Please note: Some samples are taken from recordings of live performances, playback levels may vary

Whitman Fragment (2024) 
For solo cello

Whitman Fragment was written for cellist Anssi Karttunen in memory of Oliver Knussen (1952-2018). The work is based on a fragment from the cello part of Knussen’s Whitman Settings (1991), combined with material from an earlier work in memory of Elliott Carter, Le Chai au Quai (2008). Whitman Fragment was first performed by Anssi Karttunen at Domaine Forget, Saint-Georges-de-Beauce, Quebec, 15 June 2024.

 
Birds and Insects, Book III (2023)

Birds and Insects (Book III) is an album of piano pieces composed for soloist Sarah Cahill's The Future is Female series and commissioned and premiered by the Barbican Centre, London.

Each piece features distinct characteristics to fit its title: employing a transcription of an animal's song from nature, recalling its physical movement in various ways, or developing ideas drawn from an animal’s cultural symbolism. The focus for this volume is on female birdsong.

Listen to excerpts of Movements 2 and 3 from Bridge Records: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 4. performed by Sarah Cahill:

Maya Deren Series

Part of a series of new scores to the mid-20th century avant garde films of Maya Deren, these works can be performed with or without film accompaniment. To view the films, and for more information about the performances and commissions of these works, please click here. 

Studies in Choreography (2019) 
For flute, viola, and harp

Ritual in Transfigured Time (2016)
For clarinet and string quartet

Meditation on Violence (2012) 
For mixed quintet

Birds and Insects, Book II (2018)

Birds and Insects (Book II) was composed for a number of soloists involved with the Urban Birds project, and culminates in a large work Bobolink commissioned by Marilyn Nonken for a premiere performance at New York University.

Each piece features distinct characteristics to fit its title: employing a transcription of an animal's song from nature, recalling its physical movement in various ways, or developing ideas drawn from an animal’s cultural symbolism.

Listen to excerpts of Movements 2 and 3 from Bridge Records: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 4. performed by Steven Beck:

Avian Mirrors (2013)
For violin and cello

I. Greeting
II. Reflection
III. Display

Avian Mirrors explores the title concept in three ways: Movement one, Greeting, is a dialog in which calls are answered in quick succession. The game of answering leads to seeming mistakes and resulting variations. Movement two, Reflection, takes simple melodic figures and presents them with their inversion - an aural approximation of an avian image reflected in water. Finally movement three, Display, has the two performers displaying their most flamboyant virtuosity in amiable competition.

Avian Mirrors was commissioned by and with the generous support of Elizabeth Jacobs for Anthony Marwood and Richard Lester and the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival.

Listen to excerpts from each movement performed by Anthony Marwood, violin and Fernando Arias, cello (US premiere, Yellow Barn Festival, Vermont):

Insects in Amber (2010)
For string quartet

Insects in Amber is part of a series of works exploring sounds and ideas from the natural world, especially Darwinian mechanisms of competition and organization. Other works in the series include the piano album Birds and Insects, Book I (2007), the ensemble piece Colmena (2008), and the chamber orchestral work Game of Attrition (2009).

Insects in Amber employs transcribed insect calls and dramatic dialogues between instruments of the quartet. These were inspired by scientific studies of insect behavior and interactions, specifically the competition between subsets of overtly aggressive and more peaceful but strategic males of the same species.

The work is in three titled movements:

1. Gryllus Integer
Based on the calls of the named species (also known as the Western Stutter-Trilling Cricket), the first violin and viola are imagined as cricket 'singers' who try to entice the other two instruments of the quartet to respond to their calls.

Surrounded Ground (2008)
For sextet

The title Surrounded Ground is from the ancient Chinese treatise by Sun Tzu, The Art of War. In this seminal book of military strategy, surrounded ground is described as "where the entrance is narrow, the exit circuitous, allowing the enemy to attack his few to our many." This and other excerpts from the text are used to determine the musical interactions of instruments throughout the three-movement sextet.

I. Preamble: The ensemble is divided into several opposing forces, often a disparate minority against a homogenous majority whose drive to prevail is overwhelming at first but later begins to disintegrate. The mass seems to lose its will to dominate for a time, but no resolution is offered as the threat of further conflict remains.

II. Feigned Retreat: The two violins are pitted against the remaining instruments, and their virtuosic interaction with the ensemble hints at the Sun Tzu quotation, “Do not follow a feigned retreat. Do not attack crack troops.”

III. Egress: The precision, aggression and great speed demanded from the ensemble in this movement was suggested by Sun Tzu’s advice that, “A surrounded army must be given a way out” and the commentary “Surround them on three sides, leaving one side open, to show them a way to life.” Different pairs of instruments struggle through a frenetic, syncopated texture, melodically asserting a way forward until finally, after a last statement from the first violin, the ensemble makes a sudden, surreptitious escape.

Surrounded Ground was commissioned by the Chroma Ensemble of London.

Listen to excerpts of Movements 2 and 3 from Bridge Records: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 1, performed by Charles Neidich, clarinet, Stephen Gosling, piano and the Daedalus Quartet:

Birds and Insects, Book I (2007)

Birds and Insects (Book I) is an album of piano pieces composed between 2003 and 2007. The earliest work of the set is a showpiece entitled Scarab, and four smaller works have followed.

Each piece features distinct characteristics to fit its title: spelling the name in pitches, employing a transcription of an animal's song from nature, recalling its physical movement in various ways, or developing ideas drawn from an animal’s cultural symbolism.

Scarab was commissioned by the German pianist Thorsten Kuhn who has performed it in Weimar, Hamburg, Vienna and New York. Cicada Sketch was written at the request of LCM examinations director Andrew McBirnie as a test piece and was premiered in Vienna in 2004. Cornish Bantam was written for Daniel Becker and received its premiere in Cardiff in 2005. Titmouse was commissioned by Clive Williamson for the 2005 Guildford International Festival and published in Cadenza Music’s “One Minute Wonders” series, and was included as a test piece for the Seventh British Contemporary Piano Competition in 2006. Book 1 was completed with Sarus Crane, which forms the basis of a tribute piece for Henri Dutilleux to celebrate his honorary fellowship from Cardiff University in 2008.

Listen to excerpts of Sarus Crane, Titmouse and Scarab from Bridge Records: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 1, performed by Vassily Primakov, piano:

Art of Lightness (2006)
For solo flute

The Art of Lightness was commissioned by Lisa Nelsen in 2006 and first performed by Rowland Sutherland at the Warehouse, London, as part of the Lontano Festival of American Music, 6 October 2010.

This work is based on concepts from Wong Kiew Kit’s The Art of Shaolin King Fu, where the discipline of martial arts is presented as a means to enlightenment and peaceful transcendence. Certain kung fu action sequences are based on the qualities of animals, real or mythical, and practised over and over until they flow together, culminating in the seamless, organic movement that is instinctive to the kung fu master. Some masters are said to achieve such a level of expertise that they can transcend the force of gravity, a special form of kung fu known as the Art of Lightness (Qinggong)

In this piece the solo flute presents a strict sequence of ‘aural actions’ derived from these ideas; first a meditative preparation, followed by melodic fragments based on the dragon, the snake, the tiger, the leopard, and the crane. All the fragments contain cyphers, melodic and rhythmic cells that correspond to an animal’s qualities (ie: speed, elegance, fierceness, etc.). The sequence is repeated in cycles that constitute a larger form that could be imagined as a session of kung fu training. In each cycle a different animal motif is elaborated, made more distinct and refined while the other motifs are shortened or fragmented in response. In the last cycle the melodic fragments are presented in their original forms once again and finally combined so that the flowing unity of actions achieves ever lighter, more virtuosic and exuberant heights.

Listen to an excerpt performed by Rowland Sutherland:

Cicada Shell (2006)
For 7 players

Cicada Shell belongs to a series of pieces exploring principles of military strategy. The Thirty-Six Strategies, an ancient collection of Chinese battle tactics, provided impetus for this work. "Strategy 21: Slough off the cicada’s shell," advises that false appearances mislead enemies. Transformation and illusion are key to avoiding capture and defeat.

The work is in two movements of equal length: the first is a series of diminuendi derived from a ritornello theme, while the second is a series of crescendi based on the same materials. Both movements feature a number of cyphers based on the title of the work as well as a central motif transcribed from the call of cicadas in nature.

Cicada Shell was commissioned by the New Music Players, with support from the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust.

Listen to excerpts from Bridge Records: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 1, performed by ICE, Jayce Ogren, conductor:

Truel I and Truel (complete) (2002-4)
For piano trio or clarinet trio

This work is based on a mathematical probability puzzle described in the book "Fermat's Last Theorem" by Simon Singh.

A truel is a duel involving three people. The rules are that each has a turn at shooting at one opponent and the truel continues until only one participant is left alive.

In one particular truel there are three people: Mr Black, Mr Gray and Mr White. Mr Black hits his target one time in three, Mr Gray hits the target two times in every three shots and Mr White never misses. To make it fairer Mr Black shoots first, then Mr Gray, followed by Mr White, and so on, until only one man remains alive.

The question is what should Mr Black do?

Black's best option is a non-violent one: to shoot into the air.
If he shoots at Gray and kills him then he is a dead man. If he shoots at White and kills him then he only has a 1/3 chance of survival. By shooting into the air he ensures that Gray and White shoot it out and then he has the first shot against the survivor. In other words, by initially killing one of his opponents he would only make his chances worse because then the remaining opponent would shoot at him instead of at the third man.

Thus, the worst shot has the best chances because he is the least dangerous.

Listen to an excerpt performed by the Avian Ensemble:

Counting-Out Rhyme (2002)
For cello and piano

Counting-Out Rhyme was commissioned by the Pur oder Plus Festival, Hamburg, Germany and first performed at the Freie Akademie der Künste in Hamburg in 2002. The work was composed in response to the poem of the same name by Edna St Vincent Millay, and employs cyphers of words as well as rhythmic and formal devices adapted from the poem.

COUNTING-OUT RHYME

Silver bark of beech, and sallow
Bark of yellow birch and yellow
Twig of willow.

Stripe of green in moosewood maple,
Colour seen in leaf of apple,
Bark of popple.

Wood of popple pale as moonbeam,
Wood of oak for yoke and barn-beam,
Wood of hornbeam.

Silver bark of beech, and hollow
Stem of elder, tall and yellow
Twig of willow.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892-1950

Listen to an excerpt performed by members of Lontano:

Four Choreographic Studies (2001)
For 10 players

I. Slingshot, II. Unravelling, III. Tango, IV. Risk

Four Choreographic Studies were written for the Tanglewood/Jacob’s Pillow Composer–Choreographer workshop in July 2001, involving Tanglewood Music Center Fellows and dancers from Jacob’s Pillow, under the direction of Louis Andriessen and Beppie Blankert. The movements were written in collaboration with four choreographers, and each is based on a different formal or movement–oriented idea, meant to be executed in under three minutes. Using different groupings within a chamber ensemble of ten, each movement was composed in one to two days, choreographed over the same period, and presented at the end of the two week workshop period at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival’s Inside/Out Theater. The set was subsequently performed at the Tanglewood Music Festival’s Seiji Ozawa Hall on July 28th, 2001.

Listen to excerpts from movements 1, 2, and 4 performed by Tanglewood Music Center Fellows:

of Risk and Memory (1997)
For two pianos, four hands

of Risk and Memory explores the concepts of its title in a number of ways. Elements of risk are inherent in the technical virtuosity of the work, both for the individual pianists and in their requirements as a duo ensemble. There is risk in the musical assertion and denial of individuality– as the pianists must finish each other’s phrases, match one another exactly and at times compete for dominance in the process of the work. Risk is illustrated in the visual aspects of performance as well, because the main materials of the piece require one pianist to play at the extremes of the keyboard while the other is confined to the center, switching position in turn. As the music continues, the listener/viewer becomes aware that certain phrases create visual cues, adding to the already formidable requirement of precision on the part of the performers. It is within memory that the structure of this work becomes apparent. Musical objects are presented sequentially, interrupted and then brought back in an overlapping reverse order, only to be shattered with mechanical persistence in the second main section of the work. In this section, the objects are subjected to a process that seems to destroy them, but later brings about their aural transformation. After this transformation has taken place, the original objects return and are followed again in their new forms, leaving listeners to discern between the music and its transformation in memory.

Listen to an excerpt from a performance by Daniel Becker and Huw Watkins and broadcast by the BBC :

Please note: Some samples are taken from recordings of live performances, playback levels may vary

Cristo no tiene cuerpo (2024)
For unaccompanied SATB 

A setting of the following poem attributed to SantaTeresa de Ávila (1515 – 1582)

Cristo no tiene cuerpo, sino el tuyo,
no tiene manos, o pies en la tierra, sino los tuyos,
tuyos son los ojos con los que ve la compasión en este mundo,
tuyos son los pies con los que camina para hacer el bien,
tuyas son las manos, con el que bendice todo el mundo.
Tuyas son las manos, tuyos son los pies, tuyos son los ojos, eres tu su cuerpo.
Cristo no tiene otro cuerpo sino el tuyo

Christ has no body, except for yours,
He has no hands, or feet on the ground, except for yours,
Yours are the eyes through which he sees the compassion of this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands with which he blesses the whole world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, it is you, his body.
Christ has no other body but yours.

Listen to a performance by the choir of the Conservatori Superior de Música de València, Spain:

Cuatro Corridos: Dalia (2013)
Chamber Opera scena for soprano, guitar, percussion and piano

This collaborative chamber opera, set to a libretto by Jorge Volpi, was written by four composers-- two Mexican and two from the United States. Librettist Volpi writes that "the stories told in the opera help us to hear and see precisely what we prefer to ignore and pass over in silence." Cuatro Corridos has toured the U.S. and Mexico to critical acclaim and had repeat broadcasts on Mexican National Television. Learn about the new Bridge Records recording here.

Arlene Sierra's movement, Dalia, is a portrait of a complex character who reveals her malice while describing the beauty and innocence of her past self.

Listen to an excerpt of Dalia performed by Susan Narucki, soprano and the Cuatro Corridos ensemble:

Faustine (2011)
Opera in one act for six voices and orchestra

An opera in development with playwright Lucy Thurber after the novella by Emma Tennant, with support from NY City Opera VOX, ROH2 at Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and Aldeburgh Young Artist Residencies. It is the story of an older woman, Muriel, who sells her soul to the devil for eternal youth because she is in love with her daughter's lover.

Click here to see the dedicated page on this site.

Hearing Things (2008)
For soprano and piano

This work is a short dramatic scena to poetry by Carl Sandburg and Catherine Carter. It explores both the wonder of the pastoral and the sense of guilt we share about our effect on nature, conveying an inner dialog of present-day conflicting sensibilities. The piece was commissioned by British soprano Claire Booth and pianist Andrew Matthews-Owen.

1. Look at Six Eggs (Carl Sandburg)
2. Hearing Things (Catherine Carter)

Look at six eggs In a mockingbird’s nest.
Listen to six mockingbirds
Flinging follies of O-be-joyful
Over the marshes and uplands.

Look at songs
Hidden in eggs.

- from Cornhuskers (1918) by Carl Sandburg

Listen to excerpts of movements 1 and 2 performed by Yunjin Kim, soprano, and Emi Okumura, piano:

Streets and Rivers (2007)
For baritone and piano OR for soprano and harp (new version of songs 1 & 2, 2016)

This song cycle, with text by American and British woman poets, explores the aspects and anxieties of urban life along the Hudson and the Thames.

1. Upper Broadway (Adrienne Rich)
2. Sudden Collapses in Public Places (Julia Darling)
3. Diving Girl (Helen Dunmore)
4. Hungry Thames (Helen Dunmore)

The cycle was commissioned by Welsh baritone Jeremy Huw Williams with funding from the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust.

Listen to excerpts of movements 1 and 4 performed by Thomas Lehman, baritone, and Lisa Gonella, piano:

Neruda Settings (2002-5)
For soprano and 10 players

Pablo Neruda wrote four volumes of Elemental Odes between 1954 and 1959. The Odes pay homage to animals and to common objects; fusing brilliant, concise description and profound reflection, at once personal and philosophical. My settings of Odes to the Lizard , the Artichoke, the Plate, and the Table are concerned with imagery, motion and rhythm in the language as well as the many double meanings in the texts of these poems. The Ode to the Lizard wonders at the ability of the reptile to blend with its surroundings and also to call up a happy childhood memory. The Ode to the Artichoke is a humorous character study of an 'armored vegetable' and an affectionate homage to its tender hidden heart. The Ode to the Plate sparkles with celestial metaphors for the perfect disk of a plate, as well as the urgency and necessity of its role in daily life. Finally, the Ode to the Table takes us from the realm of domestic memory to one of political and moral decision: the world is a table and we must choose sides, for war or for peace.

Neruda Settings, a Paul Jacobs Award commission, was first performed in an initial version at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music in 2002 and completed in 2005.

The reduced version Two Neruda Odes includes Ode to the Plate and and Ode to the Table arranged for soprano with cello and piano. It was recorded by Susan Narucki for the CD Arlene Sierra, Volume 1.

Listen to excerpts of Neruda Settings performed by ICE, Susan Narucki, soprano, Jayce Ogren, conductor:

Hand mit Ringen (2002)
For soprano, violin, piano and cimbalom

Hand mit Ringen was commissioned by the 2002 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival for Sarah Leonard, soprano, and members of Psappha. It is a setting of the poem by Glori Simmons.

Hand mit Ringen - from Bertha Roentgen's hand X-ray

This is my bone bound with your ring.

Hinged in brevity my hand fans,
My skin is a requiem. Remember me 1896.
In the gesture I beckon:

Enter my ghost's corridor & shipwreck.9__#$!@%!#__pastedGraphic.pdf ¬
Crawl between the piping of my satin casket.
Here are the keys dangling from my pelvis-

Touch my skeleton.

This is the way into my darkness
Where I inhume the whalebone beneath
The window then nestle into the pine box bed

To shroud myself with the less
Gentle sex. Slamming doors, letting the wind
Blow through my legs. Skull & cross-

Bone mad. Here, I vanish

Only to arrive days later, disheveled.
The X-ray's predilection for cells
Out of place suits me. This debridement

Is better than the old cinch & buttress.
Exhume my first wanton hologram:
The rat's nest & glass eye, my ten charred nails
I am radiant.

- Glori Simmons

Used with kind permission from the author

Listen to an excerpt performed by Psappha, Sarah Leonard, soprano :

Please note: Some samples are taken from recordings of live performances, playback levels may vary

Kiskadee (2023)
for orchestra

"Kiskadee is a superbly crafted work and a compelling listen. Sierra packs a lot into [an eight]-minute span and her scoring is assured and stylish with an edgy brilliance to her writing for brass, winds and percussion."

- Lawrence A. Johnson, Chicago Classical Review

Read more about Kiskadee HERE

Bird Symphony (2021)
for orchestra

"Sierra’s Bird Symphony shares many similarities with her Nature Symphony, including its motivic development and use of layered ostinati to imitate natural processes. In the new work, most of the motivic material came from actual bird calls, but Sierra developed them into something new, ecstatic, and far from its avian inspiration."

The finale “Utahraptor” created an infectious rhythm that took the audience on a primordial journey from birdsong to whatever noise its dinosaur ancestor might have made. The rhythmic motives were particularly effective when they spread to the bassoons, creating a unique and delightful sound, and led to an exciting, unique climax."

– Rick Mortensen, Utah Arts Review

1. Warblers 

4. Utahraptor 

Read more about Bird Symphony HERE

Nature Symphony (2017)
for orchestra

"The title suggests something programmatic, and the symphony’s three movements all have evocative titles, but there is nothing in them that’s obviously descriptive. The mechanics of natural processes fascinate Sierra and find their way into her music, so it is the idea of endless cycles of migration, year after year, that creates the steadily accumulating loops of the opening Mountain of Butterflies, while the sense of something ominous and threatening in the melodic fragments and ticking ostinatos of the slow central Black Place was inspired by Georgia O’Keefe’s dark paintings of New Mexico.

The finale, Bee Rebellion, is based on the phenomenon of hive collapse that is sometimes seen in bee colonies, when the insect society can suddenly break down into anarchy; it’s music of unpredictable cycles and accumulations, with taunting wind solos, all cut short by a brassy, percussion-driven ending that offers no escape. Lasting just over 20 minutes, the symphony does what Sierra sets out to do with impressive economy and a succession of striking orchestral ideas."

- Andrew Clements, The Guardian

1. Mountain of Butterflies

Moler (2012)
for orchestra

"Arlene Sierra has the distinction of writing what must surely be the first ever piece inspired by the phenomenon of bruxism, which in case you're wondering is teeth-grinding. Thus the title of Sierra's piece, Moler, which means 'to grind' in Spanish. Bruxism is usually caused by anxiety as the composer points out, and for her it has interesting musical connotations of roughness, nervousness, and energy. And the Spanish term refers to a certain rhythmic playfulness underlying the music's regular 4/4 meter."
- Ivan Hewett, Hear and Now, BBC Radio 3

Moler was commissioned by the Seattle Symphony, Ludovic Morlot, Music Director.

Listen to an excerpt from Bridge Records: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 2, performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Jac Van Steen, conductor:

Art of War (2010)
Concerto for piano and orchestra

The piano concerto Art of War is an oppositional drama inspired by Sun Tzu's work of the same name, an ancient book of military strategy. The piece is in two movements of equal length entitled Captive Nation and Strategic Siege. Material from the first movement reappears in the second, suggesting a larger, single ‘battle scenario’ that plays out with two different outcomes.

Click here to see the dedicated page on this site.

Listen to excerpts from Bridge Records: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 2, performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Huw Watkins, piano and Jac Van Steen, conductor:

Game of Attrition (2009)
For chamber orchestra

A game of attrition gradually reduces the strengths of the opponents through sustained attack or pressure; in game theory, it is when two contestants compete for a resource while accumulating costs and losses over time. Natural selection as described in Darwin’s Origin of Species was probably the first description of this game in nature: When two species share the same place in the same environment, they will compete all the more to survive.

Click here to see the dedicated page on this site.

Listen to an excerpt from Bridge Records: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 2, performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Jac Van Steen, conductor:

Colmena (2008)
For 14 players

Colmena, which means ‘beehive’ in Spanish, explores accumulation and change from micro to macro levels. Having read of the nature of beehives, and how their societies depend on a fine balance of outgoing and less enterprising individuals, my initial impetus for the piece was one of hidden changes bringing about a transformation of the whole.

Coloring this idea is a subtle nod to the stylized Franco-Iberian sound of early 20th-century scores, with simmering energy and sweeping gestures. Finally, the idea of a mass of insects actually hibernating, as beehives do each year, brought about the music of the last section of the piece – an exploration of a kind of buzzing repose.

Colmena was commissioned by the Miller Theatre at Columbia University with funds from the Cheswatyr Foundation.

Listen to an excerpt from Bridge Records: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 1, performed by ICE, Jayce Ogren, conductor:

Tiffany Windows (2002)
For 12 players

Tiffany Windows was commissioned by David Miller and the Albany Symphony to be a musical response and companion to a set of stained glass windows at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Troy, New York. The windows have remarkable color, texture and depth thanks to numerous novel techniques employed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, who created such windows for many churches before developing the decidedly secular, more decorative glasswork that made him world-renowned.

The first movement Light through Dark Glass is a musical version of that unique aspect of stained glass, employing dark and low instrumental timbres for a solemn and then shimmering effect.

The second Favrile (Hand Made) takes its name from a technique employed in Tiffany’s glassworks using hand mixing of glass to create complex textures and colors. The movement attempts to do the same musically, while also incorporating something of the metallic hammering and frenetic rhythmic activity that might be
part of the life of a glassworks.

The third and final movement Cloud Circle takes its title from a window at St. Joseph’s Church that beautifully depicts the ascension of Mary into Heaven. The figure of Mary is surrounded by curious angelic "heads with wings" which seem to flutter around her in a cloud. The movement involves the timbral transformation of a chorale with fluttering effects used throughout as a textural motif.

Listen to excerpts from each movement, performed by the Albany Symphony, David Alan Miller, conductor:

Aquilo (2001)
For orchestra

Aquilo is a classical name for the Northeast wind as designated by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in his Ten Books on Architecture. Vitruvius writes of the theory of winds beginning from heat and moisture, stating this is proven by experiments with aeoliphiles: bronze spheres filled with water through a tiny opening. When the aeoliphile was heated, a rush of steam would escape, convincing the ancients that winds had similar origins. Vitruvius elaborates upon the theory with his idea that there are eight winds which flow over the expanse of a disc-shaped earth.

The work begins as an aural aeoliphile, with musical representations of fire and water mixing to create a rush of air. This rush of air is the wind Aquilo, heard as a melody which develops within a large aural space. It is later joined by three others and the four gather momentum until there is a powerful “directional shift”, introducing four new melodic lines all accumulating energy and complexity as they move in space. After the eight melodic “winds” make their individuality “felt”, the original melody returns. Aquilo travels until the environment breaks it down to elemental components, returning to the original spark of its creation

Aquilo was first performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic, Susanna Mälkki conductor, at Tokyo Opera City in the Takemitsu Prize Final Concert and was declared winner of the Takemitsu Composition Prize in May 2001.

Listen to an excerpt from Bridge Records: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 2, performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Jac Van Steen, conductor:

Ballistae (2000)
For 13 players

In a classical treatise The Ten Books of Architecture by Vitruvius, the Roman architect/engineer provides detailed instructions for building many ancient machines of warfare, both for attack and defense. The Roman ballista was a double-armed artillery machine; essentially a large, mounted crossbow whose cord of twisted sinew or hair was pulled back by a winch. It could hurl heavy rocks with great force and for considerable distances.

The circumstances, construction and operation of ballistae shape all aspects of this work. The aggression and fear necessary for waging war, the organization and effort required of soldiers who built such machines, and the preparations of the distant enemy are all ideas that contribute to the piece. In a more concrete manifestation of a ballista, twelve instruments of the ensemble are divided to constitute each arm of the machine while the largest and heaviest instrument (in effect, the stone) is moved into its central place with considerable effort. The strings provide the appropriate sinews which are tightened and tuned, finally achieving sufficient tension to launch the heavy missile. After following the journey of the missile, the work concludes with its violent and sudden impact.Ballistae was premiered by the London Sinfonietta in 2001 as part of State of the Nation Weekend at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London.

Listen to an excerpt from Bridge Records: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 1, performed by ICE, Jayce Ogren, conductor: