Lemonade toccata
Composed in 2011
For marimba
Duration: 4:00
For a four minute solo work, Lemonade Toccata endured an unusually long gestation. In my first year at Yale (2008), I composed a large- scale suite for twelve players that I ultimately decided was overlong.
I excised the final movement and reorchestrated it. This new work premiered as Lemonade Battery in the fall of 2009. Perhaps the most memorable feature of both the chamber and orchestral versions of this piece is the extended solo marimba opening—a driving and incessant buildup of momentum that spans the first minute of the piece before the marimba is finally overtaken by the rest of the ensemble. When Leo Gorosito asked me for a solo work for his 2011 degree recital, I took the marimba solo from Lemonade Battery and imagined what would happen if the orchestra was not there to sublimate the momentum of the marimba. What would happen to all of that energy?
Lemonade Toccata is dedicated to four friends who all took part in the premieres of the several versions of this piece: Candy Chiu, John Corkill, Ian Rosenbaum, and Leo Gorosito.
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First Performance: April 10th, 2011
Morse Recital Hall, Yale University, New Haven, CT
Leonardo Gorosito, marimba
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Recording: March 1st, 2012, New Music New Haven
Morse Recital Hall, Yale University, New Haven, CT
Leonardo Gorosito, marimba
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Artwork by Becca Plank, inspired by Lemonade Toccata and created for the TUTTI Festival at Denison University in Granville, Ohio
(March 2015).
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