Compositions
For piano solo
In October 2023, Ergon: Greek/American & Diaspora Arts and Letters, published an article I wrote about this piece. Ergon is a peer-reviewed journal that promotes the arts, letters, and scholarship of Greek America. You can read that article here.
For Piano Solo, or any other instrument or instruments.
Purchase the score and recordings here.
Available in two versions:
1. Text score for any instrumentation
2. Nine traditionally notated piano solo movements
Imperfect Intervals came together accidentally. This music did not start on the page, but rather as sounds. I recorded nine pieces as improvisations in October and November of 2020, and labeled the files "Sound Diary" on my hard drive. When I was making them, that's all they were: daily diary entries, documenting a period in my life of deep reflection.
But with each new recording, I started to notice an emergent improvisational process. It seemed like the improvisations were being guided by a logic. That logic had musical implications, to be sure -- there an abundance of fifths and fourths in these pieces, the so-called "perfect" intervals. But those intervals are mediated by all sorts of other intervals, some small and some as vast as the whole piano. And the sonority of my piano, which was beginning to drift out of tune while I was making these recordings, certainly made these intervals seem "imperfect" to my ears.
Moreover, the process that was unfolding wasn't really about musical intervals. I began to realize that it was more about a manner of approaching the instrument. It was a mindset, a headspace. Gradually, I began to realize that the notes were the least consequential aspect of the music. The notes could have been anything, as long as they were infused with the energy that I was bringing to the piano. That energy behind the music was the music.
The text of the score is the closest representation to this energy behind the music. If anyone, on any instrument, wants to play Imperfect Intervals, they can use that text as their score. Certainly, when I do an Imperfect Intervals improvisation, the approach laid out in this text is my guiding force.
Nevertheless, I've decided to reproduce transcriptions of my nine Imperfect Intervals recordings. These transcriptions are pieces all on their own. But they also provide a clue for how the diffuse process of improvising through this particular lens might manifest. Of course, the possibilities are limitless.
Three Pieces for Piano by Michael Malis, released 17 March 2020 1. 31114 2. 72114 3. What Story Down There Awaits Its End? I wrote these pieces in 2014, which in retrospect feels like a different lifetime.
Purchase the score here.
Purchase the recordings here or on Bandcamp.
“This is thrilling music, with shifting harmonic and rhythmic qualities that require prodigious precise technique and the kind of generic versatility that few pianists achieve. … This is a wonderful milestone in the artistic progress of an artist of boundless versatility and intellectual curiosity secured in an expressiveness anchored in solid artistic discipline.”
I wrote these pieces in 2014, which in retrospect feels like a different lifetime. I've almost released this collection several times, but inevitably some other, more pressing project has gotten in the way, and as a result this music has languished for six years.
I'm choosing to release this music now because I feel that making art is more important now than ever. We live in strange times, where mandated social distancing is our only hope at defeating a pandemic which could cause irreparable harm. In this moment that we can't be together physically, life can feel creatively stifling. We have to do what we can to continue to cultivate our sense of community.
Any music for solo piano has an undertone of isolation. Both pianists and composers are, by nature, accustomed to social distancing. There is a sense of distance embodied in this music -- distance in time since it was recorded, distance in space between myself and the microphones that were far at the back of the cathedral we recorded in, and distance between you and I as I release this music out into the ether. That distance does create isolation, certainly. But there is a beauty in that distance, too.
Purchase the score here.
For Solo Percussion
January 2019
Commissioned by Peyton Miller
Premiered on February 13, 2020 at Varner Recital Hall, Oakland University, Auburn Hills MI.
Program notes:
A pyrrhic victory is a victory that is so hard fought that the victor loses more than they gain. I'm struck by how often many people (myself included) make the calculation that the price of a victory is worth the spoils of the victory.
This piece strives to own this tragic disposition, building impossibilities into its structure and finding solutions for seemingly reckless choices. It begins in the ether: abstract, cool, and detached. From that primordial sludge, the piece builds to a frenzy of activity, ramping up to a rate that is clearly unsustainable. It ends by slowly breaking back down into a wash of environmental ambiance. This might, indeed, be a model for the ticking clock humankind's existence on this planet. But it might be a metaphor for something much smaller too; perhaps it’s an individual maturing over time, generously allowing themselves the luxury of personal growth.
The ultimate pyrrhic victory facing our society at this moment is climate change. We’re carelessly wasteful, sacrifcing the longevity of our environment for short term convenience. We make the calculation that plastic packaging, or oil for cars, or enabling corporate greed, is more important than living in a world that could actually support our existence. At what point do we understand that the cost of these choices is the actual air we breathe?
All pyrrhic victories do not have to be in vain. To quote the revolutionary thinker Grace Lee Boggs, “these are the times to grow our souls.” If we open our ears and hearts and listen to history, we can grow and create unimaginable solutions to challenging problems. This is hard work, urgent work, and work that can’t be done by anybody but us.
I hope that this piece inspires the performer and the listener to think clearly about the costs associated with our transactional way of engaging our world. As we move forward into the second decade of the 21st century, we have the unique opportunity to make our world anew.
Purchase the score and Max/MSP patch here.
For Double Bass and Max/MSP
June, 2018
Duration: ~10 mins
This piece takes audio from the composed and improvised material that the bassist generates and loops that audio, up to six times, changing the speed, pitch, and direction of the loop as the piece changes. The piece follows from small intervals that spin out of one central tone, and creates a web of sonic material from a relatively limited set of musical material.
I wrote this piece at the request of an incredible bassist, but no sooner than I finished it his bass split open and he was unable to practice it. So as of now, it languishes unplayed. I hope we have a chance to present it sometime in the near future. If you're interested in presenting it or performing it, please send me an email.
Accompanying Max/MSP patch available upon request.
