Daniel Shan
Composer, producer, pianist
My Compositions
1. Hurricane (composed in 2023)
This piano piece is my first actual "composition"!
This is my first actual "composition"! This is a relatively traditional piece and I got my inspiration from some of the classical piano sonata I practiced before. I named the piece "Hurricane" because it creates a stirring and exciting mood.
2. The Train to Home (composed in 2023)
This is my first time writing for an ensemble! I chose to write for a string quartet because I love the lyrical and variable sounds of string instruments.
A Train to Home is a string quartet composed of five sections: 'Sunrise,' 'Train to Home,' 'The Dawn,' 'Night Storm,' and 'Home.' As a college student, it was my first time being away from my family for such a long time, and this piece was written to express my emotions during that experience. Each section has its own key, mood, and structure, reflecting a range of feelings, including excitement, sadness, fear, and contentment.
3. The Second Coming (composed in 2023)
(Computer Generated Audio sounds a little bit distorted and not following the correct tempo)
Before composing my own choral piece, I sang another work written by one of the composition professors at CMU with the school choir. It was a deeply inspiring experience that motivated me to create my own choral composition.
I learned about the poem "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats in high school literature class. I remembered watching a video where someone read the poem aloud, and I could almost hear the music within the words. That's why, when I decided to write a choral piece, this poem immediately came to mind.
4. Pendulation (composed in 2024)
After composing a few pieces, it feels like my mind is a little bit limited. I want to write something that forces myself to break through the limitations.
I decided to name this piece "Pendulation" since the main harmonic idea of this piece is the quick switch between keys that are a tritone away.
5. Winter Fantasie (composed in 2024)
I wanted to write a romantic piano piece that could touch the audience. This piece depicts various scenes of winter, from the gentle fall of snowflakes to intense snowstorms.
In this piece, I allowed the key to modulate freely to create special harmonic feelings. I also use multiple voice parts within two hand sometimes to create a more fluent voice leading.
6. A Dream Within a Dream (composed in 2024)
Another choir piece I composed. This piece is based on the poem "A Dream Within a Dream" in which the poet cannot tell the difference between reality and dream.
I tried to make the music fit more to the content of the poem when I was writing this piece by thinking about the color hidden in the the harmony and the momentum carried by the rhythm.
7. 25 Preludes (started in 2024, still in progress)
(Prelude No.5 in C sharp minor)
Does each key has its own "personality"? Different people have different answers to this question. To me, I believe the great composers in history has ears and mind that are sensitive enough to tell the different characteristics of different keys.
I want to imitate greate composers like Bach, Chopin, and Scriabin and write preludes for 24 different keys (The first one of the 25 preludes is atonal). I hope writing for different keys allows me to develope my own comprehension to different keys.