Early Chamber Music For Percussion

SKU: PR.114419300

UPC: 680160673513. 9 x 12 inches.

Written during a residence at an artist community in the isolation of Wyoming, Postcards from Wyoming is an impression of the wilderness and beauty of the surrounding landscape and its inhabitants. Written for Pierre ensemble with percussion, Postcards includes High Plains Prairie (a harsh landscape which reveals glimpses of beauty upon closer examination), Call of the Wild (animals from snakes to horses and cows populate the environment), and The Solitude of Stars (capturing the infinite awe of the night sky).
In 2014, I enjoyed a wonderful residence at the Ucross Foundation in Clearmont, Wyoming. Ucross is an artist colony that gives writers, composers, and visual artists the gift of time, space, and support to follow their artistic pursuits; we are provided with studio space, housing, and meals so that we can work almost continuously on our projects. I have been in residence at numerous artist colonies; however, nothing in my previous experiences prepared me for living in such isolated, wild country. Ucross is situated on a 20,000-acre cattle ranch at nearly 4,000 feet in elevation with fewer than 150 people living within the town. But what Clearmont lacks in population, it makes up for abundantly and spectacularly in wilderness and wildlife. Postcards from Wyoming presents three glimpses of what I found to be the most striking aspects of my residence. The first movement, High Plains Prairie, represents the conundrum that is a high elevation landscape: from afar, the eye sees little else than an unending and threadbare horizon. But as one inspects the land up close, the prairie bursts with color provided by sagebrush, grasses, insects, and creeks. The second movement, Call of the Wild, is a tribute to the wide range of animals that reside in the area. Deer, turkeys, and rabbits frequently passed outside of my studio window; cows and sheep lived in fields close by. Snakes, raccoons, and field mice also made guest appearances. While I'm thankful that I didn't see any predators (such as wolves), I became increasingly aware of the wildness of the animal population that surrounded my studio. The Solitude of Stars, the third and final movement, was inspired by the stunning nightly display of the heavens above. Without city lights dimming the night sky, countless stars shone brightly over the vast expanse of the prairie. Postcards from Wyoming was commissioned by the 2016 Utah Arts Festival. -S.G.
In 2014, I enjoyed a wonderful residence at the Ucross Foundation in Clearmont, Wyoming. Ucross is an artist colony that gives writers, composers, and visual artists the gift of time, space, and support to follow their artistic pursuits; we are provided with studio space, housing, and meals so that we can work almost continuously on our projects. I have been in residence at numerous artist colonies; however, nothing in my previous experiences prepared me for living in such isolated, wild country. Ucross is situated on a 20,000-acre cattle ranch at nearly 4,000 feet in elevation with fewer than 150 people living within the town. But what Clearmont lacks in population, it makes up for abundantly and spectacularly in wilderness and wildlife.Postcards from Wyoming presents three glimpses of what I found to be the most striking aspects of my residence. The first movement, High Plains Prairie, represents the conundrum that is a high elevation landscape: from afar, the eye sees little else than an unending and threadbare horizon. But as one inspects the land up close, the prairie bursts with color provided by sagebrush, grasses, insects, and creeks. The second movement, Call of the Wild, is a tribute to the wide range of animals that reside in the area. Deer, turkeys, and rabbits frequently passed outside of my studio window; cows and sheep lived in fields close by. Snakes, raccoons, and field mice also made guest appearances. While I’m thankful that I didn’t see any predators (such as wolves), I became increasingly aware of the wildness of the animal population that surrounded my studio. The Solitude of Stars, the third and final movement, was inspired by the stunning nightly display of the heavens above. Without city lights dimming the night sky, countless stars shone brightly over the vast expanse of the prairie.Postcards from Wyoming was commissioned by the 2016 Utah Arts Festival.-S.G.

SKU: HL.48022648

9.25x12 inches.

Inspired by the Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803) poem Die frühen Gräber (“The early graves”). With detailed performance notes (in German).

SKU: XC.WB2303

ISBN 9781644022535.

All Hands are on Deck for the newest installment in the popular Adaptable Ensemble Series. Adaptable Quartets; Sea Shanties, by popular composer and arranger Tyler Arcari builds on the success of the Sea Shanty Trio book with 21 quartets for any combination of instrument. Expanding the range, instrumentation and length of the popular works from the trio collection as well as adding new classics to the list, this newest addition to the Adaptable Ensemble Series is a unique collection for the chamber-to-ensemble library.

SKU: CF.SPS98

ISBN 9781491166673. UPC: 680160925728. Key: C minor.

Farallones is inspired by the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary (GFNMS) off the Northern California coast, spanning 3,295 square miles north and west of San Francisco. The Farallones (Spanish for cliffs) are a set of islands that are sometimes referred to as The Devil’s Teeth by mariners, citing the many dangerous underwater shoals and shipwrecks. The first recorded observation of these islands was in 1579 by Sir Frances Drake, with the first reference to the outcroppings as “farallones” written by Spanish Friar Antonio de la Ascension in 1603. The location of the islands and their rugged and ominous appearance likely were responsible for the relatively late discovery by explorers of San Francisco Bay, which didn’t happen until 1769, nearly 200 years after Sir Frances Drake’s expedition. The islands and their natural resources and habitat have been used and exploited in many different ways over the centuries, from the seal fur trade in the early 1800s to a nuclear waste dumping ground in the 1940s–1960s. The islands have been hosts to hunting camps, weather stations, rum runners during prohibition, lighthouse keepers, and even a U.S. Naval station during World War II. The first protections for the area were established in 1981 and expanded over the following decades. Over time, species and habitats have been restored. The Farallones is now home to a beautiful and diverse marine ecosystem that supports many endangered and threatened species. This piece began as a chamber work for a septet that included piano and string bass. When I reworked it for wind ensemble, I left the piano and string bass in the orchestration as a nod to my original (unfinished) chamber piece. The opening section in 7/4 depicts the rugged environment and unpredictability of the swirling currents around the islands. Descending scalar motifs and trills emphasize the fluidity of the seascape. The exploitation of the islands and conflict surrounding the use of natural resources drive the accented passages throughout the piece. The 12/8 section is a development into the resilience and dangerous beauty of the area. Recalled themes and motifs from the first section in an even rather than uneven meter depict the solid future of the ecosystem.

SKU: HL.14021749

ISBN 9788759889817. Danish.

Poul Ruders' MONODRAMA, dedicated to percussion virtuoso Gert Sorensen and commissioned by The Danish Radio, was written in New York in the early winter 1988 and makes the centre as well as the middle of the tri-part opus called The Drama Trilogy. All three works employ the word Drama in their title, Drama in the original meaning of the word: event. No specified event, but a premonition or omen rather, that something is afoot, a free Drama-offer from which anyone may populate the stage of his private, inner theatre.The first piece of the series DRAMAPHONIA for piano and chamber ensemble was premiered in London in the spring of 1988 by Lontano and Poul Rosenbaum. This piece is emotionally and rhythmically unstable as opposed to MONODRAMA (single-event) which is modelled from the archetypal idea of obtaining accomplishment from nothingness. The 31 instruments of the orchestra (no flutes and no violins or violas) are more or less wrapped around the solo-part to become one with that and thus emerge as one, gigantic percussion instrument. The rhythmical patterns of the orchestral part more or less follow those of the percussionpart, a single-event also on the rhythmical level.After 20 minutes climbing toward the peak of rage, the composition casts its slough and is reborn into a chorale-like march and the struggle between totally depopulated sound-scapes and ferociously roaring sub-oceanic storms begin and the piece paces toward the abyss; rage becomes despondency, New Rage as opposed to New Age, the spineless worshipper of beauty without pain.The third instalment of the DRAMA TRILOGY, the cello concerto POLYDRAMA will be premiered in Stockholm May 1990.MONODRAMA lasts aprox. 32 minutes.Poul Ruders.

SKU: PR.416415420

UPC: 680160632312.

Echoes of Silence was commissioned by the Albany Symphony Orchestra for the American Music Festival of 2012 as part of the Capitol Region Heritage Commissions project. The work takes as its inspirations the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Albany, NY, and the Albany Symphony Orchestra. The Troy Savings Bank was founded in 1823 and was one of the more important music halls in early-twentieth-century America. It was honored with performances by many world-renowned artists, such as Vladimir Horowitz, Yehudi Menuhin, and Arthur Rubinstein. The title, Echoes of Silence, refers to the echoes of these and other artists' great performances, which one might imagine still resonate in the hall. If the hall had a voice, it would also sing of the all the wonderful masterpieces that were performed there in the past. The main idea of this piece is to reflect the sounds that were absorbed by the walls of this concert hall during the past century of live performance. Some of the main pitch materials are derived from Alexander Borodin's Symphony No. 2, a masterpiece that was composed in 1823, the same year as the founding of the Troy Savings Bank. The main thematic materials of Echoes of Silence are developed from many small musical motifs found in Borodin's symphony. Another source of material is Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, composed in 1930, the year in which the Albany Symphony Orchestra was founded. These borrowed materials are used as the main elements in maintaining the structural unity of Echoes of Silence. Because this concert hall has absorbed so much wonderful music from so many great performances, we can imagine even the smallest corner of the hall filling its silence with echoes.