Select Compositions

*denotes performance

Dream Pictures*
Suite for Two-manual Harpsichord (2022)
Four Duos*
Two Violins (2022)
- Duo 1
- Duo 2
- Duos 3 & 4
Fish out of Water*
Solo Violin (2022)
Three Pieces About Birds*
Reed Trio – Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon (2022)
The Sound of Talking*
Song Cycle for Soprano/Baritone and Chamber Orchestra (2021)
Four Miniatures for Two Trumpets and Percussion*
Two Trumpets and Percussion (2021)
Balloon Pop
Trombone Quartet (2021)
one degree above average*
Tuba and Fixed Electronics (2021)
Valley Curtain
Full Orchestra (2020)
what the tree said*
Cello Solo (2020)

Three Scenes from "Alice in Wonderland"
Tenor and Marimba (2020)
A Storm We Call Progress*
Chamber Opera (2020)
Summerland
Chamber Oratorio (2019)
- The Game*
- Cities of Gold*
- Vocalise*
Ground Beetle*
Full Orchestra (2019)
Games for Marimba
Marimba solo (2018)
Images 1*
Soprano, Piano, String Trio, Marimba, Percussion, and Electronics (2018)
INSECTA
Six Movements for Solo Piano (Published 2018, CCC Music Co.) Dragonfly, Earthworm, Pond Skater, Ground Beetle, Cricket, Yellow Jacket
Meal Plan*
Percussion – 3 (2017)
Who knows if the moon’s*
Baritone and Piano (2017)
Rip-off of the Rip-off
Solo Piano (2017)
Falling Flowers*
Baritone and Piano (2017)
Airport Birds*
String Quartet (2017)
October Lullaby*
Alto Solo, SATB Chorus, Full Orchestra (2016)
Fugue in d minor
String Trio (2016)
Quarter Tones
Electronic Music (2016)
Windows*
Bassoon, Piano, Vibraphone, Percussion (2016)

so many tictoc*
Soprano and Piano (2016)
Second Line*
Brass Quintet (2016)
The Rumor*
Wind Quintet (2016)
Sidewinder*
Percussion Ensemble (2016)
1407 Kendrick Court*
String Quartet (2016)
Mubvamaropa*
Cello Quartet (2017
The Garden of Love
Piano and Violin (2016)
Sympathy*
String Quartet (2015)
Erinyes*
Full Orchestra (2015)
A Minor Bird*
Soprano and Piano (2015)
Le Vent dans les Arbres (The Wind in the Trees)*
Piano (2015)
The Lake*
Chamber Orchestra (2015)
River to Nowhere
Chamber Orchestra (2015)
Lucy’s Lullaby*
for Piano (2015)
Willows
String Quartet (2015)
Introspection
Chamber Ensemble (2015)
Faust’s Rag*
Full Orchestra (2014)
An English Sonnet*
Soprano and Chamber Septet (2014)
Chamber Sonata in d minor*
Chamber Orchestra (2013)
Curiosity*
Piano (2012)
Cherry Blossoms*
Piano Trio (2011)

Arrangements

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen*
Piano Trio (2017)
In the Bleak Midwinter
String Orchestra (2016)
Overture to Candide
String Trio (2016)
Somewhere Over the Rainbow*
String Trio (2015)

Ode to Joy*
String Trio (2015)
Sacred Star*
Piano (2014)
Amazing Grace*
Piano (2013)

Media

Insecta

Piano Solo Suite

Level: Late Intermediate – Advanced

I have always been fascinated by the world that exists right beneath our feet. With Insecta, I have attempted to write a set of pieces showing this world as it really is – not as a disturbing menagerie of creepy-crawlies, but as an interesting and beautiful collection of diverse creatures that add color to our daily lives. Each of the six movements depicts a different insect I have found in my backyard: a recklessly independent dragonfly weaving between river reeds; an earthworm, isolated in the dark, silent earth; a nimble pond skater dancing a ballet on the water’s surface; a good-natured ground beetle ambling aimlessly; a sonorous cricket whose song is interrupted by constant panic at every outside sound or movement; a belligerent yellow jacket buzzing angrily. I hope you enjoy playing these pieces, and that they make you think about the tiny, fascinating lives that are so often overlooked. To find magic, we need not look further than our own backyards.

Published by the CCC Music Company.

Learn more

About Emma

Emma Cardon-Wake is a composer, harpsichordist, cellist, and pianist from Logan, Utah. As a composer, she has been recognized as an MTNA Composition Young Artist National 2nd place winner, an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards Honorable Mention and Finalist, a NFMC National Winner and recipient of the Olga Klein Nelson Award, and a multiple-year National YoungArts Foundation merit winner.

Cardon-Wake has received commissions from the acclaimed Fry Street Quartet, the American Festival Chorus and Orchestra, the Caine Undergraduate Research Quartet, and the Utah State University Symphony Orchestra. She recently celebrated the publication of a solo piano suite, as well as the premiere of an original chamber opera, A Storm We Call Progress, in 2020.

Cardon-Wake has spent recent summers studying composition at the Cortona Sessions for New Music, the EAMA Summer Music Institute, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and the Brevard Music Center. As an undergraduate student at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music, she provided harpsichord continuo for the baroque ensemble for three years, as well as participated in the Vanderbilt University Orchestra as a section cellist. Cardon-Wake graduated in 2021 with a B.M. in Composition and a Minor in Harpsichord Performance. In 2023, she received her Master of Music in Composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she was the recipient of the Donald Erb Prize in Composition and the Isada-Stillman-Varma Award in Music Theory. She is currently pursuing a Doctoral Degree in Composition at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.

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