Brass Quintet 
for two trumpets, horn, trombone, and tuba (2015, 11 min.)

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Brass Quintet explores the grotesque. Instead of utilizing the regal and majestic sonorities that brass is commonly associated with, this piece grapples with the distorted capabilities of the instruments. Structurally, Brass Quintet is loosely based on the myth of Icarus. The first movement, Cage of Birds Fly Away, explores the pain, frustration, and claustrophobia of imprisonment. The second movement, It Could End Reaching for the Sun, with its dramatic upward and downward swings, evokes sensations of flying and falling, which end in aleatoric destruction. The final movement, Cradle of Leaves, is a ballad coming to terms with the abjectness that has come before. There are moments of hope, but in the end, with the trumpet's final cry, there is only a sense of defeat. These ideas serve as a framework for the progression of entrapment, escape, and loss.