About Liam
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Fed by his insatiable creativity and inventive spirit, Liam Cummins writes music that nods to the past and dives into the future. His many wide-ranging works include a string quartet honoring child Holocaust victims, a forty-minute tone poem for orchestra grappling with the global pandemic, a piano quartet highlighting the accelerating effects of climate change, and even a fanfare using only household objects as instruments.
Liam's music has been recognized widely for its inventiveness, orchestration and broad emotional range. He is the 2022 YoungArts Gold Winner in Classical Music, awarded by the National Foundation for the Advancement of Artists. He is also a three-time finalist for the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, the winner of the 2022 American Prize in composition, and the only young composer in the country to have been nominated for consideration as a 2022 U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts. An enthusiastic advocate of concert music, Liam strives to make the art form accessible and impactful for as many people as possible – especially those not frequently exposed to it. Liam is pursuing his Bachelor of Music degree at The Juilliard School, studying with John Corigliano. |
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Featured Music
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“With any luck, we’ll be fine,” were the words uttered by an orthopedic surgeon after he’d operated on my wrist, which I’d broken in a biking accident. I found this concerning — I was ready to celebrate what I’d assumed would be a full recovery. Apparently, the doctor wasn’t so sure. Since then, the words have become an oft-repeated phrase to describe a multitude of situations that will likely work out, but might just go terribly wrong.
This piece explores a multitude of possible meanings behind the fateful words. Though largely self-assured and fast-moving, the music is marked by moments of nearly going off the rails, nearly disintegrating, nearly loosing momentum. But you know how it goes: With any luck, we’ll be fine. |
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A positive feedback loop is a cycle in which a change in a given direction causes additional change in the same direction. Climate scientists warn that the process of anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change is becoming a positive feedback loop, one in which each warming of the planet sparks other factors that further warm the planet.
To attempt to convey the gravity of climate change in six minutes seemed unattainable. Realizing this, I instead created this piece out of the same cycles causing climate change: positive feedback loops. Each acceleration of the motive sparks another faster acceleration of the motive, which sparks yet another more absurd gesture… the process continues until it can no longer be furthered. |
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© Copyright Liam Cummins 2020-2022. All rights reserved.
Photos by Liam Cummins and Isaac Coffy. |