All Music Composed by Cameron M. Armstrong
Cameron Armstrong Music
Educator // Performer // Composer
Art Music
All music composed by Cameron Armstrong
Textures in Motion Mov. I, was composed in 2012 for string quartet. It was premiered and recorded in Seattle, WA at Poncho Concert Hall. The piece was inspired by the changing landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, USA. The falling autumn leaves, the rushing streams, the frosty forests, the crisp air of a coming winter, and the warm sunlight peaking through the trees. The piece represents the textures of the land, blending together, and drifting apart, pushing and pulling in the face of a changing climate.
Variations Mov. II was composed in 2012 for string quartet. It was premiered in Seattle, WA at Poncho Concert Hall. The piece was inspired by the changing landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, USA. Mov. II is a dialogue between the people of the land and the land itself. It attempts to communicate the need to coexist in harmony, while facing the unexpected challenges that arise when living off of the land. The connection between the persistent pentatonic melody and the unstable harmonic and rhythmic structures represents the turbulent beauty that arises in the wake of instability.
Cane, composed in 2011 was written for a film score, and features an ensemble comprised of clarinet and strings—the film was never released.
Photo by: Jonathan Gordon
Conversations was composed in 2013 for a mixed ensemble of violin, cello, bassoon, and piano. The piece is a short meditation on colliding musical worlds. At the end of his studies at Cornish, Armstrong began questioning western musical values and hierarchies— were they justified? This piece was ment to be a 'Conversation' between the dissonant, abrupt, and at times detached world of academic music, and his roots as a musician of American folk traditions, or what he saw as the 'music of everyday people.' Throughout the piece, each instrument tries to play a singable pentatonic melody, almost begging the audience to sing along, but each time the melody is interrupted with dissonance and rhythmic unpredictably. The piece begs the question, is over intellectualized music missing the point?