LIST OF WORKS
ORCHESTRAL
PERSISTENT DREAMS
2022, 3'
For symphony orchestra
A brief and energetic work built on a repeated figure and a driving rhythm, evolving from cyclic, flying sounds to a grandiose height to a whispering close - all within that mystical consistency of the world of dreams.
WALTZ
2019, 7'
For symphony orchestra
Commissioned by the Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra, Waltz takes inspiration from the dance music and landscapes of Erik's roots in Estonia and rural Ontario. Winner of the Most Promising Young Composer award and Third Prize, International Music Festival & Competition 2019.
SYMPHONY IN C MINOR
2017, 35'
For symphony orchestra
A four-movement work perhaps best described as a depiction of the natural world. Winner of the 2018 Toronto Teen Composer Award from Continuum Contemporary Music.
AN AUTUMN BREEZE
2016, 4'
For string orchestra
A light-hearted early piece of Erik's, with flowing contours inspired by the fall colours of Ontario.
CHAMBER
KAUGE KÕLIN
2022, 6'
For baritone, flute, clarinet, violin, cello and percussion
A setting of Estonian poet Ernst Enno's "Kauge kõlin" (The Distant Sound ). A character's memories are stirred by hearing a distant, metallic sound, and their thoughts are brought to a rich and painful land of the imagination.
PÄIKE, KUU
2021, 7'
For string quintet: two violins, viola, cello and double bass
Päike, kuu - Estonian for Sun, Moon - echoes the earthly and celestial sounds that resonate from the heights and depths of nature. Harmonically uniform and with a simple falling progression at its core, the piece unfolds instinctively and dynamically through melodically structured first and third movements, and flowing, freeform second and fourth movements where melody is relegated to repetition and reverberation of contour. A dawn grows in the final moments.
PIANO TRIO
2020, 9'
For violin, cello and piano
A passionate and painful expression, perhaps, of loss.
PASSAGES
2020, 13'
For clarinet and cello
Passages is a testament to the significance of dealing with change as part of the human experience. The piece is perhaps a journey from a small, simple place into a broader world, or else a growing-up story of a character developing from a moral purity to a difficult but fascinating complexity.
BREATHING
2020, 6'
For two accordions
Breathing is a study of the technical possibilities unlocked in an accordion piece when two sets of bellows are available in tandem. Like two handheld organs, the accordions seem perpetually suspended in time, presenting harmonic transitions with little attention to meter; nonetheless, they breathe with each other in a very human display of comfort.
THE SWEET GROUND
DREAMS (3')
ARDELLA (2')
GOD (3')
2019, 8'
For soprano and piano
A song cycle consisting of three settings of short poems by Langston Hughes, all sharing a fundamental theme of the beauty of human life: Dreams, on the importance of fantasy, reverie, and sublimity as elements of the human experience; Ardella, on the presence of small, easily-overlooked beauties that can give deep value to something seemingly worthless; and God, on the beauty of love, and humankind’s fortune that we may experience it.
MEDITATION
2018, 9'
For cello and piano
In this emotionally immense piece, the opening meditation is a mere synecdoche for a perilous journey far beyond its borders. Winner of the Most Promising Young Composer award and Third Prize, International Music Festival & Competition 2019.
CHANGES
2018, 6'
For viola, cello, double bass and two percussionists
Though revolving around the conflicting emotions - anger, grief, regret - that follow a loss, or any significant unwanted change, at the heart of the program of Changes is acceptance. Winner of First Prize and Platinum standing, composition for ensemble, Kiwanis Festival 2018.
THE FROZEN LAND
2017, 3'
For violin, viola and two cellos
Stark yet forgiving in essence, The Frozen Land is a depiction of winter landscapes through various changing lenses: seeing the cold and bitter, or seeing the beautiful.
SOLO
CHILDHOOD SUITE
I. LIED (3')
II. NOCTURNE (3')
III. FLIGHT (4')
IV. MAGIC (6')
V. THE STORM (4')
VI. PRELUDE (5')
For piano
A collection of six pieces of ascending difficulty, the Childhood Suite is a growing-up story. The pieces can stand alone, or together tell a broad tale of experience and maturity. Magic was the winner of First Prize and Platinum standing for solo composition at the Kiwanis Festival, 2018.
2016-19, 25'
ELEGY
2019, 3'
For piano
A tragic lement of a lost loved one.
SUNSET OVER AN ALGONQUIN LAKE
2018, 2'
For piano
Written over the span of an evening at the bank of a pristine lake in Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park, Sunset over an Algonquin Lake is a depiction of the growing of a glorious sunset and its subsequent waning to reveal the sublimity of the night sky.
IMPROMPTU
2018, 3'
For cello
Drone strings permeate this rhythmically-driven piece, where an augmenting pulse broadens as excitement continues to build.
PIANO SONATA IN D MINOR
2016, 15'
For piano
An early work of Erik's, the three-movement Sonata develops over the course of a quarter-hour from a graceful, Classically-inspired opening through an uneasy middle movement and into a passionate finale.
CHORAL
OUR WISH
2019, 4'
For SATB divisi
A setting of an excerpt from W. H. Auden's dramatic poem For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio, Our Wish is an expression of humankind's acceptance of its infinite flaws - and that this acceptance is in the name of none other than Love.
MEMORY
2018, 4'
For SATB divisi
Memory is a setting of Percy Bysshe Shelley's timeless poem, "Music, When Soft Voices Die". While the text is most often read as melancholic, bittersweet, this setting reflects an optimistic and loving reading of Shelley's influential poem.