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Music has long been an important part of my daily life. I recall being quite interested in the styles, instruments, and notation since my elementary school music classes. Today, I frequently find myself at the piano or playing the recorders in my collection (tenor through sopranino).

“When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had and never will have.”—Edgar Watson Howe

I played the violin for two years in elementary school as well as being a member of the choir chimes ensemble, recorder ensemble, and chorus. As a member of the Foothills Royal Recorders group for two years, we performed in competition and studied and performed with the Renaissance group Musica Dolce. In chorus, I had the lead role in a musical and continued singing in the Advanced Boys Choir during my middle school years.

Since my experience with Musica Dolce, I have very much appreciated Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque styles. I also enjoy Romantic and contemporary orchestral music, not to the exclusion of many cinematic scores and musical theatre.

Some of my favorite musical works include Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughn Williams, Symphony No. 7, Second Movement by Ludwig van Beethoven, and Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber.

I have been told that I have a preference for ‘dark’ music, however I don't view these pieces as necessarily dark. Indeed, I enjoy the music of Karl Jenkins, most notably the Adiemus project, which is rarely dark in mood.

My interest in musical composition flourished when I became aware of MIDI sequencing with my first ‘multimedia’ computer. In the many years since, I have accumulated hundreds of pieces ranging from short ideas to many longer orchestrations.

The following MP3 file features a few excerpts from some of my compositions. Of course, I have not had the luxury of having these pieces performed and have sequenced them only by placing notes on staves. While listening to these recordings, please imagine, if you will, the greater context, the acoustic timbre of actual instruments and the expression, dynamics, and rubato that necessarily transcend the ready capabilities of basic metered MIDI synthesis.

Listen to music samples.

On occasion, I have ventured away from the realm of music notation to compose using the novel software application Hyperscore, which relies on graphical elements to abstract complex musical concepts. I have made some of my compositions available through the online community H-Lounge: Patience and Fortitude, Countess of Lovelace, Swarm, Remembrance, H-Lounge Menagerie.

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Copyright ©2004–2005 Peter Torpey.