• Digital Track

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  I got handed a gift on a beautiful art glass platter: a chance to compose a chamber orchestra piece in collaboration with the Tacoma Museum of Glass and the Northwest Sinfonietta. I had logged a lot of mom hours in the glass studio, called the hot shop, watching while my boys both studied the art of glassblowing as kids. It’s hot in there, and the short window of workability once the glass is melty requires exquisitely cooperative partner work and attention to the rhythm of detail. When I thought about what I’d write, I kept seeing a musician I’d worked with in my mind: Obo Addy. He had immigrated from Ghana in the 1970s and was a master drummer. I learned so much about the circular nature of rhythm from playing five or six concerts with him over a few decades’ period. The first section of the piece represents the energy of the hot shop and a hat tip to Mr. Addy. The middle section is inspired by the treacherous, yet boring, part of the glassmaking process when the piece has been shaped, but must cool down. During this annealing, the glass must cool slowly in a special chamber, and if temperatures go sideways, the piece could shatter or crack. Waiting patiently is the only choice. The final section of the piece, commissioned a few years after the premiere, was influenced by a major life event: the passing of my beloved eighty-five year old mom. I had been set to write a section about refraction, but instead found myself returning to the museum to reconnect to the project. I was captivated by a woven bowl called Thunderbird made by Native American artist HoWaNeetzl Ho-Wan-Ut “Haila” Old Peter (Chehalis/Skokomish tribe) and felt my mom speaking to me through this piece of glass art. Strands of melody weave and sparkle through, and a melody announced by the horns signifies the thunderbird. ... more
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