A meditation on insomnia based on a despairing poem by the Austrian writer Rainer Maria Rilke. Written for Benjamin Verdery and used as the 2022 audition set piece for the Yale School of Music Guitar Department.
One of the most intense projects I’ve ever done, this 25 minute collection is based on 14 of over 500 melodies I studied in order to choose the best material for guitar compositions. The collection spans the full range of beginner (akin to Suzuki book 1) to advanced (akin to Villa-Lobos preludes) and every piece is based on melodies from enslaved or recently emancipated African-Americans. Commissioned by Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, these works feature trio ensemble versions of the simplest solo pieces, as well as both simplified and advanced versions of many etudes so that teachers can choose the appropriate level for their students.
The St Louis Classical Guitar Society premiered my work Delmar Boulevard Blues on April 30, 2022. It’s a fun but melancholy bluesy jazz piece in the classical tradition of William Grant Still’s Lenox Blues. For mixed levels and an optional divisi part. It is inspired by the redlining Delmar Divide street that cuts St Louis across racial and class lines. For mixed levels and optional soloing instrument.
This is pretty cool and just out today. The Ex-Aequo Artists guitarist collective undertook a MASSIVE project to commission 9 Black American composers to write new works for the classical guitar: Changing the Canon. I was one of them and wrote a piece based on a scene from Hindu scripture. You can see all 9 works in the playlist at the side. Bravo to Phil Goldenberg for performing my incredibly difficult piece with such tremendous skill and musicality and congrats to all involved. BRAVI!
The Virginia Music Educators Association (VMEA) featured Flippin’s new composition The Covenant: Passacaglia for Minneapolis at the 2021 convention. Featuring Martha Masters as conductor and Matthew Dunlap as electric guitar soloist.
Canadian guitarist and recent Yale graduate and new music specialist Emanmanuel Jacob Lacopo performs Flippin’s Scenes from America.
Jack Davisson is the winner of the Guitar Foundation of America youth competition and performs Jericho at an abandoned military facility near San Francisco.
A new work combining classical guitar quartet and jazz guitar. Inspired by a weeks-long racist mob in 1930s Minneapolis.
"Being alive and able to do the work I love to do. That’s enough to keep me inspired."
- 5 Questions for Tyshawn Sorey: I Care if You Listen Fall 2020
“Music is my profession, and what I love to do. All the rest that goes with it is either fortunate or unfortunate. You have to take the rough with the smooth. I wouldn’t do it unless I got something from it—and I do. I’m stimulated by the feeling of an audience in a concert, that I can give pleasure to them. It gives me a pure yet beautiful reason for the pursuit of excellence. I have to play the guitar often, and that is something I really want to do well. I suppose I’m “locked in,” but it sometimes gives me immense pleasure to be so confined!”