TIFFANY NG 
DARK MATTERS Carillon Music of Stephen Rush

Since Stephen Rush’s debut carillon work Three Etudes reshaped the 
soundscape of carillon composition in 1987, he has steadily fashioned 
new campanological sounds in partnership with trailblazing 
carillonists like Margo Halsted and Neil Thornock. When Halsted 
premiered Six Treatments for Carillon in 2002, they launched a 
tradition of carillon with live electronics at the University of Michigan 
that flourishes to this day. In 2013, Dark Matters invited us to attend 
to time, space, and chance on a vast scale. Through the visceral 
experience of music, movement, and space, this piece leads into the 
unknown, questioning the origin of life, coincidence and inevitability, 
macro and micro, the stars and the elements, the instant and the 
eternal. 

As an oeuvre, Rush’s carillon music is singular in style, compelling in 
its driving rhythmic effects, and pushes the technical boundaries of 
the instrument while remaining idiomatically true to it. Ng recorded 
this album in collaboration with Rush, Jason Corey, Roger Arnett, 
Jessica Glynn, and Matias Vilaplana. 

-Tiffany Ng and Olivia Howard (Album art and design) 


DARK MATTERS (56:30) 

Three Etudes, 1987 

1. Paced, almost hurried (2:20) 
2. Slowly, almost lost (2:41) 
3. With drive (5:07) 
4. Dark Matters, 2013 (4:49) 

Six Treatments, 2002 
carillon with live electronics 

5. First Treatment (3:52) 
6. Tilted Waltz (2:40) 
7. Cloud Bowls (4:27) 
8. River Teeth (3:05) 
9. Homage to Ives (4:30) 
10. Bolts (3:33)
Sonata for Carillon, 2007 
11. Momentum (5:00) 
12. Flux (4:05) 

13. Variations on “Holy Manna” (3:51) 
14. September Fanfares, rev. 2018 (6:22) 
carillon with brass quintet 
and percussion 
Album total (56:27) 
Tiffany Ng, carillon 
September Fanfares ensemble: Stephen Rush, 
conductor, Keenan Bakowski (trumpet), Zoe Cutler 
(trombone), Dominic Hayes (horn), Michael Stern 
(trumpet), Jacob Taitel (tuba), Tanner Tanyeri 
(percussion) 


© Tiffany Ng. All Rights Reserved, 2021. 
innova® Recordings is the label of the 
American Composers Forum. 
innova.mu stephenjrushmusic.com