Spinning Yarns
Wind Ensemble
10'30"
10'30"
|
Premiere
"The President's Own" United States Marine Band Joe Higgins, conductor John Philip Sousa Band Hall Marine Barracks Annex 6/16/15 | Washington, DC | 7pm Purchase Score & Parts Awards Winner, 2016 BMI Student Composer Award Special Distinction, 2016 ASCAP/CBDNA Fennell Prize Finalist, 2016 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards Honorable Mention, 2016 SCI/ASCAP Student Commission Competition Selected Composition, 2015 National Band Association Young Composer Mentor Project Winner, 2015 USC New Music for Wind Ensemble Competition |
Program Notes
I am fascinated by multi-layered storytelling, and Spinning Yarns is a result of that fascination. Margaret Atwood's novel The Blind Assassin was a particularly rich source of inspiration. In this novel, each chapter is part of a different sub-novel. A crime novel is right next to a memoir which is right next to a science fiction story which is right next to a romance novel. The interaction between each of these layers creates a large and hugely dramatic narrative. Spinning Yarns is a collection of diverse narrative threads stitched together into a dramatic musical tapestry. Like an Atwoodian multi-layered novel, the music oscillates between dreamlike uncertainty, chaotic heroism, sarcastic dancing, pensive sleepwalking, airy lyricism, and climactic hubris. As the drama unfolds, these disparate elements emerge, re-emerge, and inform and interact with each other. |