Zack Pentecost
composer | sound designer
Large Ensemble
Composer Food
Music for Guitar
Fantasy and Reflections on an Air (2014)
Talking about this work has always been difficult task for me. As a former guitarist, I will always have an affinity for the instrument, but to spend time and write a serious solo work challenged me in many different ways. Fantasy and Reflection on an Air incorporates what I love most about guitar music - awesome riffs, heavy chords, and fast licks - just to name a few.
For the most part, Fantasy and Reflection on an Air is a rhythmically fast paced work with sudden shifts in harmony to designate the beginning of each new section. A slow lyrical theme is introduced towards the middle of the piece as a means to break up the energetic motives used throughout much of the work. As familiar material eventually returns, it is reimagined and sometimes presented similarly or in a completely different context than before.
Guitar Quartet (2011)
Composed in the fall of 2011, this single movement work begins with a chorale that incorporates a small rhythmic figure in the lower voice that grows to become the basis for the pulse used throughout much the piece. As the rhythm sets in, pitches are
bounced from one guitar to another to create a stereo echo effect that accompanies a melody that begins grows until the opening chorale makes a brief interruption before the section closes. The following section moves the repeated rhythm idea to the upper voice while the melody moves to the lower register. A return to the rhythmic groove facilitates the build to the climax of the piece presenting more stereo effects that make way for the melody. The repeated upper pitches return with an alerted version of the partfrom its earlier section. All of this makes way for a return of the chorale, but now featuring small fragments of the other ideas as the piece draws to a close.
Postlude:1602/1623 (2016)
...includes many different things I love about electronic music: rhythmic grooves, harmony, synthesizers, and manipulated sounds. Beginning with short bursts of fireworks – recorded from an ocean front show, the piece grows to include many different rhythmic patterns before harmony is finally introduced. The layers slowly seem to melt as the piece begins to calm and texture starts to predominate through remnants of melodies and other previously heard sounds. This pushes the piece forward as it begins to build again, reaching a climax where new trance like rhythms is all that remains as the piece draws to a close.
Interlude:1882 (2016)
A work for fixed media that draws on shoveling textures, shimmering metallic sounds, and other various types of repeated tones. As the piece opens up, many natural sounds may be heard, but they are quickly consumed in an ever growing texture. Throughout the various sections, new harmonies are layered over top sounds that being to bend. After, a moment of stillness, a driving percussive motion lead to an upward lift as the piece pushes to a close.
Steel Wheels (2014)
Completed in March 2014, Steel Wheels begins as a simple meditative soundscape that that undergoes transformations during its various sections. Throughout the work, sounds are increasingly stretched and manipulated to create metallic waves, reminiscent of Tibetan sing bowls, which flow back and forth. As new sounds are layered on top of one another the soundscape begins to deteriorate, thus propelling the piece forward. Approximately five and half minutes long, Steel Wheels pushes the idea of meditation with its changes in tension, both gradually and unexpectedly.
Short Story (2015)
Reading session with University of Minnesota Orchestra.
Novellete (2012)
Reading session with University of Tennessee Orchestra.
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