The Nightmare Architect

The Nightmare Architect was commissioned by Dr. Justin Cook, trombone professor at the University of Oklahoma. It aims to emulate the concept of lucid dreaming, or the conscious awareness of dreaming while in a dream state. This recognition often gives the dreamer relative autonomy over events and elements of the dream. I've organized this work into five short movements, each of which is themed after one of the five most common nightmares. Each movement transitions fluidly from one to the next with intentional use of harmonic clusters and rhythmic conflict, playing into the programmatic nature of the work. The movement titles are below and represent the fear of falling, feeling lost, physical fighting, the passing of time/death, and being chased.