Harleigh Awner

Toward the end of my internship at Electronic Arts, I volunteered to write a short piece to be used as background music in the unannounced god-scale sandbox prototype from Maxis, the studio behind The Sims, on which I worked. The challenge here was mixing Maxis-style music, the style of sandbox game music, and my own flair in a track that would be engaging to the listener but not busy enough that it would detract the player's attention from the game itself. As an added challenge, it had to sound good using MIDI samples only - I wouldn't have access to live performers from CMU's music department until after I finished. The result is this light, slightly jazzy piece for stings, winds, and percussion.

Update (9/13/18): This piece was used in the demo video presented to Maxis at the all-studio meeting.

This miniature was a personal challenge I gave myself to write in a post-modern style. Specifically, I wanted to get away from triads and key signatures typical of music before the 20^th century. This pretty funky piece does just that - there's no real key, or root, to ground the music, and it avoids the types of chords that would give even the illusion of a key throughout. It was a challenge to write something so different from my other pieces, and it was a nice way to explore modern music.

This piece was inspired by Richard Jones' poem "The Bell", written for and performed at the annual Poetry, Music, Art & Dance festival (more information here, or below in the description for "Morning"). I felt two distinct styles from this poem: melancholy contemplation, and the lighthearted fun of a sprawling imagination. While seprately the two main themes sound disjointed - the second feeling more in line with the Legend of Zelda than a somber poem - I was quite happy with its complete form.

This piece, inspired by Dan Gerber's poem of the same name, was the first serious piece of music I composed. This was written for the Poetry, Music, Art & Dance festival, where a poet is brought in (some as noteworthy as the British poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy) to be the centerpiece of the show. Students are then encouraged to write music, choreograph dances, or create drawings, paintings, or sculptures based on the poems written by that year's guest.