Christopher Schoelen - Fifteen Minutes of Fame

15 one-minute selections for Christopher Schoelen

A Playful Piece for Guitar

Fabio Beckert

Considering Christopher Schoelen's concise and precise technique, Fabio Beckert composed a piece that focuses on the expressiveness of interpretation. Well elaborated, yet almost sounding like a popular tune, it aims to make listening as democratic as possible, enhancing the reach of both the work and the artist.

Fabio Beckert is a multidisciplinary Brazilian artist — musician, composer, and creator in the performing and visual arts. Self-taught and an enthusiast of both classical and popular guitar, he has accumulated an impressive number of musical compositions, spanning popular and classical styles, through which he has performed in numerous regions of Brazil and Europe.
Steps

David Bohn

[no program note]

David Bohn received degrees in composition from the University of Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the University of Illinois. He currently resides in West Allis, Wisconsin, and is the music coordinator at Peace Methodist Church in Brookfield. He is the President of the Wisconsin Alliance for Composers.
Missing Maurizio

Ross James Carey

Missing Maurizio for solo guitar was composed on 31 March 2024 in Xinzheng, Henan province, China and is a small and heartfelt tribute to Maurizio Pollini (1944-2024), the great Italian pianist who died the previous week. Missing Maurizio was composed for Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame featuring guitarist Christopher Schoelen.

Ross James Carey is a composer and foreign professor at Sias University, China. From Aotearoa/New Zealand, his work combines quotation and cross-genre elements whilst looking at questions of place and identity. Recent works include Pendopo Dreaming for wind quintet, and a song cycle Chang’an Dreaming (poems Margaret T. South).
Minimal Étude No.2

Gerard Cousins

Minimal Etude no.2 plays with the different tone colours of the open and closed strings on the guitar, as well as an elusive rhythmic ideas created with the 5/8 time signature.

Gerard Cousins is a Welsh guitarist and composer. His guitar works show his diverse influences of Indian Classical, American Minimalism, Jazz and Celtic ideas. His latest commissions include a duet for flute and guitar and a full length Guitar Concerto for guitar with full symphony orchestra.
Partido Alto

Douglas DaSilva

Partido Alto is one of my favorite Brazilian rhythms. This piece should come across as loud, busy, and funky, like carnaval, while blending old sounds with new.

Douglas DaSilva’s ability to compose was stunted during the Covid pandemic. There was just too much time on hand to have the stress necessary to create. Now, under a glorious abundance of pressure, he creates passionately and incessantly. The dam has been breached.
dȄȄp Zlあ nti wolfbrӕne [deep Zlanti wolfbrane]

Evan Gallagher

there is no programmatic or literary content, no story being told, no attempt to create a "picture", moving or otherwise. this is in no way "program music", nor, heaven forbid, "movie music". the first two words in the title come from the 1957 science fiction short story "Grandpa" by J. H. Schmitz (1911-1981) found in Dell Publishing Co.'s 1966 collection, "Time Probe", edited by Arthur C. Clarke. but the music has nothing to do with a giant lily pad-like transport named Grandpa nor the Zlanti Deep lagoon in which it lived and was fatefully boarded, and was created by the composer after completion of the music, even after preparing and proofing and prettyprinting, and the final word is a pun on "wolfsbane" (Aconitum) and the concept of "branes" from string theory —but none of this has anything to do with the music heard. [perhaps the above would do for program notes?] also any theoretical, analytical-dissecting expounding is not particularly of interest (especially since nothing of that sort was used in the composing). so there is really not much to say about the music itself… …other than please listen.

Who I am I and how I got to be this composer are not important when listening to this piece. There is no "story" or "meaning" involved - it's just music.
Just a Minute

David Heinick

Just a Minute is a simple work that uses only the melodic capabilities of the guitar, although at times that melody may be viewed as arpeggiating chords.

David Heinick retired in May of 2018 after forty years of teaching, the last twenty-nine at SUNY-Potsdam’s Crane School of Music. He is the composer of over 150 works. With Carol Heinick, he has played music for two pianists, and has been active as a collaborative pianist.
Other Than

Shigeru Kan-no

That´s 2 lines System for polyphony between noise and ordinario. Because of the Guitar I can rub strings. "rub with nail between saddle and Bridge" is quasi arpeggio. We can make a rhythum with it. At the end I have discovered, he can play very good flageolett.

Composer & Conductor: Shigeru Kan-no C.V. A Japanese Composer-Conductor. borned in Fukushima/ Japan. Studies in Fukushima, Tokyo, Wien, Stuttgart, Ludwigsburg and Frankfurt : theory, piano, composition, conducting and musicology. He conducted Nuerunberg Philharmonic, Roma Symphony Orchestra. Paris Contemporary Music Ensemble. etc.
mono #6-24

Naoki Kondo

exploring fragile and monochrome sounds and spaces.

Naoki Kondo (b.1995) is a Japanese composer. Exploring fragile and monochrome sounds and spaces that are "hazama" (between the worlds we perceive). Simultaneously, considering the mutual connection to that "hazama".
Study in C

Pablo A. Rago

This is a Study for guitar in wich the performer has some amount of freedom.

Composer, guitar player, and professor currently based in Mar del Plata. Graduated in Composition at the Music Conservatory Luis Gianneo from Mar del Plata, Argentina. He has been selected in several international call for scores around the world (Italu, USA, Netherlands, Australia)
La enigmática espiral

Juan Luis de Pablo Enríquez Rohen

Written specifically for Christopher Schoelen, this piece for solo guitar is a virtuosic piece that utilizes arpeggios, pull-offs and articulations pretending to describe the luminosity, force and trajectory of a comet spiraling itself towards de Sun’s orbit. Harmonically and melodically speaking it uses the multidisciplinary “JLPER Theory” and centrality.

Most of his academic compositions are based on a multidisciplinary theory between music, astronomy and archaeology called: the JLPER Theory. Numbers and notes are paired with the observable and unique elements of the galaxy which have been previously rendered in the aesthetics and architecture of many pre-hispanic ruins across Mexico.
Prelude in E Major

Yoav Shati

Self-taught amateur composer since age 18 (2019), mostly influenced by common practice music but also taking inspiration from more modern styles (classical and otherwise). My goal is to create music that is both accessible and has depth, to reward all kinds of listeners.
Graffi

Pierluigi Tanzi

Pierluigi Tanzi was born in Parma. He obtained the Diploma of Higher Specialization Studies at the National Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome. His works have been selected, performed and awarded in competitions, reviews and festivals of contemporary music. He is a Professor at the Conservatory of Music “L.Refice” of
Estudio Ibérico

Jean-Pierre Vial

Estudio Ibérico is a short study of Hispanic style dedicated to guitarist Christopher Schoelen.

Jean-Pierre Vial, born in 1946 near Paris, France, is a former software designer. At an early age, he learned the piano, the organ, and composed several pieces for both instruments. Over the last decade, various soloists, small ensembles, or orchestras have performed his music worldwide.
Glance

Blair Whittington

The title Glance refers to the shortness of the piece. It has an overall positive mood but also a few harmonic surprises.

Blair Whittington is a Los Angeles native and composer. His compositions are primarily chamber music, songs and electronic music. His music has been performed across the United States and Europe.

Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame

Christopher Schoelen - guitar

Concert Dates

15 one-minute selections for Christopher Schoelen