Compositionally,
Chad Michelstetter has composed in different styles transcending the boundaries
of traditional classical training. From
an early cycle of inventions, to the more substantive Opus Four for piano, his
music began to push the boundaries of tonality in a way that few composers of
modern music do- in an audience pleasing way.
Opus Four was performed for a crowd of over 150 at California State
University of the East Bay to three thunderous standing ovations as Irene
Grigorio shook the house with her piano performance in 2004. The work uses an octatonic scale in the style
of Bela Bartok with new applications of the old forms, including a Debussy like
third movement, largo atonal introduction and rousing final movement in oblique
motion.
He
continued to compose in different formats, including a string quartet (Opus
Five) that cycles through a theme and variations loosely based on a C-Minor
theme, with chromatic variations in cannon and audience pleasing string
movements.
