R Michael Daugherty
R. Michael Daugherty is a prize-winning composer. His compositions include numerous chamber works, including seven string quartets, as well as pieces for orchestra, band, and solo instruments. Other pieces include over sixty art songs and over sixty choral works, including two Masses and a Requiem. Recent 2013 performances include Lux Perpetua, winner of the 2012/2013 Ars Nova Chamber Orchestra Composition Competition on February 3 in Washington, D.C., “Fischerweise,” winner of the 2013 Houston Saengerbund Choral Composition Contest for Männer Chor, on May 5 in League City, Texas, and “Remembering Clocks”, composed for the Denison Singers, on June 23 in Granville, Ohio. His song cycle, Passages, received October and November performances in Colorado and Minnesota. His work, Time by the River, third place winner of the Boathouse Cello Choir Competition, was premiered at the Carling Hotel in Jacksonville, Florida, on April 5, 2014.
He recently completed a song cycle, All I Have to Give Today, for mezzo-soprano, clarinet and piano, as part of a NC Regional Artist Grant. The song cycle will be performed by members of the East Carolina University faculty on September 8, 2014, at ECU. His ballet, As You Like It, is currently being prepared by the International Ballet Company and the Triangle Youth Philharmonic Select Chamber Orchestra for performances on August 9 and 10, 2014, at the Cary Arts Center in Cary, North Carolina.
Dr. Daugherty holds a B.A. degree from Denison University, studying with Elliot Borishansky and M.M. and D.M.A. degrees from The Ohio State University studying with Marshall Barnes.
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Irini Variations begins with an introduction using each letter of "Irini" as a Morse code rhythm and melodic fragment separated by a louder chord. The A section, beginning in m. 10, combines the letters into a theme using the "Irini" rhythm three times. The first two variations use the original theme with interjections between each appearance of the "Irini" rhythm. The third variation, at m. 64, begins a B section by using the "Irini" rhythms, separated by sixteenth rests, as an ostinato beneath a freely-composed melody for the right hand. C material, a set of three variations, at m. 98, turns the separated "Irini" rhythm into a syncopated melody, first for the right hand, then fragmented in the left hand, then returning to the right hand. A variation using the A theme in imitation, at the anacrucis to m. 139, follows. The freely-composed melody and ostinato (B material) is next, this time with links that allow the ostinato to change pitch. The D section is a variation at m. 192 that separates the "Irini" rhythm into two parts: "Ir" and "ini". It is interrupted briefly by the ostinato theme but returns at m. 208. A compact version of the A theme begins at m. 220. It is followed by a variation using an augmentation of the "Irini" rhythm (m, 229). An extensive variation using the C material begins at m. 246. The remaining section of the piece (m. 301) is a coda using material from Variation 1, the A section, and Variation 3, the ostinato from the B section (m. 308). A final compact statement of the original "Irini" theme ends the piece.
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