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2022

Firebreak was selected for the newest volume of works performed by Jeffrey Jacobs. In addition to Sain's work, Vol. 19 of “Contemporary Eclectic Music for the Piano” includes works by Oliveira, Conklin, Coleman, Heinick, Timpson, and Adler. The work was released on the New Ariel label. Firebreak (2019) was written for piano virtuoso Mary Hellmann. Written in a jazz style, the composition is derived from the pitches presented in the first chord of the work (Bbmi7b9#11). A “firebreak” is an obstacle to the spread of fire, such as a strip of open space in a forest. The composer spends much of his freetime at his cabin in a forest in the South Mountains of North Carolina where firebreaks are necessary to control both natural fires and control burns. The are a number of musical “firebreaks” throughout this work allowing for brief respites from the enslaught of the incessant and omnipresent hexicord as well as the swung eighth notes.

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2021

Firebreak is the title work for Mary Hellmann's new CD release on Centaur Records. The disc also includes works by Beethoven, Scarlatti, Christopher Cook, and Thomas Harrison. Firebreak (2019) was written for piano virtuoso Mary Hellmann. Written in a jazz style, the composition is derived from the pitches presented in the first chord of the work (Bbmi7b9#11). A “firebreak” is an obstacle to the spread of fire, such as a strip of open space in a forest. The composer spends much of his freetime at his cabin in a forest in the South Mountains of North Carolina where firebreaks are necessary to control both natural fires and control burns. The are a number of musical “firebreaks” throughout this work allowing for brief respites from the enslaught of the incessant and omnipresent hexicord as well as the swung eighth notes.

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2010

	Kornighet was just released on composer/clarinetest Jorge Variego's CD, "Necessity," on Albany Records. The disc also includes works by Jorge Variego, Sergio Fidemraizer, Mike Solomon and Billie Holiday. Kornighet (1995), the Swedish word for “granulated,” was commissioned by clarinetist Anna Carney and East Tennessee State University. It is the result of research initiated at the Institute for Electro-Acoustic Music in Sweden (EMS). This research was made possible through grants from the Office of Research, Technology, and Graduate Education, the College of Fine Arts, and the Department of Music at the University of Florida as well as a Swedish-American Exchange Fund from the Swedish Consulate General to the United States. The electroacoustic elements of the piece were generated and manipulated with the Csound software synthesis system. All tape sounds utilize granulation synthesis as macro-control over the synthesis methods and sample manipulation. All timbres originate from clarinet or “clarinet-like” sounds.
“...boasts sophisticated, state-of-the-art sound manipulation.” Michael Cameron, about Kornighet in the magazine “Fanfare”
Find this CD at albanyrecords.com [click here] Find this CD at amazon.com [click here]

2009

	SLAMMED has been released on saxophone virtuoso Susan Fancher's CD, “In Two Worlds,” on the Innova label. The disc also includes works by Morton Subotnick (title track), Judith Shatin, Edmund Campion, Reginald Bain, Mark Engebretson and John Anthony Lennon. SLAMMED (2006) - the one word title of the work can be used in many contexts such as “gee...I'm slammed,” or “do you want to get slammed?” Slammed in these contexts can have any number of meanings. This work is meant to convey a sense of “slammedness” arriving at the point of psychosis. Though, this might only be the plight of a delusional composer and his personal hypnopompic hallucinations related to the melodic third.
"A fun ride." Jay Batzner, review on new music website "Sequenza21" "...the piece effectly conveys an exciting sense of obsession through the use of large-scale timbral strategies that eventually lead to a saxophone part that is sufficiently detached as to suggest hallucinations or delusions of the psychotic." Rodney Washka II, review in new music magazine "New Music Connoisseur" "...highly interactive and textually complex..." Andy Druckenbrod, "Gramophone"
Download program book PDF (4.38MB) Find this CD at innovarecordings.com [click here] Find this CD at amazon.com [click here]

Get “Slammed” as performed by Susan Fancher on her album, In Two Worlds, on the Apple iTunes site

2007

Coriolis Effect (Effecto Coriolis) has been released as part of the “Sonido y visiones del sur” CD series from the University of Lanús, Buenos Aires, Argentina. The work was written for premiere on their Sonoimágenes international festival of electroacoustic music and contemporary video. Coriolis Effect, gets its title from the “effect” that determines, among other things, the swirl direction of water going down the drain. Like most Northern Hemisphere dwellers, I was delighted my first morning in Buenos Aires to witness the hemispherical difference of the swirl direction first hand. Coriolis Effect was composed as a tribute to all my wonderful Argentine friends as they search for the return of economic and cultural stability to the country they love so much. From the crunch of the harmonies in the tango to the exhalations of the bandeneón, from the creative navigation of their cars to the sharing of mate (a tea made from ilex paraguarensis) between dear friends, the passion of the Argentine people is evident in every part of their lives. This composition emerged from research initiated in the summer of 2001 when the composer was invited to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to present on the “Sonoimágenes 2001” festival of electroacoustic music.

2006

Sain was commissioned by Mitchell Estrin to write a work for the University of Florida Clarinet Ensemble. The composition was performed on the 2006 International Clarinet Association Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. In December, A Brief View of Eternity, was released on the CD “Wind in the Reeds” by the commissioning ensemble on the Mark Masters label. A Brief View Of Eternity (2006) is homage to the composer's maternal grandmother, Grace May Ayres, who passed away at the age of 95 in February of 2002. The work is meant to represent the eternal nature of selfless love. The composition was inspired by her shared memories of doughboys returning home by ship from World War I at the docks in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The bands, perhaps those of the Salvation Army or military, meeting the ships carrying the wounded and dieing played “Nearer My God To Thee.” As the young men disembarked from the ships, the most severely stricken were carried on stretchers and in baskets. The work is based on the 1856 Lowell Mason hymn tune, “Bethany.” The tune is most often performed with words loosely based on Genesis 28:11-12, “Nearer My God To Thee,” by Sarah Flower Adams.

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2005

Sain's work Declamation! for solo piano can be found on “Inner Voices” disc released by the Society of Composers Inc. (Vol. 14 of their CD series) on the Capstone label. The work is performed by saxophonist Kandace Brooks and pianist Richard Bosworth. Declamation! (1989) is intended to be a tour-de-force for the piano virtuoso. The entire composition is derived from the brief emphatic statement that opens the work. Intervalic and rhythmic material is evolved through continued recontextualization of extracted fragments of this incipit. The work is a dramatic and emphatic musical statement.

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2002

Sain's work Tåg till ... for solo digital media can be found on Vol. 1 of the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival CD series on the Electronic Music Foundation label. Tåg till ... (1998) owes its lineage to those electroacoustic works with a transportation theme. Like Pierre Schaeffer's “Etude aux chemins de fer” (Railroad Etude, 1948), Tåg till ... is about another rail based mode of transport. While living in Stockholm, Sweden, during the summer of 1995 I took a portable DAT recorder around with me on my journeys to and from the Institute for Electroacoustic Music Sweden (EMS). This meant a 45-minute trip from Stockholm University, mostly by subway to the old brewery on Södermalm. I became enchanted with the musical sounds around me from both the machinery and the people of the underground railway (though, like many “subways” the Stockholm system often rises above the terra firma to get a breath of fresh air). I was particularly interested in one engineer's voice on the train to Telefonplan.

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1998

Sain's work Dystopia, for saxophone and piano can be found on “Greetings from...” disc released by the National Association of Composers U.S.A. The work is performed by virtuoso pianist Richard Bosworth. In a review for Borders Music, Sain's acoustic music was described: James Paul Sain's 'Dystopia,' accompanied by piano, is a weightier work, requiring repeated hearings to fully appreciate its emotionally probing and moving central movement as well as the highly rhythmic, contrapuntal outer movements, reminiscent of Hindemith and Irving Fine at their inspired best. Dystopia (1992) is an exploration of several scalar patterns and their inherent harmonic resources. The first movement contrasts a percussive piano part with angular saxophone writing. The second movement allows the saxophone to sing, first alone, then above the slow moving piano, ending again with the solo saxophone. The last movement is to be played at a metronome marking of mm-120 (or better!); a highly linear texture is puncturated by verticalizations of the melodic material. The title, often used in science fiction to describe a bleak post-apocalyptic future, is the opposite of utopia.

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