I’ll be premiering “Orbits” with the wonderful pianist Amy Briggs this Saturday, Nov 13 at 8:00pm in Fulton Recital Hall at the University of Chicago! I wrote the piece back in June and July of 2009 (and wrote two posts on it back then), so I’m very excited to finally be performing it. Here’s the official event information. Program notes are below.
“Orbits” with Amy Briggs, piano
Saturday, Nov 13, 8:00pm
Fulton Recital Hall
University of Chicago
1010 E 59th St, 4th floor
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Orbits is a work about musical gravity. The viola and piano behave like planetary objects engaged in a gravitational tug-of-war; they pull one another into different tempos and areas of musical material. The first conflict of the work occurs when the piano first enters, decidedly out of time with the viola, which is quickly drawn into the piano’s new tempo. After a brief period of unity this rhythmic conflict returns, escalating this time and culminating in the first climax of the work. What follows is a slow, sparse meditation, devoid of rhythmic tension, that invokes the weightlessness of outer space. The instruments rotate through this sequence of musical material twice more. The work ends with both instruments vanishing into the distance; the piano’s soft chords become increasingly sparse until nothing remains but resonance, while the viola, hushed by a mute, ascends so high that pitch gives way to the hiss of the bow hair.
Orbits was written in the summer of 2009. Special thanks to Amy Briggs for the hard work and dedication she brought to this performance.
