Somniloquy by Bobby Richeson

1. Airships, 2014

This piece was written the first week of 2014 for "Weekly Beats", an organized challenge to write new music weekly for the entire year. It was too time-consuming and not conducive to composing larger works so I didn't continue very far but this is one of the better pieces I wrote for it.

2. Of Dreamscapes & Memories, 2017

Written in December for my wife as a Christmas present. This was written surprisingly fast, all things considered - in about 3 days. I don't often write slower pieces, so I wanted to do one that was also rhythmically interesting.

3. Polaris, 2014

Another piece that I wrote for Weekly Beats. I wrote this with an additional challenge on myself - to write a song without listening to audio while writing it. This led to a smaller selection of instruments and simpler orchestration, but it turned out to be something more interesting than if I had composed it normally.

4. Sonatina, 2016

I wrote this with the idea of having a very basic and simple melody (it's only two pitches) but making everything else virtuosic.

5. Darkness and Starlight, 2017

This piece started out as just a piano piece focusing on two against three patterns. Eventually a violin was added and it became a duet. In addition to 2:3 I also focused on making phrases full of longer sustained notes to give more of a spacious feel to the music.

6. What Comes Next?, 2018

This was the result of several attempts to write a piece for large chamber ensemble. There were probably 5 attempts before this one, none of which sounded anything like this. Rather than having a strong, catchy melody, the focus was on catchy rhythms.

7. Divination, 2017

I had always wanted to write a concerto for alto saxophone. This was actually my second attempt at one. Fun Fact: The first alto sax concerto I wrote was turned into the basis of "Sun Reverie" for From The Lake. "Divination" only took about 3 weeks to complete, the hardest part (as always) being getting a good start. Once things got going and the themes were developed, it ended up going really quickly and is a piece I'm very proud of.