Debra Kaye
Debra Kaye
Acclaimed for her unique sound, deep and visceral language, composer Debra Kaye’s music blends her deep classical roots with a wide range of influences including jazz, world music, folk, experimental improvisation, world events and sounds of daily life. With a catalogue of close to 40 works, she has been honored with ASCAP Plus Awards for her "creative contributions to American music." Her debut CD, "And So It Begins", was recognized as "an album that will surely stand the test of time." Bellmann Musik published her work "Buscando" in "The Contemporary Harpsichordist". Season highlights include the premiere of five compositions and she is currently working on an orchestral commission to premiere in 2016-17.
Support for her music includes grants and awards from Meet the Composer, Mannes College of Music, the Edward T. Cone Foundation, Fort Wayne Children’s Choir, Atlanta Music Teachers Association, New School University; and residencies at the Millay Colony and Wurlitzer Foundation.
Kaye’s music is heard at venues uptown & down including Carnegie’s Weill Hall, Steinway Hall, Mannes College, downtown at DROM and Spectrum; it is presented on festivals and concerts by Composers Concordance, NY Composers Circle, Women Composers Festival of Hartford, and the Howland Cultural Center, Beacon, NY; and has been heard streaming live and on the radio on Chicago’s WFMT, and other regional stations. A graduate of Mannes College of Music, Kaye is a long-standing faculty member of the Mannes Preparatory Division.
Sky is Falling
Year: 2013
Category: piano
Publisher: New Music Press
Description: With its fractured statements, multitude of textures, and patchwork of emotional arenas, the text by writer Roger Aplon, takes its inspiration from Elliot Carter’s Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano. Sky is Falling is its “grandchild”, inspired in turn by Aplon’s non-linear text. Improvisatory passages intersperse with standard notation. Can be performed piano solo or piano + narrator.
We Part the Trees
Year: 2013
Duration (in minutes): c. 6'39;
Publisher: New Music Press
Description: The text by Roger Aplon is an impassioned and searching love poem, the pianist improvises an accompaniment. Musical themes are provided as a springboard to the performer's own invention.
Duet After Winter
Year: 2012
Duration (in minutes): c. 9
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Publisher: New Music Press
Score PDF: duet_after_winter_final-5.pdf
Description: He emails from Japan right after the earthquake — “I’m ok,” he says…the violins begin in unison, fall into close dissonance, echo one another’s themes, never quite in the same place, but yearning. — March 11, 2011
Doppelganger
Year: 2012
Duration (in minutes): 8.5
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: solo brass instrument, solo instrument other than piano
Instruments: any brass, trombone
Publisher: New Music Press
Score PDF: the_doppelganger-5.pdf
Description: Schubert's Doppelganger meets Bela Fleck in Africa. The opening 4 notes of Schubert’s song are displaced in register, and transform from their contemplative lyricism to include African rhythms and a swing beat. A show-piece for the performer's individuality and virtuosity.
While We Were Sleeping
Year: 2012
Duration (in minutes): c. 5'39;
Category: piano
Publisher: New Music Press
Description: A dramatic, semi-improvised piece, Poseidon unleashed, written in response to the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. The storm approached at night, and I improvised the opening, thought of our unheeded wake up calls and woke to find what had happened while we were sleeping.
Suitable for any level of difficulty, with its improvisatory elements, level of virtuosity can be tailored to suit.
Beauty Way
Year: 2009
Duration (in minutes): c. 8.5
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: gamelan, string trio
Publisher: New Music Press
Score PDF: the_beauty_way_score-5.pdf
Description: Inspired by my residencies in Taos, New Mexico, Native American, African, and Old English folk tunes weave together to explore what Navajo call the beauty way, when we are in harmony with all that is. Commissioned by Empire Viols.
Hope is the thing with feathers
Year: 2008
Duration (in minutes): 6'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: choral
Publisher: New Music Press
Visions
Year: 2008
Duration (in minutes): c. 6
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: piano
Publisher: New Music Press
Description: To recall the magic of my residencies in Taos - the first night there, the waning of summer, a visit to Georgia O'Keeffe's home in Abique. Commissioned by Access to Music.
Visions
Year: 2008
Duration (in minutes): c. 6
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: piano
Publisher: New Music Press
Description: To recall the magic of my residencies in Taos - the first night there, the waning of summer, a visit to Georgia O'Keeffe's home in Abique. Commissioned by Access to Music.
Strange Cohabitation
Year: 2007
Duration (in minutes): 9'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: piano, small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players
Instruments: piano
Publisher: New Music Press
My American Shtetl
Year: 2007
Duration (in minutes): 20'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: mixed instrument ensemble, mixed instrument trio, piano trio (vln, vc, pno), small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players, solo voice(s) with chamber ensemble
Instruments: any string, cello, narrator/speaker, piano, violin
Publisher: New Music Press
Buscando
Year: 2006
Duration (in minutes): 9'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: solo instrument other than piano
Instruments: any string, harp, harpsichord
Publisher: New Music Press
Description: A wanderlust of a piece, “buscando” means “looking for” in Spanish. Each theme leads to the next with inevitability or surprise. Opportunity for embellishment and improvisation harkens to the Baroque. Level of virtuosity can be tailored to the individual performer. Commissioned by & dedicated to Arthur Haas.
Finding Accord
Year: 2005
Duration (in minutes): 7'39;
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: mixed instrument ensemble, mixed instrument trio, piano trio (vln, vc, pno), small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players
Instruments: any string, cello, piano, violin
Publisher: New Music Press
Rant
Year: 2004
Duration (in minutes): 6.5'39;
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: solo instrument other than piano, solo string instrument
Instruments: any low voice, bass voice, cello, violin
Publisher: New Music Press
Incidental Ducklings
Year: 2004
Duration (in minutes): 5'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: mixed instrument ensemble, mixed instrument trio, piano trio (vln, vc, pno), small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players
Instruments: any string, cello, piano, violin
Publisher: New Music Press
Slants of Light
Year: 2003
Duration (in minutes): 11'39;
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: solo voice(s) with piano
Instruments: baritone voice, mezzo soprano
Publisher: New Music Press
Where You Are
Year: 2002
Duration (in minutes): 3'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: solo voice(s) with piano
Publisher: New Music Press
Getting Ready for the Guests
Year: 2000
Duration (in minutes): 1'39;
Difficulty: Low (student/pedagogical)
Category: piano
Publisher: New Music Press
Ugly Duckling
Year: 1999
Duration (in minutes): 55'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: opera
Publisher: New Music Press
Country Mouse and the City Mouse
Year: 1998
Duration (in minutes): 5'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: solo voice(s) with piano
Instruments: mezzo soprano
Publisher: New Music Press
Time to Rise
Year: 1998
Duration (in minutes): 1'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: solo voice(s) with piano
Instruments: baritone voice, mezzo soprano
Publisher: New Music Press
Treble Clef Song
Year: 1993
Difficulty: Low (student/pedagogical)
Category: solo voice(s) a cappella
Publisher: New Music Press
Description: A children's song whose lyrics instruct even the youngest students to draw a handsome treble clef. - "You start with a fish-hook..."
Counting Sheep
Year: 1988
Duration (in minutes): 2.5'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Publisher: New Music Press
Dialogues with the Distant Mountains
Year: 1987
Duration (in minutes): 8 min.
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players, solo instrument with piano, solo woodwind with piano
Instruments: alto, alto saxophone, any female voice, any low voice, any saxophone, any voice, any woodwind, piano
Publisher: New Music Press
And So It Begins
The Beauty Way (soprano,tenor & bass viols), Finding Accord (violin, cello & piano), Duet After Winter (violin duo), Incidental Ducklings (violin,cello & piano), Dialogues with the Distant Mountains (alto sax & piano), Visions (solo piano),
The Doppelganger (trombone), And So It Begins (string quintet & tenor sax)
Composers: Debra Kaye
Label: Ravello Rcords
Label's Website: www.DebraKayeComposer.com
Product ID: RR7899
Buy URL: https://www.amazon.com/Debra-Kaye-So-Begins-Ravello/dp/B019GLEP8G
Buy URL 2: https://music.apple.com/us/album/debra-kaye-so-it-begins-chamber/915977605
Incidental Ducklings (2004)
Composer: Debra Kaye
Description: This music video, Incidental Duckling, envisions the opening number from the Off-Off Broadway production of Hans Christian Andersen's The Ugly Duckling. It’s part of a suite of dance and incidental music from the show arranged for piano trio. Amy Kimball, violin; Arthur Cook, cello; Marcia Eckert, piano; video by Kiersten Armstrong, KMW Studio.
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB_O9gjL4Fc
Visions (2008)
Composer: Debra Kaye
Description: Commissioned by Access to Music, video by Roxanne Rea, Elizabeth Wolff, piano. Three short pieces inspired by the sense of wonder I experienced during my composing residency at the Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, NM. They’re based on three poems that I wrote in the heat of those moments.
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozI7dCVOkfI
While We Were Sleeping (2012)
Composer: Debra Kaye
Description: Written for Composers Concordance, Craig Ketter, piano. I was in New York City when Hurricane Sandy struck. The storm approached at night, and like many of us, I was glued to the news, listening for the latest about its path. I went to the piano, improvised along, and thought of our unheeded wake up calls. In the morning to find what had happened while we were sleeping.
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wd5XajYILw
Support for her music includes grants and awards from Meet the Composer, Mannes College of Music, the Edward T. Cone Foundation, Fort Wayne Children’s Choir, Atlanta Music Teachers Association, New School University; and residencies at the Millay Colony and Wurlitzer Foundation.
Kaye’s music is heard at venues uptown & down including Carnegie’s Weill Hall, Steinway Hall, Mannes College, downtown at DROM and Spectrum; it is presented on festivals and concerts by Composers Concordance, NY Composers Circle, Women Composers Festival of Hartford, and the Howland Cultural Center, Beacon, NY; and has been heard streaming live and on the radio on Chicago’s WFMT, and other regional stations. A graduate of Mannes College of Music, Kaye is a long-standing faculty member of the Mannes Preparatory Division.
Sky is Falling
Year: 2013
Category: piano
Publisher: New Music Press
Description: With its fractured statements, multitude of textures, and patchwork of emotional arenas, the text by writer Roger Aplon, takes its inspiration from Elliot Carter’s Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano. Sky is Falling is its “grandchild”, inspired in turn by Aplon’s non-linear text. Improvisatory passages intersperse with standard notation. Can be performed piano solo or piano + narrator.
We Part the Trees
Year: 2013
Duration (in minutes): c. 6'39;
Publisher: New Music Press
Description: The text by Roger Aplon is an impassioned and searching love poem, the pianist improvises an accompaniment. Musical themes are provided as a springboard to the performer's own invention.
Duet After Winter
Year: 2012
Duration (in minutes): c. 9
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Publisher: New Music Press
Score PDF: duet_after_winter_final-5.pdf
Description: He emails from Japan right after the earthquake — “I’m ok,” he says…the violins begin in unison, fall into close dissonance, echo one another’s themes, never quite in the same place, but yearning. — March 11, 2011
Doppelganger
Year: 2012
Duration (in minutes): 8.5
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: solo brass instrument, solo instrument other than piano
Instruments: any brass, trombone
Publisher: New Music Press
Score PDF: the_doppelganger-5.pdf
Description: Schubert's Doppelganger meets Bela Fleck in Africa. The opening 4 notes of Schubert’s song are displaced in register, and transform from their contemplative lyricism to include African rhythms and a swing beat. A show-piece for the performer's individuality and virtuosity.
While We Were Sleeping
Year: 2012
Duration (in minutes): c. 5'39;
Category: piano
Publisher: New Music Press
Description: A dramatic, semi-improvised piece, Poseidon unleashed, written in response to the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. The storm approached at night, and I improvised the opening, thought of our unheeded wake up calls and woke to find what had happened while we were sleeping.
Suitable for any level of difficulty, with its improvisatory elements, level of virtuosity can be tailored to suit.
Beauty Way
Year: 2009
Duration (in minutes): c. 8.5
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: gamelan, string trio
Publisher: New Music Press
Score PDF: the_beauty_way_score-5.pdf
Description: Inspired by my residencies in Taos, New Mexico, Native American, African, and Old English folk tunes weave together to explore what Navajo call the beauty way, when we are in harmony with all that is. Commissioned by Empire Viols.
Hope is the thing with feathers
Year: 2008
Duration (in minutes): 6'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: choral
Publisher: New Music Press
Visions
Year: 2008
Duration (in minutes): c. 6
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: piano
Publisher: New Music Press
Description: To recall the magic of my residencies in Taos - the first night there, the waning of summer, a visit to Georgia O'Keeffe's home in Abique. Commissioned by Access to Music.
Visions
Year: 2008
Duration (in minutes): c. 6
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: piano
Publisher: New Music Press
Description: To recall the magic of my residencies in Taos - the first night there, the waning of summer, a visit to Georgia O'Keeffe's home in Abique. Commissioned by Access to Music.
Strange Cohabitation
Year: 2007
Duration (in minutes): 9'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: piano, small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players
Instruments: piano
Publisher: New Music Press
My American Shtetl
Year: 2007
Duration (in minutes): 20'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: mixed instrument ensemble, mixed instrument trio, piano trio (vln, vc, pno), small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players, solo voice(s) with chamber ensemble
Instruments: any string, cello, narrator/speaker, piano, violin
Publisher: New Music Press
Buscando
Year: 2006
Duration (in minutes): 9'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: solo instrument other than piano
Instruments: any string, harp, harpsichord
Publisher: New Music Press
Description: A wanderlust of a piece, “buscando” means “looking for” in Spanish. Each theme leads to the next with inevitability or surprise. Opportunity for embellishment and improvisation harkens to the Baroque. Level of virtuosity can be tailored to the individual performer. Commissioned by & dedicated to Arthur Haas.
Finding Accord
Year: 2005
Duration (in minutes): 7'39;
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: mixed instrument ensemble, mixed instrument trio, piano trio (vln, vc, pno), small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players
Instruments: any string, cello, piano, violin
Publisher: New Music Press
Rant
Year: 2004
Duration (in minutes): 6.5'39;
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: solo instrument other than piano, solo string instrument
Instruments: any low voice, bass voice, cello, violin
Publisher: New Music Press
Incidental Ducklings
Year: 2004
Duration (in minutes): 5'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: mixed instrument ensemble, mixed instrument trio, piano trio (vln, vc, pno), small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players
Instruments: any string, cello, piano, violin
Publisher: New Music Press
Slants of Light
Year: 2003
Duration (in minutes): 11'39;
Difficulty: High (professional)
Category: solo voice(s) with piano
Instruments: baritone voice, mezzo soprano
Publisher: New Music Press
Where You Are
Year: 2002
Duration (in minutes): 3'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: solo voice(s) with piano
Publisher: New Music Press
Getting Ready for the Guests
Year: 2000
Duration (in minutes): 1'39;
Difficulty: Low (student/pedagogical)
Category: piano
Publisher: New Music Press
Ugly Duckling
Year: 1999
Duration (in minutes): 55'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: opera
Publisher: New Music Press
Country Mouse and the City Mouse
Year: 1998
Duration (in minutes): 5'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: solo voice(s) with piano
Instruments: mezzo soprano
Publisher: New Music Press
Time to Rise
Year: 1998
Duration (in minutes): 1'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: solo voice(s) with piano
Instruments: baritone voice, mezzo soprano
Publisher: New Music Press
Treble Clef Song
Year: 1993
Difficulty: Low (student/pedagogical)
Category: solo voice(s) a cappella
Publisher: New Music Press
Description: A children's song whose lyrics instruct even the youngest students to draw a handsome treble clef. - "You start with a fish-hook..."
Counting Sheep
Year: 1988
Duration (in minutes): 2.5'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Publisher: New Music Press
Dialogues with the Distant Mountains
Year: 1987
Duration (in minutes): 8 min.
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players, solo instrument with piano, solo woodwind with piano
Instruments: alto, alto saxophone, any female voice, any low voice, any saxophone, any voice, any woodwind, piano
Publisher: New Music Press
And So It Begins
The Beauty Way (soprano,tenor & bass viols), Finding Accord (violin, cello & piano), Duet After Winter (violin duo), Incidental Ducklings (violin,cello & piano), Dialogues with the Distant Mountains (alto sax & piano), Visions (solo piano),
The Doppelganger (trombone), And So It Begins (string quintet & tenor sax)
Composers: Debra Kaye
Label: Ravello Rcords
Label's Website: www.DebraKayeComposer.com
Product ID: RR7899
Buy URL 2: https://music.apple.com/us/album/debra-kaye-so-it-begins-chamber/915977605
Incidental Ducklings (2004)
Composer: Debra Kaye
Description: This music video, Incidental Duckling, envisions the opening number from the Off-Off Broadway production of Hans Christian Andersen's The Ugly Duckling. It’s part of a suite of dance and incidental music from the show arranged for piano trio. Amy Kimball, violin; Arthur Cook, cello; Marcia Eckert, piano; video by Kiersten Armstrong, KMW Studio.
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB_O9gjL4Fc
Visions (2008)
Composer: Debra Kaye
Description: Commissioned by Access to Music, video by Roxanne Rea, Elizabeth Wolff, piano. Three short pieces inspired by the sense of wonder I experienced during my composing residency at the Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, NM. They’re based on three poems that I wrote in the heat of those moments.
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozI7dCVOkfI
While We Were Sleeping (2012)
Composer: Debra Kaye
Description: Written for Composers Concordance, Craig Ketter, piano. I was in New York City when Hurricane Sandy struck. The storm approached at night, and like many of us, I was glued to the news, listening for the latest about its path. I went to the piano, improvised along, and thought of our unheeded wake up calls. In the morning to find what had happened while we were sleeping.
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wd5XajYILw
