COMPOSITIONS
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contact
von@vonhansenmusic.com
Soloist
Breath 2023
Marimba and Fixed Media
Breath draws inspiration from the vocal legacies of Inuit and Tuvan cultures, wherein performers craft unprecedented textures and harmonics through the human voice. Tuvan throat singing intertwines with animism, utilizing harmonics, whistles, and guttural sounds to emulate spirits. Inuit throat singing, a female duo tradition, emerged as a pastime during male hunts, aiming to outlast each other in breath. Resonating rhythmic, harmonious panting evokes nature and daily life. This composition fuses samples of traditional performers with electronic and natural sounds, conjuring a soundscape with a warm, natural aesthetic that harmonizes with the marimba's profound timbre.
Anything Worthwhile is Perishable 2019
Vibraphone and fixed media
Anything Worthwhile is Perishable uses randomized echoes and manipulated repetitions to create a lush soundscape. Several notes on the vibraphone are “prepared” by placing various metallic objects on the keys. The buzzing this creates mimics the mbira, a traditional African instrument associated with the Shona people of Zimbabwe. This movement starts with an mbira solo and the scale used by the performer is based on the traditional Nyamaropa tuning of the mbira.
Gr@w£ix 2019
Vibraphone and fixed media
Gr@w£ix (Grawlix) uses loops in a similar way to DJs and other live performers. Material is played, recorded and played back while a something new is recorded on top of this loop. This process continues any number of times to stack material and create the effect of multiple players from just one person. The material of Gr@w£ix is inspired by electronic dance music fused with a contemporary percussion style. The term grawlix refers to a string of typographical symbols (such as %@$&*!) used in place of an obscenity, especially in comic strips.
Suite for Prepared Vibraphone 2010
Prepared Vibraphone
Suite for Prepared Vibraphone is a series of pieces composed for a vibraphone with various objects affixed to or placed between the bars. This composition was inspired by John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano (1946-1948). Similar to Cage’s work I strived to make a multi-moment work in which the feel of each movement is a drastically different. The idea of creating angular, articulate music, introspective resonant music and intensely aggressive music from the same set of preparations was an exciting challenge.
One for the Land 2015
Piano and fixed media
Emily Grabinski requested a love letter to Cleveland through the voice of the King of Cleveland Lebron James. Audio from Lebron James Mic'd up During Game 2 vs Hawks is sliced up into an athletic, hard-grooving duo for pianist and Lebron. Commissioned by Emily Grabinski
It’s Like the Nothing Never Was 2013
Any instrument and computer
This work is meant to encourage interaction between performer and computer by creating an electroacoustic soundscape without the use of prerecorded material. The performer is given guidelines and is encouraged to engage the randomized computer processing through improvisation.
Percussion Chamber Music
Mortal Coil 2023
14 Percussion and Piano
Mortal Coil was written five years after the death of my father Jim Hansen. He spent his last few days as he wished, at home with his family. I found the sounds of the breathing machines to be poignant and representative of the final breaths I would hear from my dad. I recorded the air compressors with the thought that someday I would use them in a piece written for him (this is the recording you hear at the beginning of the piece). In December 2022 I found myself ready to write this piece. The benefit of time allowed me a new perspective on these final days with my dad as well of the role of the compressors. As I relistened to these recordings I found myself with conflicting feelings of sadness and loss with a sense of thankfulness for the compressors and their ability to allow my father and our family to have our last moments.
Fresh Frozen Plasma 2024
10 percussion
Piles of grooves in uncommon meters have never felt so good. Drum and bass percussion mixed with crunchy keyboard chords and textures galore from the percussion section create an exiting and challenging groove based ensemble.
Trinket 2024
7-20+ Percussion
This is a great modular piece that can be played by groups of many different sized groups. There are 7 core parts and 13 optional parts and doubling of keyboard parts is encouraged. You can get your whole ensemble on stage playing at the same time. This is a beginner-intermediate level piece that presents an achievable challenge.
The Breaks 2017
5 Percussion and Fixed Track
Inspired by the IDM music of artists such as Squarepusher and Venetian Snares, The Breaks has relentless energy and gritty break beats played on prepared drums (frying pans, tambourines, cymbals, etc. placed on the drums) marimba and vibraphone. The live instruments are accompanied by an electronic track that would fit in at a stadium full of glow sticks and a DJ with a psychedelic raccoon head.
Ad Astra 2008
Mallet Sextet
The opening gains a great deal of its influence from Steve Reich’s Nagoya Marimbas in the sense that all of the instruments blend amorphously to form a single sound rather than emphasizing any one instrument. By using composite rhythms and changes in time signature the sense of a down beat is masked until specific points within the piece. The central section of this piece contains a greater exploration of texture. The melodic interest weaves its way through the ensemble while still keeping the sense of the musical “sets.” During this section the intensity is greatly increased leading up to the first unison passage of the piece. From this point there is a series of sections which move between six person amorphous texture and the weaving melodic material. This creates an increase in tension which builds to an unexpected end.
Lenses 2010
harp and 4 percussion
Based on a poem by Jim Carroll, antiphonal percussionists playing hand crank music boxes, buckets of water, prayer bowls and various other Lenses is scored for antiphonal percussion quartet and harp. The percussionists use crank music boxes with melodies written by the composer, Japanese prayer bowls (rin), large crystal glasses, various wind chimes, and buckets of water. The work is based on a poem of the same name by Jim Carroll.
Luminous Vortices 2018
4 percussion and Electronics
The original composition is written for an all glass instrumentation (glass marimbas, glass gongs, glass udu drums, glass prayer bowls and more) that RELA percussion created as a residency with the Toledo Museum of Art. This unique instrumentation is processed live creating a ever-evolving soundscape that swirls and engulfs the audience in rich textures.
Though the original instrumentation is for glass percussion this piece can be played on traditional percussion instruments.
Evolve 2007
five percussionists and piano
Evolve is a multi-movement work which is played without a break between movements. This composition was written in 2007 during the height of the Iraq war, when the aggressive nature of war and the struggle for power was more apparent than any other time in my life. The poetry which follows should guide the listener through this scene.
score
I. In the Beginning Her Tears Were the Long Awaited Rains
The beginning of the world, of life.
Primordial ooze bubbles and teems with activity.
The future is uncertain. All is at ease.
II. The Best of Man is Like Water
Man appears from the uncertainty. Life is harmony.
There is no hate, no war, only life and curiosity.
III. Some Say the World Will End in Fire
Man’s curiosity leads him to create. Fire is a necessity.
Harmony begins to deteriorate.
Life is a struggle to hold the fire.
IV. Immense Power Cannot be Terrorized
The struggle leads to more vicious creations.
War is the norm. Life is chaos.
The future is dismal.
V. Sunlight is a Lie
The ultimate form of destruction is created.
Bombs rain from the sky like tears.
The fire is extinguished.
Man’s future ends here.
VI. Whispers of Immortality
From destruction comes resurrection.
The future is uncertain. All is at ease.
$40
Large Ensemble
Guitar Breath 2016 (Middle school band and fixed track)
Unleash your students inner rock star with a piece that is just a whole pile of fun for young players.
Commissioned by Ross Elementary School and Eisenhower Middle School Combined Band
$60
Fixed Media
Welcome to the United States 2010 (electroacoustic soundscape)
A cynical look at America through a dirty magnifying glass.
November Site 2009 (electroacoustic soundscape)
A journey through Gordon Sherman’s Painting November Site.