…a world-of-… (2016, 2020)

for flute, clarinet, saxophone, horn, and percussion revised version for string quartet Hiking in the high country of the Rockies can be a meditatively rhythmic experience. After a while, the back-and-forth stride of your legs, the swing of your arms, and the push-and-pull of your breath fall into a steady rhythm

Deferred Resolutions (2016)

for solo guitar “In music, as in life, expectations are often postponed.” –Allen Cadwallader and David Gagné, Analysis of Tonal Music This piece is a lighthearted musing on that serious truism, inspired by one of the many moments in my life when things did not turn out as I had expected.

Extrapolations (2015)

for saxophone and percussion premiered by Wet Ink Ensemble Alex Mincek, saxophone Ian Antonio, percussion

Fan(fare)tasy on an English Carol (2013)

for orchestra (2.1.2.1 4.3.3.0 2perc. cel. strings) Fan(fare)tasy is a paraphrase of the English holiday carol “Here We Come a-Wassailing,” as I remember it through a solo piano arrangement I heard as a child and an a cappella rendition by some of my college friends.

Implied Chaos (2016)

for harp and double bass Implied Chaos is a musical depiction of a fractal, a mathematical pattern where each part is a miniature image of the whole. This fractal, known as the logistic map, is itself a graphical display of the logistic growth function, an equation which governs the rate of growth of a population

Inside/Out (2018)

for solo harp Inside/Out is a musical exploration of the depth and complexity of the human personality. Our individual personalities bind together a multiplicity of emotions, beliefs, and motivations into a coherent self, and some character traits which are deeply meaningful on the inside are not immediately apparent to someone observing from the outside.

Le chant du chat échappé (2014)

for solo harp This piece was written for my sister Heather and premiered by her at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Ontario in April 2015. Growing up, Heather and I had a cat who, though kept strictly indoors, would occasionally attempt to escape into the wide world.

love is more thicker than forget / chromatic intersections (2015)

for soprano, oboe, clarinet, guitar, and percussion The structure of chromatic intersections takes its cue from Four Chromatic Intersections on Gold by the Austrian-American artist Herbert Bayer.

Pace (2017)

for flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, percussion, viola, and cello The idea for Pace was born as I stumbled downstairs from a lecture on the music of Conlon Nancarrow, my stiff legs still reminding me of the race I had run two days earlier.

Scenes of Woods and Wind (2021)

music and photos by Nathan Cornelius Shenandoah National Park Artist-in-Residence, October 2021 I. Kettling II. Upslope Fog (2:46) III. Meadow Dreams (7:36) IV. Stony Man (10:37) Alicia Córdoba, oboe William Moersch, marimba In October 2021, I had the privilege of being artist-in-residence in Shenandoah National Park. Each of the four movements in this piece depicts…Read more Scenes of Woods and Wind (2021)

Shenandoah NP residency: The Shape of Sound (2021)

Solstice (2013)

for solo guitar Solstice employs the warm timbres, shimmering textures, and spicy harmonies of the guitar to evoke the warm, dry sunshine of the summer solstice. I wrote the piece for my friend and colleague Laura Husbands in June 2013, inspired by the guitar music of Leo Brouwer,

Sonata for harp and guitar (2018)

I. Dance II. Song made possible by a grant from the American Harp Society, Inc.

The Magical Highway of the Midwest (2014)

for solo violin and fixed electronics The Magical Highway of the Midwest, my first venture into electronic music, juxtaposes a live violin part with a prerecorded electronic mix. All of the electronic sounds in this piece are derived from recordings of an actual violin, processed and often distorted through editing software.

The Man with the Good Face (2015)

for four singers and chamber ensemble libretto and music co-written with Sarah Perske The idea for The Man with the Good Face came from the 1921 short story of the same name by Frank Luther Mott, in which the protagonist sees a mysterious man on the New York subway.

This Inconstant Stay (2014)

for soprano, guitar, violin, and cello This Inconstant Stay was inspired by the idea of zooming in and out in time to explore timescapes on different levels. For example, the composer Gérard Grisey refers to the glacial “time of whales,” the familiar “time of humans,” and the compressed “time of insects”

Thorofare (2021)

by Nathan Cornelius Performed by Corvus Katie Cox, flute Alex LoRe, saxophone Andie Tanning, violin Joseph Bergen, percussion with Charly Akert, conducting Written as part of the 2021 Composing in the Wilderness Program. Recorded in Fairbanks, AK by Scott Stephen Hansen.

Three Nocturnes (2014-2015): II-III

for large orchestra (3[picc.].3[e.h.].3[bs.cl.].3[cbsn.] 4.2.3.1 timp+3 hp strings) Nocturnes (2014-2015) is a set of three symphonic poems based on nighttime scenes in places I had visited the previous summer. As in Debussy’s famous Nocturnes, the music is not a literal representation of nocturnal sounds,

Three Nocturnes (2015): I

for large orchestra (3[picc.].3[e.h.].3[bs.cl.].3[cbsn.] 4.2.3.1 timp+3 hp strings) Nocturnes (2014-2015) is a set of three symphonic poems based on places I visited the previous summer. As in Debussy’s famous Nocturnes, the music is not meant to be a literal representation of night scenes, but rather an evocation of the feelings I experienced in these environments.

Whatever I Can Be (2020)

for string quartet I. LamentII. PursuitIII. Dedication Alexandr Kislitsyn and Azer Damirov, violinsYoshihiko Nakano, violaBranson Yeast, cello

when we remembered (2014)

for soprano, mezzo-soprano, flute (piccolo), clarinet (bass clarinet), soprano saxophone (alto saxophone), trumpet, cello, double bass, guitar, and piano when we remembered is an exploration of instrumental colors and textures, governed by the elemental sounds of vocal music—consonants and vowels. It was inspired by Renaissance composer G. P. da Palestrina’s setting