SELECTED CONCERT WORKS

Dependent Arising
Concerto for violin and orchestra
Duration: approximately 32 minutes
Commissioned by Tito Muñoz for Rachel Barton Pine. Recorded by Pine with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by Muñoz.

Listen · Score and performance inquiries

Metal Organic Framework
Duration: approximately 8 minutes
For solo violin
Commissioned by Rachel Barton Pine, who premiered it in 2014.

Score and performance inquiries

The Brightest of All Possible Futures
For orchestra, soprano soloist, and audience participation
Duration: approximately 5–6 minutes
Commissioned by Carnegie Hall for its Link Up educational program.

Watch The Brightest of All Possible Futures · Score and performance inquiries

Outrage
For flute, bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion
Duration: approximately 10 minutes
Commissioned for the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players. Premiered in April 2025, conducted by Eduardo Leandro.

Watch Outrage · Score and performance inquiries

Indefinite Detention
For solo viola
Duration: approximately 5–6 minutes
Commissioned by Masumi Per Rostad.

Listen · Purchase the score through SozoMart

The Wandering
For solo cello
Duration: approximately 6-7 minutes
Commissioned by Leo Eguchi for UNACCOMPANIED, a project exploring immigration and American identity.

Score and performance inquiries

ABOUT

I’ve never particularly enjoyed reading bios, but you’re here to find out who I am, so here’s the relevant information. First, a quote:

“Earl is a kick ass player who pushes the creative boundaries.”
Robert Trujillo, bassist of Metallica

Validation from one of my adolescent musical heroes almost makes up for my adolescent emotional scars. Almost. If I were fully healed, I suspect I’d have ended up doing whatever well-adjusted people do for a living. Probably not this.

I’m a composer, violinist, violist, and arranger from Queens, New York. I started studying classical violin at four and discovered hardcore punk and metal as a teenager. My own music is the result of spending a lifetime with all three. My formal training was at Queens College and Mannes College of Music, where I earned my bachelor’s and master’s degrees studying with Daniel Phillips of the Orion String Quartet.

Maybe the coolest thing I’ve done as a composer is write a violin concerto. Dependent Arising was commissioned by conductor Tito Muñoz for Rachel Barton Pine, who premiered it with the Phoenix Symphony and later recorded it with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for Cedille Records. It all started when Rachel cold-called me because she was a fan of my now-defunct metalcore band, Resolution15, and asked me to write an unaccompanied violin piece for her. That became Metal Organic Framework, which she premiered in 2014. Tito heard her perform it and asked me to write the concerto.

The ideas behind my concert works often come from what I’m trying to make sense of at the time. For Carnegie Hall’s Link Up program, I wrote The Brightest of All Possible Futures using schoolchildren’s responses to questions about their world and its future. The Wandering, written for cellist Leo Eguchi, explores immigration and American identity. The American government’s inhumane policy of separating families at the border was on my mind when I wrote Indefinite Detention for violist Masumi Per Rostad. 

The seed for Outrage, written for the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, came one afternoon while I was watching Takeshi Kitano’s film of the same name. I thought about how easily the characters in the film moved from declarations of loyalty, brotherhood and honor to casually betraying and murdering one another. That hypocrisy, and how unfortunately familiar it felt in the real world, became the central idea of the piece.

I’m the founder and one of the violinists in SEVEN)SUNS. The group is the mirror image of Resolution15: the ethic and catharsis of hardcore and extreme music funneled through a string quartet. Our repertoire centers on my original compositions and reimaginings of metal and hardcore songs. We workshop the music and curate our programs collectively. Some of our original music was inspired by volunteering at Rikers Island with the Rangjung Dharma Prison Project. Those visits informed Rikers: Songs of the Voiceless, which was supported by the Brooklyn Arts Council and recorded on our debut album, For the Hearts Still Beating. 

SEVEN)SUNS has also ventured into other people’s musical worlds. Our arrangement of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s “43% Burnt” led to recording and arranging strings for their album Dissociation and performing with them live. We eventually took on their complete album One of Us Is the Killer, reworking and recording all eleven songs for quartet. We’ve also played on Kilter’s jazz-metal opera La Suspendida and recorded with Amanda Palmer, So Hideous, Caricature, and Imperial Triumphant. On the latter’s “Merkurius Gilded,” we played an arrangement by Trey Spruance on a track featuring Kenny G. Yes, THAT Kenny G.

Outside the quartet, I’ve explored amplified strings through Resolution15 and Black Heart Sutra, my duo with drummer Kenny Grohowski. I play a custom-made ETJ seven-string electric violin, using it as a rhythmic, chugging instrument. There aren’t many violinists working this way, which sounds like I’m blowing smoke up my own ass, but mostly it means that I’ve spent years of my life figuring out how to do something a guitar already does. I think playing sick chugs on a violin gives them a different sound and color, which justifies it to me, but I’ll leave it up to you whether what I did was creative or stupid. The line between those things is fairly porous at times, I guess.

Much of my working life also involves touring, recording, and arranging with Vitamin String Quartet, alongside sessions and performances in other settings. You can hear me on Cynthia Erivo’s I Forgive You, and I’ve performed with Jay-Z, Florence + The Machine, and Steven Tyler. If you follow wrestling, you’ve heard me playing the lead violin on Shinsuke Nakamura’s WWE entrance theme, “The Rising Sun.” I’ve also played violin and guitar in Burn the Floor on Broadway and improvised in visual artist Janet Biggs’s experimental performances. My wife, cellist Jennifer DeVore, and I have recorded strings for Bad Thoughts and Netflix’s Waffles + Mochi from our home studio.

For commissions, performances, arranging, recording, or lessons, you can reach me at earlmaneein@gmail.com.