Jordan Alexander Key
Dr. Jordan Alexander Key (b. 1990) is a composer and founder of the Aegis Institute of Florida, a private, tuition-free, non-profit secondary school for academically minded, curious young adults. Having educational backgrounds and degrees in Music, Mathematics, Eastern Asian Philosophy, and Religious Studies, with performance experience as a pipe organist, vocalist, saxophonist, and bagpiper, playing in orchestras, jazz bands, folk ensembles, choirs, and as a soloist, Jordan’s music is highly eclectic and programmatically multifarious. Jordan’s research in early music, video game music, sacred music, contemporary concert and chamber music, Scottish folk music, and the history of Western rhythmic notation infuse his music with not only compelling tunefulness, but also intricate counterpoint, kaleidoscopic harmony, and inventive rhythmic impulse. His music is described as “uncompromisingly demanding but satisfyingly compelling” (composer Daniel Asia) and “wholesomely electric and forward-thinking” (composer Paul Richards) as well as “fearlessly vulnerable in its approach to social issues” (Calliope’s Call).
Key’s commission credits include works written for JACK Quartet, Icarus Quartet, Unheard-of//Ensemble, Loadbang ensemble, Odin Quartet, Calliope’s Call, Fonema Consort, Bold City Contemporary Ensemble, saxophonist Laurent Estoppey, organist Pamela Decker, violinist Irvine Arditti, and many others. Along with individual ensembles, Key has been commissioned by the National Science Foundation, the Harn Museum of Art, Wolfsburg Kunstmuseum, the Florida Players Theater Company, The BRIT School, and the Vancouver Queer Arts Festival. His music has been performed at venues including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Vancouver’s Orpheum Theatre, and the Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.
Active as a musicologist, Key’s research focuses primarily on music of the 14th, 15th, and 20th centuries with particular interest in rhythmic theory and evolution, his research in which is thoroughly outlined in his recent dissertation, “Pan-Rational & Irrational Rhythm, The History, Development, and Modern Implementation of Nondyadic Rational Rhythms in Western Music,” wherein he designs a modification to our present system of time signature and rhythmic notation that emancipates the composer from many limitations in our current system of rhythmic prescription.
Outside of his musical and artistic career, Jordan publicly speaks around the Southeastern United States at Universities and High Schools about handicapped and queer advocacy in education and the arts. His and his husband’s school, The Aegis Institute, aims to bring better, more affordable, cross-disciplinary, research-oriented, socially minded education to all socio-economic classes in Florida and the United States generally during a time of diminishing standards and vision in secondary education.
Phone: (540) 588-2409
Key’s commission credits include works written for JACK Quartet, Icarus Quartet, Unheard-of//Ensemble, Loadbang ensemble, Odin Quartet, Calliope’s Call, Fonema Consort, Bold City Contemporary Ensemble, saxophonist Laurent Estoppey, organist Pamela Decker, violinist Irvine Arditti, and many others. Along with individual ensembles, Key has been commissioned by the National Science Foundation, the Harn Museum of Art, Wolfsburg Kunstmuseum, the Florida Players Theater Company, The BRIT School, and the Vancouver Queer Arts Festival. His music has been performed at venues including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Vancouver’s Orpheum Theatre, and the Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.
Active as a musicologist, Key’s research focuses primarily on music of the 14th, 15th, and 20th centuries with particular interest in rhythmic theory and evolution, his research in which is thoroughly outlined in his recent dissertation, “Pan-Rational & Irrational Rhythm, The History, Development, and Modern Implementation of Nondyadic Rational Rhythms in Western Music,” wherein he designs a modification to our present system of time signature and rhythmic notation that emancipates the composer from many limitations in our current system of rhythmic prescription.
Outside of his musical and artistic career, Jordan publicly speaks around the Southeastern United States at Universities and High Schools about handicapped and queer advocacy in education and the arts. His and his husband’s school, The Aegis Institute, aims to bring better, more affordable, cross-disciplinary, research-oriented, socially minded education to all socio-economic classes in Florida and the United States generally during a time of diminishing standards and vision in secondary education.
Phone: (540) 588-2409
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Papers by Jordan Alexander Key
Three times in the history of Western Music - at the end of the 14th century, the end of the 16th century, and the beginning of the 20th century – has there been a flowering in the development of non-dyadic rational rhythmic hierarchies. Only in the last of these occurrences has this development persisted continuously to the present; each time before, rhythmic complexity collapsed into a system dominated by dyadic- and/or triadic-rational rhythmic hierarchies. By the 17th century, even triadic-rational rhythmic hierarchies had totally disappeared from musical discourse to be supplanted by our modern system of dyadic-rational time signatures. Even into the 21st century, dyadic-rational time signatures remain predominant, despite work by composers like Henry Cowell and Conlon Nancarrow, which suggested the possibility of a rhythmic paradigm shift during the early- and mid-20th century.
Despite the persistent hold of dyadic-rational time signatures, developments in prescriptive rhythmic complexity during the 20th century have continued to the present, persisting over multiple generations of composers and forming distinct schools of musical discourse popular in contemporary classical music today. Among these composers are not only Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, and Conlon Nancarrow, but also Thomas Ades, Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Gordon, Karen Khachaturian, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and Jonathan Dawe among others. Within their oeuvre, each of these composers have encountered the need for a broader exploration, development, and notation of rhythmic structure beyond our current dyadic-rational system, allowing in their music pan-rational time signatures, irrational time-signatures, and/or dense and/or indivisible rhythmic hierarchies – all of these levels of rhythmic prescription either not seen since the 16th century or altogether never before seen in Western music.
Given the present state of our system of music notation and rhythmic prescription within it, what are we doing and what can we do now in the 21st century with the rhythmic tools developed in the past one hundred years? By thoroughly understanding the history of prescriptive rhythmic experimentation in Western Music, we can possibly better understand why certain systems of rhythmic notation have persisted while others have been forgotten; through such better understanding of the history of rhythmic notation we might fashion a notational system today that overcomes our present limitations in rhythmic prescription better than previous failed models. To this end, I will trace the historical development of systems of rhythmic hierarchy from Medieval to Modern music, focusing on music with exceptional prescriptive, precise, mathematically defined rhythmic structures, excluding aleatoric and spatially based rhythmic notation. In doing this, we will gain a historical contextualization of the rise of pan-rational systems of rhythmic notation. Following this, we will survey a variety of modern compositional methods that expand standard prescriptive rhythmic notation, beginning with Charles Ives and Henry Cowell and ending with living composers like Thomas Ades and Michael Gordon. Last, this dissertation will address my own compositional work in the context of pan-rational systems of rhythmic hierarchies and propose a new addition to the lexicon of rhythmic notation that will emancipate the composer from traditional dyadically-rational rhythmic notation.
These two artists stand as paragons for a pan-European cultural rejection to the revolution of Humanism during the Renaissance. Since the seminal 19th century survey of Renaissance music by musicologist August Wilhelm Ambros, Agricola’s work has been mostly relegated to the historical periphery as an anomaly, since it did not clearly conform to Humanist expectations of of the era. However, Ambros’s critique of Agricola’s music stands against all documented evidence from Agricola’s life, which attests to this composer’s fame and prominence, surpassed only by Josquin DesPrez according to the contemporary music theorists and composer Johannes Tinctoris. Upon closer inspection across artistic disciplines and national boundaries, Agricola’s and Bosch’s atypical aesthetic reveals itself as a cultural zeitgeist paralleling, if not countering, the revolutions of Humanism, intentionally exploring the incommensurate, arcane, surly, grotesque, and gothic side of European culture at the dawn of the early modern age.
Critical Editions by Jordan Alexander Key
Polyphonic Lieder upon Circles, "Was ist die Welt?" & "Möchte ich Gunst" (augenmusik by Wolfgang Küffer, c. 1557, music attr. to Ludwig Senfl, ca. 1486 - 1543, but possibly by Georg Forster or Wolfgang Küffer). Text by Georg Forster (1510 – 1568)
Work attributed to Ludwig Senfl, c. 1486 - c. 1543 in Evangelische Kirchengemeinde, Varnhagen Bibliothek, Iserlohn, Germany [D-ISL], Fragments from binding of incunabulum IV 36 F124 ["Ludo: Sen:"]
Augenmusik Source: Bischöfliche Zentralbibliothek, Regensburg, Germany (D-Rp) A. R. 940-941 (part books), Anonymous, "Was ist die Welt" (circle score), no. 186, transcribed into a circle c. 1557 by Wolfgang Küffer.
This is a pedagogical edition of Baude Cordier's' famous piece of augenmusik, "Belle, Bonne, Sage" from the 14th century. Find herein complete explanations of all parts of the piece (pictorial, poetical, musical, formal, etc.). Complete translations of all texts are provided along with an explanation of translations methodology and problems. Complete high-resolution graphics of the two sources are included.
Organum duplum on the Easter Sequence, Victime paschali laudes," realized following the Saint Martial rhythmic hypothesis of Theodore Karp.
This is a pedagogical edition of Senleches' famous piece of augenmusik, "La Harpe de Mellodie" from the 14th century. Find herein complete explanations of all parts of the piece (pictorial, poetical, musical, formal, etc.). Complete translations of all texts are provided along with an explanation of translations methodology and problems. Complete high-resolution graphics of the two sources are included with two different possible realizations of the riddle canon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO56v7qltNo
An edition of the anonymous labyrinthine ballade on three canons, "En la maison Dedalus" (In the House of Dedalus) from the Berkeley Manuscript.
This edition includes a modern transcription of the music, the original manuscript excerpted, poetic and literal translations of the text, reconstruction of the 11-tier labyrinth upon which the music is overlain, and pedagogical materials/explanations of the musical and poetic medieval Ballade forme-fixe.
Also included is a full explanation of the various mensurations and colorations that appear in the piece.
The design of the scores attempts to illustrate the rondeau form overlaying the canonic conceit.
For a score animation with the transcription and original manuscript, see this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaeOWdXM4Pg
For a video with recording accompanying the modern transcription with side-by-side animated original notated music see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9wl1XqV6Nk
Three times in the history of Western Music - at the end of the 14th century, the end of the 16th century, and the beginning of the 20th century – has there been a flowering in the development of non-dyadic rational rhythmic hierarchies. Only in the last of these occurrences has this development persisted continuously to the present; each time before, rhythmic complexity collapsed into a system dominated by dyadic- and/or triadic-rational rhythmic hierarchies. By the 17th century, even triadic-rational rhythmic hierarchies had totally disappeared from musical discourse to be supplanted by our modern system of dyadic-rational time signatures. Even into the 21st century, dyadic-rational time signatures remain predominant, despite work by composers like Henry Cowell and Conlon Nancarrow, which suggested the possibility of a rhythmic paradigm shift during the early- and mid-20th century.
Despite the persistent hold of dyadic-rational time signatures, developments in prescriptive rhythmic complexity during the 20th century have continued to the present, persisting over multiple generations of composers and forming distinct schools of musical discourse popular in contemporary classical music today. Among these composers are not only Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, and Conlon Nancarrow, but also Thomas Ades, Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Gordon, Karen Khachaturian, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and Jonathan Dawe among others. Within their oeuvre, each of these composers have encountered the need for a broader exploration, development, and notation of rhythmic structure beyond our current dyadic-rational system, allowing in their music pan-rational time signatures, irrational time-signatures, and/or dense and/or indivisible rhythmic hierarchies – all of these levels of rhythmic prescription either not seen since the 16th century or altogether never before seen in Western music.
Given the present state of our system of music notation and rhythmic prescription within it, what are we doing and what can we do now in the 21st century with the rhythmic tools developed in the past one hundred years? By thoroughly understanding the history of prescriptive rhythmic experimentation in Western Music, we can possibly better understand why certain systems of rhythmic notation have persisted while others have been forgotten; through such better understanding of the history of rhythmic notation we might fashion a notational system today that overcomes our present limitations in rhythmic prescription better than previous failed models. To this end, I will trace the historical development of systems of rhythmic hierarchy from Medieval to Modern music, focusing on music with exceptional prescriptive, precise, mathematically defined rhythmic structures, excluding aleatoric and spatially based rhythmic notation. In doing this, we will gain a historical contextualization of the rise of pan-rational systems of rhythmic notation. Following this, we will survey a variety of modern compositional methods that expand standard prescriptive rhythmic notation, beginning with Charles Ives and Henry Cowell and ending with living composers like Thomas Ades and Michael Gordon. Last, this dissertation will address my own compositional work in the context of pan-rational systems of rhythmic hierarchies and propose a new addition to the lexicon of rhythmic notation that will emancipate the composer from traditional dyadically-rational rhythmic notation.
These two artists stand as paragons for a pan-European cultural rejection to the revolution of Humanism during the Renaissance. Since the seminal 19th century survey of Renaissance music by musicologist August Wilhelm Ambros, Agricola’s work has been mostly relegated to the historical periphery as an anomaly, since it did not clearly conform to Humanist expectations of of the era. However, Ambros’s critique of Agricola’s music stands against all documented evidence from Agricola’s life, which attests to this composer’s fame and prominence, surpassed only by Josquin DesPrez according to the contemporary music theorists and composer Johannes Tinctoris. Upon closer inspection across artistic disciplines and national boundaries, Agricola’s and Bosch’s atypical aesthetic reveals itself as a cultural zeitgeist paralleling, if not countering, the revolutions of Humanism, intentionally exploring the incommensurate, arcane, surly, grotesque, and gothic side of European culture at the dawn of the early modern age.
Polyphonic Lieder upon Circles, "Was ist die Welt?" & "Möchte ich Gunst" (augenmusik by Wolfgang Küffer, c. 1557, music attr. to Ludwig Senfl, ca. 1486 - 1543, but possibly by Georg Forster or Wolfgang Küffer). Text by Georg Forster (1510 – 1568)
Work attributed to Ludwig Senfl, c. 1486 - c. 1543 in Evangelische Kirchengemeinde, Varnhagen Bibliothek, Iserlohn, Germany [D-ISL], Fragments from binding of incunabulum IV 36 F124 ["Ludo: Sen:"]
Augenmusik Source: Bischöfliche Zentralbibliothek, Regensburg, Germany (D-Rp) A. R. 940-941 (part books), Anonymous, "Was ist die Welt" (circle score), no. 186, transcribed into a circle c. 1557 by Wolfgang Küffer.
This is a pedagogical edition of Baude Cordier's' famous piece of augenmusik, "Belle, Bonne, Sage" from the 14th century. Find herein complete explanations of all parts of the piece (pictorial, poetical, musical, formal, etc.). Complete translations of all texts are provided along with an explanation of translations methodology and problems. Complete high-resolution graphics of the two sources are included.
Organum duplum on the Easter Sequence, Victime paschali laudes," realized following the Saint Martial rhythmic hypothesis of Theodore Karp.
This is a pedagogical edition of Senleches' famous piece of augenmusik, "La Harpe de Mellodie" from the 14th century. Find herein complete explanations of all parts of the piece (pictorial, poetical, musical, formal, etc.). Complete translations of all texts are provided along with an explanation of translations methodology and problems. Complete high-resolution graphics of the two sources are included with two different possible realizations of the riddle canon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO56v7qltNo
An edition of the anonymous labyrinthine ballade on three canons, "En la maison Dedalus" (In the House of Dedalus) from the Berkeley Manuscript.
This edition includes a modern transcription of the music, the original manuscript excerpted, poetic and literal translations of the text, reconstruction of the 11-tier labyrinth upon which the music is overlain, and pedagogical materials/explanations of the musical and poetic medieval Ballade forme-fixe.
Also included is a full explanation of the various mensurations and colorations that appear in the piece.
The design of the scores attempts to illustrate the rondeau form overlaying the canonic conceit.
For a score animation with the transcription and original manuscript, see this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaeOWdXM4Pg
For a video with recording accompanying the modern transcription with side-by-side animated original notated music see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9wl1XqV6Nk
The Faenza Codex, is one of the largest collection of late Medieval pieces for keyboard instruments. It was copied sometime during the early 15th century in northern Italy, but the pieces contained within are stylistically inline with music from the mid to late Italian Trecento (14th century). The codex contains 22 pieces, along with several musical treatises. The piece you will hear here, "Kyrie Cunctipotens Genitor Deus," is just a section of a larger collection of polyphonic duets, which set the entire Mass Ordinary.
In traditional chant practice, the Kyrie chant is broken into three distinct sections – Kyrie I, Christe, and Kyrie II – each of which contains three iterations of its component chant. This piece from the Feanza Codex only contains polyphonic settings for two of the three first Kyrie’s, one of the Christe’s, and two of the second Kyrie’s. Thus to complete the tripartite structure of each section, I inserted between each polyphonic section a simpler statement of the chant tune in various original styles akin to the 14th century. The original polyphonic settings from the codex are built by temporally elongating the chant and combining it with an upper florid voice. This compositional idiom represents the contemporary popular musical form called “florid organum” over a “cantus firmus”. The “cantus firmus” is the “foundational song” upon which the invented music is built. Here, the Kyrie chant is prolonged, and built upon it is a freely invented, melismatic counterpoint, utilizing regular motivic variation.
While this piece would typically be performed without any registration variation, I have chosen to go against “correct” medieval performance practice. Rather, I use a variety of instrumental colors to orchestrate the florid upper voice against the stable lower voice. Using four different instrumental colors within each section – Kyrie, Christe, Kyrie - Jordan has changed what would typically sound like a duet of similar instruments into a responsorial quartet of contrasting instruments.
Anonymous (c. mid. 14th century): Kyrie "Cunctipotens Genitor Deus" (II) from the Faenza Codex.
Source: "The Codex Faenza," Faenza, Biblioteca Comunale 117 [I-FZc 117], ff. 88r-90r.
For a recording with a score animation see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBu66rLAv7I
For a audio-visual animation with recording see the link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCe7WGoJVLI
Johannes Mittner: Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarae, Sanctus
Sanctus a4,
Pleni sunt coeli a2,
Osanna I a5 mensuration canon,
Benedictus a4
Osanna II a3
For a recording and score-video see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p9WQlyVPrA
For a recording and score-video of the piece see the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrTtLNfq0x0
For a recording and score video, see the link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrTtLNfq0x0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycYi7NDG92k
Jordan Alexander Key (b. 1990): Fractal Music No. 3, "Convolutions and Revolutions" for Flute, Bass Clarinet, and Piano. Premier performance: Apply Triangle.
Fractal Music No 3 uses techniques in algorithmic and fractal-based music composition, which I have developed over the past six years. The fractal-based processes used to generate much of the rhythmic and pitch material in the piece are created in conjunction with a simple machine learning neural network. When I first began developing some basic algorithmic and iterative processes to generate related but rapidly developing and diverging musical material from rudimentary pitch and rhythmic cells, I found the process very long; these algorithms could generate vast arrays of potential musical variations and derivations, but most of these possibilities generated by the computer I would find uncompelling. I had to sort through a lot of data and modify many satisfactory results into something I found more compelling.
Upon the suggestion of my husband, I began to use a simple neural network to teach the machine the results I liked best and, consequently, teach the computer to find solutions that I would like based on the “training set” of successful matches. Rather than try and prescribe limitless parameters of what pleases me in music, I let my computer attempt to learn through sorting many results into best, good, satisfactory, bad, and poor categories, even using extant pieces of music I had previously written. Consequently, the computer would produce mostly results that would theoretically compel me and sound like me. As such, I am teaching my computer to not write music blindly based only on an iterative process, but to sort through those iterations and produce those which I will potentially think are the best. As the artist, I have the liberty to use or not use these generated fragments, reorder them (or not reorder them) in whatever way I find compelling, and orchestrate them as suits the goals of the music and the ensemble for which I am writing. Thus, the computer is not “writing the piece for me” but generating material based on a process that I have defined from my own musical kernels; what I do with this material is up to me.
This process, I have found, creates a highly cohesive musical work, since nearly all the music ideas are derivative from one initial germ. Fractal Music No 3 attempts to add a level of unpredictability and multifariousness to this process. I asked myself, “what if rather than starting with one germ and applying a process to it, I start with multiple germs and define a process where these germs are superimposed, intertwined, and filtered through each other?" Thus, I used the notion of mathematical convolution to attempt this. The process of convolving one function onto another, in some rudimentary sense, involves the mapping of one function onto the other by multiplying the mapped function by the value of mapping function at every point on the specified domain of the mapping function and then collating or combining these mapped functions via additive operations (this is only a basic explanation). The process of convolution is already used in sound engineering for many things, but most commonly one does a convolution process if they are artificially adding reverb to an audio recording (this is done by mapping the audio recording to an impulse response of a room).
Thus, my kernels of music became "mapped" and "mapping" functions. Just like one can apply reverb to one’s liking, I fashioned a convolution process such that I could adjust the degree of convolution of one kernel onto another, choosing how much of the mapped or mapping function (musical idea) I wanted to dominate the texture. Thus, sometimes only a tiny bit of one kernel will emerge within another while at other times their mixing will be equal or somewhere between.
The process of “revolution” merely refers to where within a kernel I begin the convolution. While generally, one will convolve one function entirely onto another (apply reverb to an entire audio file), one can begin or stop convolution at any point they desire (specify the domain). Thus, I can control both the degree of convolution (how much one kernel is filtered through another) and wherein each kernel this process begins and ends.
Thus, rather than have a continually growing and developing single idea that transforms under one process, this work has three ideas which variably are controlling the development of each other through various convolutions. The narrative arch of the work displays more and more equal mixing of the kernels as the piece progresses.
This is a simple fugue in an odd time signature upon the notes G, A, B, E. The motorism of the work was inspired by a fugue by Johann Heinrich Buttstedt, a lesser-known but exceptional Baroque composer of keyboard music.
ABOUT THE MUSIC:
This work, Rosalind Unravels the Bundle of Life, was written for organist Anne Laver and was originally intended for performance on the Italian Baroque Organ at the Memorial Art Gallery at the Eastman School of Music (further information about the organ given below), though this piece can be played on any organ. The form of the work is intimately tied to both the program of Rosalind’s contributions to the discovery of DNA’s helical structure and to the tuning of the pipe organ itself. The title of the work is referential to the epitaph on Rosalind Franklin’s tombstone.
The form of the work generally is taken from the rather obscure 15th and 16th century form of a “modal spiral,” wherein through a progressive application of musica ficta one modulates either one semitone up or down by the conclusion of the piece. This odd modal modulation is necessitated by an initial, carefully placed contrapuntal moment, wherein if one chooses to apply some seemingly logical or necessary ficta to one note often to avoid a tritone harmony) another ficta is required on some nearby subsequent note, which itself will necessitate another ficta on some subsequent note. This domino effect of ficta continues until the end of the work, by which time all flats are either flattened or sharpened. Pieces of this style tend to follow progression of flats and modulate from some modal center of C or G to some center on C-flat (B) or G-flat (F-sharp). The pieces are rarely (perhaps only one know example) notated with the ficta given; these conceits are often obscured and only suggested by the text (title or lyrics), shape of the music given (as in the circular work Salve Radix), and/or by some canonic key. This conceit gives the work a modal “spiral” progression, spiraling around the circle of 4ths, and hence the name “modal spiral.”
We, however, are not dealing with spirals in this work, but helices. Thus, this work has two contrasting spirals, one moving forward through the piece and one moving backwards. Though we will not hear the piece played backwards, the modal scaffolding of the work presents two intertwining modal layers. At times, one layer will be more present than the other, but occasionally both appear together in equal proportion, creating moments of high pitch density and dissonance. Consequently, the harmonic scheme of the work follows two intertwined and chirally opposed modal spirals, namely a “modal helix.”
In addition to these two contrasting modal spirals, this work also presents two intertwined and contrasting rhythmic layers, which emerge both through cross-related, indivisible accent patterns and through the alternation between two tempos, which are related through a dectadic rhythmic hierarchy.
This helical, modulatory form was selected due to the tuning of the pipe organ, which is not in equal temperament. Thus, “key signatures” distal from C-major will sound very “out of tune.” Consequently, the work slowly progresses us from something that will sound highly “in tune” to something that sounds highly “out of tune:” G-major/mixolydian to F-sharp (G-flat) major/mixolydian. In my mind, this progression from a harmonic space familiar to us (“in tune”) to a space that is perhaps wholly alien sounding (“out of tune”), stands as a musical counterpart to X-ray crystallography.
In X-ray crystallography, one takes images that are simple geometric projections of more complex structures; these simple images, taken from various angles and giving various projections, must then be collectively interpreted to understand the 3-dimensional structure of an object that is not directly or easily observable. For example, the famous Photo-51 is not a helical image but an X-shape. It takes much experience as an X-ray crystallographer and understanding of the chemical structure of crystals to know that such a shape is indicative of a helix.
Thus, when we see or when Rosalind saw Photo-51, we are only seeing a projection, something that only points to the complete reality of something but does not and cannot give us a complete representation of it. To get a better understanding of the real object itself, we must take many projections (or have foreknowledge of many projections) and consider them collectively.
Similarly, a tuning system is like a complex crystalline structure, and a key (or mode) is only a particular projection of that pitch space, which itself is only one possible pitch space (or crystalline structure) possible in the universe of pitch. Thus, we can take a projection of our pitch space, let’s say G-major; given the pitch space we are imaging, G-major is clear and seemingly understandable, but taken from another vantage point, let’s say F-sharp major, the image is very different and seemingly unrelated, though both are projections of the same pitch object. To understand all this pitch space, we need to take and compare each projection, each key/mode progressively, juxtapositionally, and collectively. Ultimately, our pitch space resides behind these projections, and the universe of all possible pitch spaces is behind this singular crystalline pitch structure, which itself is merely a one configuration or metaphorical projection of all possible pitch spaces.
Photo-51 is only one projection of a vastly dense and complex 3-dimensional structure. Similarly, when we listen to the harmonic transformation of this organ from “in tune” to “out of tune,” we are observing singular projections, sometimes in succession and sometimes in juxtaposition, of a vastly more complex structure, which itself is not as easily observable. As Rosalind unraveled the mystery of life through the lens of X-ray projections of a crystal, we similarly unravel the life of an instrument through the various projections of its inner, metaphorical DNA that determines all its pitch capabilities: melody, harmony, counterpoint, mode, ambitus, and timbre. We cannot necessarily see the mechanisms (physical or mathematical) that give it such a “crystalline” structure, but we can indirectly observe the crystal through the projections of various tonalities and modalities.
ABOUT ROSALIND FRANKLIN:
Rosalind Franklin (1920 – 1958) was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer, whose pioneering work was pivotal to our present understanding of the molecular structure of DNA, as well as RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite. Rosalind is best known now for her work on the X-ray diffraction imaging of DNA crystals during her time at Kind’s College in London. Her X-ray diffraction pattern, Photo-51, was the image that ultimately led to the deduction that DNA has a double helix structure.
Rosalind’s significant contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA were largely unrecognized during her life, her work and data having been taken, used, and uncredited by the commonly recognized scientists James Watson (b. 1928) and Francis Crick (1916 – 2004), who were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962, along with Maurice Wilkins, “for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material.”
Rosalind’s contributions in deciphering the structure of DNA also went unrecognized by the Nobel Prize committee. Franklin was dead by the 1962 Nobel Prize award. The current rules prohibiting posthumous nominations or splitting the Prizes more than three ways were not extant until 1974, thus allowing the Prize committees to nominate Rosalind anytime between 1962 and 1974. However, the seminal papers of Watson and Crick did not properly cite Rosalind’s work and so few people knew of her contributions until much later.
Beginning in 1975, Rosalind Franklin’s contributions have been publicized and vindicated. Watson and Crick, despite their highly questionable research and citation practices and perhaps conscious exploitations of a disempowered female colleague, still hold the recognition of the Nobel Prize and title “discovers of DNA.”
Rosalind Franklin died in 1958 at the age of 37 from ovarian cancer contracted from working intimately with radioactive materials during her work in X-ray crystallography. Both Watson and Crick have lived long and productive lives, Francis Crick lived to 88 and James Watson is still alive at the age of 93. Likely, their longevity owes to not having had to work with highly radioactive X-ray technology during the mid 20th-century to make their “discovery.”
The inscription on her tombstone reads:
IN MEMORY OF
ROSALIND ELSIE FRANKLIN
DEARLY LOVED ELDER DAUGHTER OF
ELLIS AND MURIEL FRANKLIN
25TH JULY 1920 – 16TH APRIL 1958
SCIENTIST
HER RESEARCH AND DISCOVERIES ON
VIRUSES REMAIN OF LASTING BENEFIT
TO MANKIND
ת נ צ ב ה
The final characters on the tombstone are the Hebrew initials for “her soul shall be bound in the bundle of life.”
A work for thee unaccompanied voices - male or female - that are low, medium, and high. Work premiered by Quince Ensemble in March, 2022.
Text for the work was adapted by Jordan Alexander Key from the First Criminal Trial of Oscar Wilde (April 26 to May 1, 1895), from the April 29 testimony of Oscar Wilde, cross-examined by prosecution attorney Charles Gill.
To the memory of Oscar Wilde:
May we never forget the atrocities we have committed upon one another
in the name of false prophets, senseless religions, and twisted moralities, lest we return to the wickedness of our past. - Jordan Alexander Key
This is a work for organ based on the open motiv of the medieval chant "Tantum Ergo." The work is in four sections, which may be played as independent pieces or subsets for liturgical use or as the complete set. The first performance was given by organist Matt Gender.
A work for cello and piano, written for and premiered by the Formosa Duo in 2021.
Dr. Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell (b. 1943) is a British astrophysicist from Northern Ireland who, as a postgraduate student in 1967, discovered the first radio pulsars. The discovery was recognized by the award of the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics but, despite being the first person to discover the pulsars, she was not one of the recipients of the prize.
The paper announcing the discovery of pulsars had five authors. Bell's thesis supervisor Antony Hewish was listed first, Bell Burnell second. Hewish was awarded the Nobel Prize, along with the astronomer Martin Ryle. While many prominent astronomers criticized Burnell’s omission from the Nobel Prize, she played down this controversy, saying, "I believe it would demean Nobel Prizes if they were awarded to research students, except in very exceptional cases, and I do not believe this is one of them." The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in its press release announcing the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics, cited Ryle and Hewish for their pioneering work in radio-astrophysics, with particular mention of Ryle's work on aperture-synthesis technique, and Hewish's decisive role in the discovery of pulsars. Nothing was said of Burnell’s critical work and pivotal discovery, upon which her advisors’, Ryle’s and Hewish’s, research was unquestionably founded.
That Bell did not receive recognition in the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics has been a point of controversy ever since. She helped build the Interplanetary Scintillation Array over two years and initially noticed the anomaly, sometimes reviewing as much as 96 feet (29 m) of paper data per night. Bell later said that she had to be persistent in reporting the anomaly in the face of skepticism from Hewish, who was initially insistent that it was due to man-made radio interference.
Bell Burnell is currently Visiting Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Mansfield College. She was President of the Institute of Physics between 2008 and 2010. In February 2018 she was appointed Chancellor of the University of Dundee. In 2018, Bell Burnell was awarded the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, worth three million dollars (£2.3 million), for her discovery of radio pulsars. She donated all of the money "to fund women, under-represented ethnic minority, and refugee students [seeking] to become physics researchers.” These funds are to be administered by the Institute of Physics under the “Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund.”
With the theme of “teaching and learning” during 2021’s Fresh Inc Festival, I have designed this work to display some underexplored and newly developed rhythmic possibilities in music: namely, indivisible poly-mensuralism and “pan-rational” time signatures. This work also uses techniques in algorithmic and fractal-based music composition, which I have developed over the past five years to aid in my creative process. Thus, this work is both a learning experience for me as the composer, exploring some of the possibilities of poly-mensuralism and pantationalism, and a learning experience for the performer in parsing these rhythmic stratified and indivisible structures along with this modified system of time signature.
In addition to the learning process of the composer and performer, the fractal-based processes used to generate much of the rhythmic and pitch material in the first and second parts of the piece are created using a simple machine learning neural network. When I first begin developing some basic algorithmic and iterative processes to generate motivically related but rapidly developing and diverging musical material from rudimentary pitch and rhythmic cells, I found the process very long. These algorithms could generate vast arrays of potential musical variations and derivations, but most of these possibilities generated by the computer I would find uncompelling. I had to sort through a lot of data and modify many satisfactory results into something I found more compelling. Upon the suggestion of my husband, I began to use a simple machine learning neural network to teach the machine the results I liked best and, consequently, teach the computer to find solutions that I would like based on the “training set” of successful matches. Rather than try and prescribe limitless parameters of what pleases me in music, I let me computer attempt to learn through sorting many results into best, good, satisfactory, bad, and poor categories, even using extant pieces of music I had previously written. Consequently, the computer would produce only results that would theoretically compel me and sound like me. Of course, there are always potential false positives, but I hope with further use, this network might continue to prove extremely useful as I continue to compose using various generative processes.
As such, I am teaching my computer to not write music blindingly based only an iterative process, but to sort through those iterations and produce those which I will potentially think are the best. Thus, not only is this work a learning experience for me and the performer, but also the machine which aided in the process.
A sextet for Flute, Bass Clarinet, Vibraphone/Bongos, Piano, Violin, and Cello written for and premiered by Bold City Contemporary Ensemble in Obctober 2020.
A quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano written for and premiered by Unheard-of/Ensemble.
This is the Passion of Alan Turing, savior in the 20th century.
This is another work in an ongoing musical project, "The Sacred Atheist Catalog," which works to create a series of "Passions" and other works for significant figures in science, mathematics, and philosophy, who challenged the status quo of their day, often questioning the notion of god and/or institutionalized religion while also making a significant positive impact on their and our present world. This project recognizes the dearth of unabashedly atheistic music in the classical music tradition, and attempts to create a new repertoire empowering those who have, do, and wish to challenge the privilege of the religious, work against the marginalization of the actively "anti-religious" (not to be confused with "secular"), and promote a new future that seeks to relocate morality, virtue, and "messiah-hood" within the prerogative of humanity itself rather than some hypothetical, imagined, and likely ill-conceived divinity.
For specific details on each movement, follow the link to the SoundCloud page for the work and read the information section.
Jordan Alexander Key (b. 1990): Verses from the Scroll of Sondering: Six Verses after the Hand Scroll of Taihaku Ishiyama.
Written for Bold City Contemporary Ensemble (Spring 2020)
Commissioned by the Harn Museum of Art (Spring 2020) for the exhibition "Tempus Fugit: Time Flies"
First performance: Sarah Jane Young (flute), Boja Kragulj (clarinet), Philip Pan (violin), Galen Dean Peiskee (piano), Charlotte Mabrey (percussion)
The exhibition in which Ishiyama’s “Landscape” was displayed, Tempus Fugit :: 光陰矢の如し:: Time Flies, is a “reflection on time and its many meanings.” In so doing, the broader concept of time was applied to the Japanese art collections at the Harn Museum as an “investigative tool” to understand three key aspects of time in art: first, how time has been “measured in the visual record;” second, how art objects can embody several moments in time; and third, how artists experience time during the production of their work. Furthermore, the ritualization and celebration of the natural world, often oriented around cycles of life and seasons, and the acknowledgment of mortality are also recurring themes in Japanese art and so were consequently highlighted within this exhibition.
Along with the obvious theme of “tempus” within the exhibition, the idea of “fugit” (flying) also colored the content and structuring of the exhibition, inspiring the curator, Allysa B. Payton, to feature works that to some extent incorporated birds. Thus, the theme of birds emerges continually throughout this musical work, not only in the titles, but in the sounds within and structure of the music. Bird calls are imitated by various means and instruments throughout the verses. The imagery of birds is further musically suggested through the frequent implementation of canonic and fugal writing in the verses, two forms which themselves originally take their names (e.g. “fuga,” Italian for “flight”) and forms from phenomena like birds in flight or animals in chase.
Regardless of the “fugitive” avian motif that embellishes the exhibition and this work, in light of the theme of cycles of time and life, I was immediately drawn to the concept of “sonder” to motivate the purpose of my work generally. “Sonder” is a neologism coined in 2012 by John Koenig in his project The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, the goal of which is to invent new words for emotions that currently lack words to express them. Sonder, one of these new words, is derived from the German “sonder” (meaning “special”) and the French “sonder” (meaning “to probe”), and is “the profound feeling of realization that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one’s own, which they are constantly living despite one’s personal lack of awareness of it.” While “sonder” is not typically presented as a verb, I have presented it as such here, for I often find that it is important for one to engage with the emotion of sonder by actively “sondering.” Sondering is perhaps one of the most powerful instances of empathy one can have, for it is an active acknowledgement of the profound individuality and complexity of another, recognizing that their life is just as meaningful as your own, if not more so. You take a moment to ponder on the vast details of a life, briefly intersecting your own, and humble yourself by acknowledging that such details are beyond your comprehending in one lifetime because they themselves occupy such a space of time; however, they are not beyond your appreciation and contemplation.
When we sonder about someone (or something), we attempt to grasp the vastness of the details that make a person, but we can never know the complete story, moment by moment, in perfect resolution. Thus, at best, we do not access continuous piece through knowing someone, but fragments of their life; by studying a stranger we only see through the smallest window into their person. Even the person you love most in the world beyond yourself, is still a secret vortex of consciousness wrapped within the enigma of a mind not your own.
Our own memory is also fragmentary, and thus we cannot even clearly understand our own life and the course that took us to where we are today. The person one once was is not necessarily how one is now, in character or appearance; the path of life has many stories that mold us inexorably to ourselves, but the path to that present self is not always clear to others or even ourselves due to the constant imperfect metamorphosis and decay of memory. Ultimately, we apprehend not continuous narratives but rather verses of a life, small kernels of stories, details, events both joyous and tragic; they might seem disjointed, perhaps not clearly related but only through their seemingly arbitrary convergence in a person. However, such a person is proof to some narrative’s existence and the integrity of its path through this cosmos beside your own.
Thus, when I see the hand scroll of Ishiyama, I see the symbolism of “eternal” and transient cycles of time – the seasons, birth and death, the precession of the heavens – but I also see a more complex and unique story, only given through the scantest of details: the work of art. Ishiyama’s scroll is an encapsulation of a life up to the point of that work’s creation and conclusion. Furthermore, the work itself has found a life of its own beyond the preview of Ishiyama, finding its way to the Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, Florida to have a work of music written about it nearly a century after the scroll’s inception by a composer also born a century after and a world away from the artist. However, all I can see of such complex narratives is the scroll, in a singular moment, as I stand before it, atemporally enshrined in a prism of glass within the citadel humankind has created against time’s unremitting cycles of decay: the museum. Furthermore, my access to this passage into another’s life is further obscured by the museum’s capacity to only display a third of the scroll at a time, not to mention my meager ability to view only a few inches of the scroll in any moment.
In the face of such barriers to understanding and empathy, should we concede to seemingly intractable demands on our mental and physical capacities? Since I cannot hope to ever apprehend someone’s life and the feeling of fully having lived such a life, should I not attempt understanding since failure is certain? Should I refrain from venturing through a museum because I know that I will not only fail to appreciate all the objects and ideas contained within but also cannot expect to ever deeply understand every constituent aspect of each artifact and concept I encounter? Beyond base and belligerent self-centeredness, the greatest barrier to our expression of empathy is our fear of our own inadequacy in relocating the center of our universe to something other than our self. However, learning to refocus this center better, despite the assurance of ultimate failure in perfect refocusing, is paramount to the progress of the human project. Empathy, however imperfectly executed, is our best aegis against our own self-wrought destruction. Thus, the action of sondering is yet our most well-suited forge to craft such a shield as a bulwark against the uncertain and unforgiving flight of time and chaos of life.
Jordan Alexander Key (b. 1990): Chorale Prelude from the "Codex Organiordano" - Vom Himmel Hoch, "From Heaven above to Earth I Come" (Double Fugue on a Tonal Spiral)
The "Codex Organiordano" is a work in progress, containing contrapuntal works for organ, which demonstrate different contrapuntal conceits and concepts given known chorale tunes and the contrapuntal potential they possess. These pieces are pedagogical and vary in difficulty focusing the development of various skills for the undergraduate organist. Thus, this collection works both as a teaching aid for organists, composers, and those just generally interested in counterpoint. Vom Himmel Hoch is a double fugue on a tonal spiral (modulating through all the major keys). Both fugal subjects are derived from the first phrase of the chorale tune; much of the countersubject material is derived from various phrases of the choral tune. Many of the subsequent phrases of the choral appear in full during the fugue, suggesting that the double fugue could, in fact, be a triple or quadruple fugue. The piece is for the Advent and Christmas Season.
"Ceol Mor" is the first part to a larger work for solo viola. This work (both this part and the whole), takes its inspiration from traditional forms, sounds, and rhythms of Scottish bagpipe music, particularly from two primary genres: "Ceol mor" (a Gaelic word meaning "big music") and "Ceol baeg" (meaning "little music"). "Ceol Mor" (also know as "Piobaireachd," pronounced "pee-oh-brach") is a traditional form of Scottish bagpipe music from the Middle Ages, formed around very basic themes, often only a few notes, and continuous variations of that theme using a system of elaborate embellishments. While this movement uses no specific piobaireachd for its material, the repetitive structure with slight variations in motivic and rhythmic execution with a slow build in tempo do pay homage to the style. Being a bagpiper himself, Jordan Alexander Key often searches for new ways to use the bagpipe in music as well as new ways to envision or contextualize traditional genres of Scottish music in "classical" concert venues. His new works for bagpipe have received international recognition, publication, and performance; most recently his work, "Microtonal Piobaireachd on Prime Numbers" was the winner of the Piobaireachd Society's "Modern Pibroch Library” 2018 competition.
A piece of atheistic sacrosanctity for pipe organ on the "Passion" of Socrates. Taking the traditional idea of the "Passion" of Jesus of Nazareth, this work is part of a larger series of pieces about the "passions" (martyrdoms) of various figures in secular and atheistic thought throughout history, from Socrates to Giordano Bruno and Hypatia of Alexandria among others. The Passion of Socrates is a work-in-progress about the life and death of the great ancient martyr, whose life and death interestingly parallel that of Jesus and whose teachings (via Plato) have done much to influence our culture and world.
For a performance recording see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkKjw6vb1DU
The "Codex Organiordano" is a work in progress, containing contrapuntal works for organ, which demonstrate different contrapuntal conceits and concepts given known chorale tunes and the contrapuntal potential they possess. These pieces are pedagogical and vary in difficulty focusing the development of various skills for the undergraduate organist. Thus, this collection works both as a teaching aid for organists, composers, and those just generally interested in counterpoint.
Vom Himmel Hoch is a double ostinato (right hand vs. pedal) in a polyrhythmic relationship. Both ostinatos are derived from the first phrase of the chorale tune: the right hand is simply the chorale tune in equal 16ths on repeat while the pedal is based on the first descending minor-third of the same phrase of the chorale (the highest note of each group forms a descending minor-third).
This double ostinato between the left hand and feet is polyrhythmic. While the right hand plays repeating groups of 7 16th notes, the pedal plays repeating groups of 7 8th notes. The accents of these cells cycle every measure, but the pedal's accent contradicts the right hand's accent in the middle of the measure, shifting the accent of the second 16th note cell by one 16th note. The chorale tune (cantus firmus) these ostinatos accompany is played in the left hand in parallel tritones.
This rhythmic/melodic complex is repeated thrice, with the hands modulating down an octave each time while the pedal part modulates down a perfect fifth each time. This descent of all three parts is a theological metaphor for the descent from heaven of the Holy Trinity. The sound of the piece slowly transforms from something bright and declamatory to gruff and muddy by the end, symbolizing the transformation of God from the ethereal of Heaven to the corporeal of Earth. While tritones are often asociated with evil in classical music, I have here reappropriated them to symbolize the trinity, since a tritone is itself "three tones" (three whole steps, e.g. C-D-E-F#) bound together in one, as is the Holy Trinity "three-in-one."
The piece is for the Advent and Christmas Season.
For a performance recording see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7aIUV_2ZOE
The "Codex Organiordano" is a work in progress, containing contrapuntal works for organ, which demonstrate different contrapuntal conceits and concepts given known chorale tunes and the contrapuntal potential they possess. These pieces are pedagogical and vary in difficulty focusing the development of various skills for the undergraduate organist. Thus, this collection works both as a teaching aid for organists, composers, and those just generally interested in counterpoint.
Aberystwyth, "When in Dust to You" is a double canon. The first canon is between the outer voices (pedal and left hand); this canon is the hymn tune played against itself in retrograde (with a preamble and coda also built into the canon). The second canon is in the right hand and is the hymn tune played in normal canon at the octave; this canon begins after the preamble and the first phrase of the hymn-tune in the left hand. This movement is designed for a first-year, second semester student of organ and teaches phrasing and equality of parts. As a contrapuntal teaching piece, this work also demonstrates the use of cross-related ficta (lowered and raised leading tone) as well as the use of double-leading tone cadences in a modern context.
Premier: November 17th, 2019; Gainesville, Florida, Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSDnzEu9gPg&t
Commissioner: The Harn Museum of Art and the University of Floirda
Choreographers: Maria Garcia & Emma Wedemeyer
Music Composition: Jordan Alexander Key
Backdrop Art: Tomohiro Muda
Video Art: Jordan Alexander Key: (“Nachi no Taki, a Dialogue with Tradition”)
Jordan Alexander Key’s black MIDI composition is a response to Muda Tomohiro’s inkjet print mounted as a hanging scroll Mizu no Bo [M-08], 2012 on view in the gallery. Black MIDI is a compositional process using MIDI sound files to create a piece that contains an extremely large number of notes (in the millions to even trillions) that is so dense that if it was written in traditional music notation it would appear to be a mass of black ink.
Nachi no Taki (那智滝), On the Inkjet Scrolls of Tomohiro Muda attempts to sonify the artistic conversation between tradition and modernity present in the work of Tomohiro Muda. This work uses sounds that are fundamentally acoustic and “human" generated as well as sounds that are fundamentally digital and "computer" generated, juxtaposing the "real" and "unreal," the "possible" and "impossible," the "human" and the "super-human" to comment on our present position in the creation of art, a position that grapples regularly between "tradition" and the future.
A trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano written for and premiered by The Bold City Contemporary Ensemble of Jacksonville, Florida, this work attempts to make a mockery of and musically challenge/problematize the suggested violence and toxic nationalism inherent in the tradition of "marches." As we all revel in the glory and celebration of a march, we are often celebrating and endorsing the likely, if not inevitable, death of those marching. Furthermore, even if the march is not militarily oriented, it still rests in a violent tradition of propagandized warmongering.
This work begins with a "tongue-in-cheek," cheery march that slowly dissolves, reemerging as a slightly more sinister, militaristic march. This march also works itself out, decaying again, to reemerge as something only vaguely reminiscent to a march in tempo and strong, regulated beat structure. This third, chaotic march gradually transforms into abstract chaos, reminiscent of battle, the implicit ultimate result of any "march" activity. This progression represents the easy and often subtle path from innocent celebration and festivity to violence, war, and mass death.
Following this battle, a wasteland emerges, with only fragments of the marches persisting. Here, the implicit consequence of the tradition of march is symbolized in the final death of the music, the end to the pulsing that is both the dissolution of the march and the heartbeat of our metaphorical "hero," who marched to their death for our celebratory delight.
To hear the music see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrJzniXzo3U
Fractal Music No. 1, “Iterations” is the first in a series of pieces, exploring the use of iterative processes in music. This work does not abstractly suggest the idea of fractal, but actually used a fractal process to generate the music you’ll hear. Jordan has always had a strong interest in mathematics and the sciences, having studied mathematics in undergraduate with the original goal of becoming a physicist. Now in the world of music as a composer, Jordan regularly finds ways to embed his music with mathematical structure and process, whether obvious or obscure. This piece used three simple melodic ideas, to which are applied a single iterative process that generates the successive music. Though mathematical in its generation, Jordan still uses taste and caprice to compose his materials; while the notes, rhythms, and registers you hear are procedurally generated, the orchestration of the material among the instruments present is totally by human choice. Thus, this work is not subservient to a mathematical process, but uses one to progressively discover the potential of a given idea under particular parameters and then color those potential variations, expansions, contractions, etc. by artistic fancy.
A partial reading by the Tampa Bay Master Chorale is available to hear at this link: https://soundcloud.com/jordanalexanderkey/chants-for-the-church-of-naught-credo-in-deum-nulla-intro-only-partial-reading
If you are an atheist and know other atheists who like to sing, or if you are a generally open-minded choral director, a complete performance of this work is needed!
This work is intrinsically theatrical, evoking traditional images and musics of the Christian church and its ritualism, however re-contextualizing such devices through a lens that both problematizes religiosity and "sanctifies" non-religion and the pursuit of truth over faith.
Atheists are a minority class of people that include all races, genders, and sexualities; furthermore, atheists have been and are often presently unrepresented and silenced in America’s “Christian democracy.” Atheists are regularly persecuted in historically fundamentally zealous communities, as are common in the United States today. This work was spawned from a Florida atheist community’s recognized need for openly and bluntly atheist music, particularly in the classical and choral genres, which are overwhelmingly populated with works that are either spiritually nondescript or deeply religious. There is, as of yet, no substantial body of vocal or choral work within classical music that is openly atheist, speaking to a sacredness of truth and knowledge rather than imaginary beings and ancient doctrines. As an atheist composer closeted for most of my life as both gay and anti-religious due to the bigotry of my surrounding communities, I feel compelled to create and put forward works that encourage atheists to come out and speak up for what they believe (or don’t believe) in the face of a society that might fear the challenge to their traditional institutions of non-conformist oppression. Atheism embodies any person of any race, gender, sexuality, nationality, age, weight, etc. who’s thoughts and ways of life challenge and problematize entrenched institutions of religion and the social issues such institutions have historically and presently engendered.
A performance edition of Johann Pachelbel's Chorale Fugue and Fantasia on "Ein feste Burg," following the interpretation of Jordan Alexander Key.
A performance edition of Johann Pachelbel's Chorale Fugue and Fantasia on "Vom Himmel Hoch," following the interpretation of Jordan Alexander Key.
Johann Heinrich Buttstett (1666-1727) is an under-recognized composer of the late 17th and early 18th century. His works were influential on the oeuvre of Johann Sebastian Bach, who transcribed a number of Buttstett's works into his own notebooks. Buttstett's fugal design is somewhat unique and idiomatic, often using rhythmically motoric themes with numerous repeated notes and fugal forms that have two distinct expositions.
Here is a performance edition of his quirky fugue in g-minor. The performance edition is based on the registrations of and performance by Jordan Alexander Key.
A performance edition of Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow's (1663 - 1712) first second prelude, "Vom Himmel Hoch" for solo pipe organ. Embellishments and and articulations added by the editor for a more dramatic performance.
A performance edition of Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow's (1663 - 1712) first chorale prelude, "Vom Himmel Hoch" for solo pipe organ. Embellishments and and articulations added by the editor for a more dramatic performance.
A performance edition of German organist-composer Georg Bohm's (1661 - 1733) chorale fugal fantasia on "Christ lag in Todesbanden." This performance edition contains embellishments, suggested dynamic and register changes, as well as some minor emendations by the editor for a more dramatic performance experience.
A performance edition of Johann Pachelbel's Chorale Fugue and Fantasia on "Christ lag in Todesbanden," following the interpretation of Jordan Alexander Key
Johann Heinrich Buttstett (1666-1727) is an under-recognized composer of the late 17th and early 18th century. His works were influencial on the oeuvre of Johann Sebastian Bach, who transcribed a number of Buttstett's works into his own notebooks. Buttstett's fugal design is somewhat unique and idiomatic, often using rhythmically motoric themes with numerous repeated notes and fugal forms that have two distinct expositions.
Here is a performance edition of his quirky fugue in e-minor, transcribed in the Andreas Bach Book. The performance edition is based on the registrations of and performance by Jordan Alexander Key.
A performance edition of Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow's (1663 - 1712): Chorale Prelude, "Allein Gott in der Hoh sei Ehr" for solo pipe organ. This performance edition is based on the performance of Jordan Alexander Key.
A performance edition of Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow's (1663 - 1712): Chorale Prelude, "Nun komm der Heiden Heiland" for solo pipe organ. This performance edition is based on the performance of Jordan Alexander Key.
A performance edition of Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow's (1663 - 1712): Chorale Prelude, "Christ Lag in Todesbanden" for solo pipe organ. This performance edition is based on the performance of Jordan Alexander Key.
Please note that this is a draft, not a published paper in any fashion (hence, it's labeling as such). I am not an expert on Piobaireach, rather a scholar in medieval studies with more extensive experience in chant history. My interest and knowledge of Piobaireachd comes from my experience as a bagpiper, and these observations come from my knowledge of chant in conjunction with my familiarity of early Piobaireachd repertoire. If you are interested in more thorough discussion of Piobaireachd apart from Gregorian/Gallican/Scottish chant, please refer to the bibliography.
You can view the presentation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWjFYPwcxWY&t