bizarre way in which Charlie Parker brought “Ko Ko” to life.

2017 | 10:30
[flute, clarinet (b. cl.), violin, violoncello, piano]
Composed for the 2017 Composers Conference at Wellesley College.
Finalist for the 2019 American Prize in Composition.

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Program Notes
Divergent Trajectories presents a struggle between two opposing manifestations of individualism. The first section of the work takes the form of a process fugue—a kind of operation-based musical texture in which each voice works independently to execute a prescribed series of tasks that, in the case of this work, ultimately transform the means by which pitch material is generated. In this system, individualism is based on the autonomy with which each member goes about discharging their assigned duties. It gradually becomes apparent, however, that this form of individualism is based on a fundamental flaw, as the freedom with which each member can express their individuality is eclipsed by the rigidity that the texture demands.

The latter section of the work presents an alternative approach, one that is marked by struggle, but ultimately arrives at collective triumph. Here, each instrument’s individual freedom is intrinsically connected to the expressive freedom of the ensemble as a whole. As the collective creative power of the ensemble grows, so too does the freedom of each instrument to express their individuality by staking their own unique path through the music. The result is a transcendent collectivism that, instead of suppressing individual freedom, sublates it.

2016 | 8:30
[viola, piano]
Second Place in the 2017 UMKC Chamber Music Composition Competition.

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Program Notes
For millennia, dreaming has occupied a prominent station within the human experience. For many people, this activity is thought of as a gateway to realms that are otherwise inaccessible, connecting us to hidden thoughts and desires, to deceased loved ones, or even to god. In this view, dreams reveal a more complete image of our true selves. Others conversely believe that dreams are simply random hallucinations caused by the brain's activity during sleep, particularly the phase of sleep known as "rapid eye movement."

In any case, dreaming is not something that I regularly do, or at least recall doing. The experiences associated with dreaming, that have throughout history had such significant impact on the human race, are not available to me. I am therefore particularly curious about the dreams of others, and it is in this spirit that I have composed De somniis. This work was inspired by a variety of sources, among which are the overture to Marcel Proust's Swann's Way, Salvador Dali's painting Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening, and Oliver Sacks' short story "The Dog Beneath the Skin."

2016 | 14:30
[flute (a. fl.), clarinet (b. cl.), percussion, harp, piano, violin, viola, violoncello]
Commissioned by the AURA Contemporary Ensemble.

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Program Notes
Sonic City presents three cityscapes that come together to form two contrasting explorations: the first of urban life, and the second of death in—and potentially of—the city.

The title of the first movement, the “street crawls undulant,” is taken from Lola Ridge's 1918 poem "The Ghetto," in which Ridge describes a crowded urban boulevard upon which people become so numerous that they form one great mass of humanity. This movement evokes the vibrancy of cities, focusing on the idea of the city as a single uniform entity, but that is made up of millions of creatures, each with their own unique individuality. I represent this concept musically through the use of Klangfarbenmelodie, a kind of musical pointillism.

The second movement, “New York Nocturne,” emerges quietly out of the first and conjures the beautifully transparent imagery of Betty Smith's classic novel A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. This movement is a hazy, dreamlike view over the rooftops of tenement buildings and factories in early 20th-century Brooklyn. As church bells toll in the distance, we look across the Williamsburg Bridge, barely able to make out the gray skyline of Manhattan's Lower East Side.

In contrast to the first two movements, the third cityscape, “if not for this burning down...,” addresses death and injustice in the city. It was inspired by a photo that I encountered while viewing coverage of the 2015 Baltimore Riots. The image shows a boarded-up window that had been marked by graffiti that reads, "If not for this burning down, what would've happened?" Like the graffiti artist, I too raise more questions than I am able to answer as I contemplate the role of death within developing urban societies.

2015 | 8:00
[solo violoncello]
Co-commissioned by the Galveston Artist Residency and the Da Camera Young Artist Program.

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Program Notes
On Plants and Consciousness is both a concert work and a sound installation created for the Galveston Artist Residency's Spring 2015 show Plant People. It was inspired by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird's 1973 bestseller The Secret Life of Plants. The solo cello in this piece is used to create a musical description of plant-human interactions. The work imaginatively recounts several experiments conducted by humans in the effort to understand plant consciousness, including subjecting plants to light, physical touch, fire and even an investigation by the English naturalist Charles Darwin in which he played his bassoon for a sensitive mimosa plant. Both performer and listener enter into the "mind" of a plant as they experience its truly otherworldly reactions.

2015 (rev. 2018) | 7:00
[soprano, piano]Commissioned by Houston Grand Opera/HGOco for the Veterans Songbook Project.

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Program Notes
Kriegslieder was commissioned in 2015 by Houston Grand Opera for the third installment of the Veterans Songbook project. This unique initiative invites military veterans of all ages, genders, and branches of service to share their stories. I was asked to compose songs based on these accounts in order to draw attention to the significant—although oftentimes silent—struggles that many veterans face after completing their service. I had the privilege of interacting with the authors of these texts throughout their six-week writing workshop and was struck and humbled by the raw candor of the work that they produced.

2015 | 9:00
[trumpet, vibraphone]
Commissioned by the Da Camera Young Artist Program.

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2014 | 11:00
[2 violins, viola, violoncello]
First Place (2015), Sarofim Composition Award, AURA Contemporary Ensemble; Honorable Mention (2014), Robert Avalon International Composers Competition; Honorable Mention (2014), The “Other” Competition, University of Miami Frost School of Music.

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