Recordings

Selected Original Works:

“Willow (Desdemona’s Song)” was commissioned for the Classical Actors Ensemble’s 2022 production of Shakespeare’s Othello in Minneapolis, MN. Director Bruce A. Young wanted a modern song that worked against type: not overly melancholy. The off-kilter meter of 6/8 + 2/4 reflects the disconsolate mental space of Desdemona as she sings her lament. Her fate, tied to that of the character in her song, becomes a cold comfort: “sing all a green willow, my garland shall be.” The unexpected cadence on the IV chord lingers here, subtly irresolute, but with a fatalistic sense of repose.

This is a rehearsal track with me singing; the song was written for female voice. Updated recording to come!

A quirky, folk-style love song about a relationship of opposite-attraction. I play with lots of little lyrical and musical palindromes in this one.

“Mirror, Mirror, Mirror” was co-written with my sister, Faith Rawson. This is a demo track originally conceptualized for an independent film project in LA that was never completed. A Jekyll and Hyde-inspired narrative, the song’s persona pleads to a vampire for mercy, and is inevitably bitten – a transfiguration represented by the guitar solo (my nod to Brian Eno’s songwriting). Now a vampire, the character assumes its identity as eternal evil doer, incapable of self-reflection, yearning for ego death.

“Waltz for Luella” was written for the very special occasion of my grandmother’s 92nd birthday. This piece reflects on two aspects of our relationship together: the homebody, card game-loving side represented by a tender, lighthearted Viennese-inspired waltz, and the stir-crazy, impromptu roadtrip, adventure-seeking side - a busier, modal jazz-inspired waltz. 

“Building 58” was inspired by a beautiful passage from Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano, in which the various automated machines of Edison’s old workshop are suddenly brought to life: “It was wild and Latin music, hectic rhythms, fading in and out of phase, kaleidoscopic sound. … Paul, flushed, his vague anxieties gone, gave himself over to it.”

The “prepared piano,” is a term coined by composer John Cage. By placing objects like bolts, screws, and bits of rubber between the strings of a piano, the instrument is transformed into something sonic resembling to a percussion ensemble. “Prelude and Allemande” was written with the same preparations used in Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano, which I performed at the time I began writing this work.

Selected Solo Performances:

These pieces by Michio Miyagi are a set of koto transcriptions I made and performed at Living Water Tea House in Chicago. An album featuring six transcriptions of Miyagi’s koto works will be released in April of 2023.

These two pieces were part of an online faculty concert at Access Contemporary Music in Chicago during the 2020 lockdown.