Khastakhumar and Bibinagar, a Cupid and Psyche-type story from Afghanistan, is the basis for this new cycle of songs for the Alcestis band: Doug Balliett, Mollie Marcuson, myself, and singer Alison Fletcher.

I produced this hip hop retelling of the Rake’s Progress with rapping bassoonist Brad Balliett. The music draws from our chamber music as well as found sounds and quotations. Stream or download the whole EP at oraclehysterical.com

I contributed a tape part to a realization of Stockhausen’s Tierkreis for the Ensemble ACJW’s series at LPR. The New York Times called it “exhilarating.”

I rewrote Bob Dylan’s great song Maggie’s Farm for the Sissy-Eared Mollycoddles December 2009 concert at Heaven Gallery in Chicago.

An hour of dramatic music, in contrasting styles, for oboe, clarinet, cello, harmonium, piano and harp, written to accompany a play of the same name.

The Houston Chronicle: “Elliot Cole’s original score proves an unqualified success.” The Houston Press: “Elliot Cole’s astonishingly apt music, played live, is like listening to a quartet scored by Edgar Allan Poe. It’s the evening’s best surprise.”

This miniature was part of Xenia Pestova’s 30 Second Piano Project, performed in Montreal in June, 2009.

A set of reinvented Beatles songs for Harp, Bass, Ukulele, Harmonium and Two Voices. [Not yet recorded.]

I worked with Brad and Doug Balliett to write a cycle based on Stockhausen’s Tierkreis melodies, which we performed in our house on Bonnie Brae. Recordings are of Taurus and Cancer.

0/1 was created in Max/MSP/Jitter, and is based on Conways’ Game of Life. I wrote a set of patches that turns each live cell into a tone, pitched according to the y axis and spatialized (in four channels) according to location. It can be pre-programmed or played via MIDI keyboard. 0/1 also existed as an interactive, camera controlled installation.

A long, quiet walk through Parable of the Sower for double string quartet and piano.

For violin and piano, performed by Tema Watstein and Jasmine Hatem.

Endgame Study follows a simple logic: a continuous restriction of possibilities, with a parallel constriction of musical space. As the funnel gradually tightens, we hear a systematic tour of musical possibility as though slowly turning a radio dial, suggesting, in broad strokes, the unity of the stylistic domain.

An homage to Toru Takemitsu for double string quartet, written in a tight iterative routine of interlocking loops that maximizes both cohesion and improvisation, generating an emergent phrase and large-scale form morphogenetically, from within.

A tape collage in four parts: Wake / Work / Sleep / Dream.

A slow explosion of the first 24 notes of Bach’s Dm violin partita, for piano and live processing (long delay).