Short Stories (2021)
For Flute/Piccolo, Clarinet, Piano, Percussion, Violin, Cello
Commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University,
for Collage New Music, in honor of its 50th anniversary, Frank Epstein (Founder) and David Hoose (Music Director)
Program Note
Short Stories is about life at home – the beautiful, intimate, ordinary, little things that fill daily life that we may not always notice. The music draws on experiences from my time at home during the pandemic, including my learning to play the harmonica. As I composed, I thought of my chamber musician friends, many of whose lives also shifted during this period, needing to make music primarily at home, alone. Soloists within their own chambers.
Short Stories is structured in four musically interconnected stories that are each a mediation on a unique all-encompassing world. I use the term “short story” in reference to the intensity of experience I’ve felt when reading short stories, which often stay with me longer than novels I’ve read, and may not seem or be that short at all – they are worlds unto themselves. The “stories” themselves are purely musical ones, told by the instruments. Each movement celebrates specific instruments as soloists, highlighting each member of the ensemble in turn. The work is substantial in scope, totaling 35 minutes – I think of it like a symphony (or complete book) in terms of its emotional breadth across a central theme, looking at life from a different vantage point in each movement.
Here are some thoughts that guided me as I composed:
I. Cello: Cellists playing J.S. Bach’s Cello Suites for just themselves. Me sitting alone at home watching the evening rain streak down the window and imagining I was somewhere far away. The feeling when music that I’m composing suddenly comes to life and I truly meet it for the first time.
II. Clarinet and Violin: The daily pas-de-deux between my dog and the rabbits in the yard. A chase – graceful, swift, eager, playful, frustrated. Coexisting, never quite meeting.
III. Piano: The sounds of my wife practicing J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations wafting upstairs through the floorboards of my studio as I sit down to compose. Her escape into Bach, mine into my music. Embracing sounds.
IV. Piccolo and Percussion: Birds singing outside my window – always. The garage band jamming down the street. What if they spoke to each other? Life seems on pause, nature keeps moving on. What do the birds say about it all?
Short Stories was commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University, and was composed for Collage New Music, Frank Epstein (Founder) and David Hoose (Music Director), in honor of Collage’s 50th anniversary.
Listen
In four movements:
(Note in Movement IV. the piccolo player performs off-stage from the balcony throughout)
Duration: 35 minutes
Performed live by Collage New Music
Eric Nathan, Artistic Director