The Culture of the Interrobang | GOOD.

This was sent to me by one of the extremely talented performers from the 2007 Bowdoin International Music Festival, Wolcott Humphrey.  Wolcott played clarinet on the premiere of my piece, Interrobang (You will listen to a recording of this piece once I get it up on the MUSIC section of my site; coming soon!). Since writing this piece, people keep running into interrobangs all over the place and bringing them back to me!  Enjoy!

…invited to write a piece for Sospiro New Music Vocal Ensemble, a 22-member vocal group based out of Eugene (really, the University of Oregon).  I’m excited about the prospect of getting to write some more vocal music, as I don’t often get the chance.

The piece itself is for four singers (SSAA) plus flute, clarinet, trumpet, and bassoon; us composers were asked to choose instruments from the Stravinsky Octet, and I got my third choice (oh well, you can’t win ‘em all!).  I’ve chosen to set a poem by Emily Dickinson:

There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons–
That opresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes–

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us–
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the meanings are–

None may teach it–Any–
‘Tis the Seal Despair–
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air–

When it comes, the Landscape listens–
Shadows–hold their breath–
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death–

I’m still trying to work out some kinks in the instrumentation.  I keep going back and forth between whether or not to have the instrumentalists double some auxiliaries…then I remind myself to keep it simple (how does that K.I.S.S. rule go? Oh yeah…).

Another issue I’m running into is that I want to limit the tessitura to a very small range, and of course I can’t find one that is good for all of those instruments!  I’m hoping to do some sweet alternate fingering trills, which meant that I needed to find some alternate fingerings.  My friend Mark Knippel pointed me to this great website for alternate flute fingerings:  check it out!

Keep an eye out on my calendar for the upcoming concert!