Mountain Air
Composed in 2018
Duration: 8:00
Instrumentation: oboe, violin, viola, cello
I wrote Mountain Air for the Atlantic Music Festival, where I was privileged to spend a month as a Resident Artist Fellow, presenting my work, meeting incredible musicians, and enjoying the beauty of both Colby College and the Maine landscape. But this piece was inspired my by time at the Aspen Music Festival years before, where the stunning scenery was merely a backdrop to meeting some of the best musicians and friends I've ever known. One of these great friends is the oboist Andrew Parker, to whom this work is dedicated.
Musically, the piece is concerned with the idea of a long line, which first arches over an accompaniment of itself, simply played at slightly different rates. The lines coalesce into a rhythmic figure in the strings, leading to an oboe cadenza. Out of this cadenza, a related line emerges, played over a skittering texture derived from the rhythmic motif. Again, the rhythmic unisons achieve a moment of clarity, before the original tune returns, now played in canon with itself at two different tempi.
------------------------------------------------------
First Performance: July 7th, 2018, Atlantic Music Festival
Lorimer Chapel, Colby College, Waterville, Maine
Christopher Fujiwara, oboe; Anat Kardontchik, violin;
Jiho Chung, viola; Georgia Bourderionnet, cello;
Chad Goodman, conductor
------------------------------------------------------
Related Works:
