for two piccolos, two trumpets, three percussion, piano, two violins, two cellos, handbell quartet (16 players total)
duration: 7 minutes

Commissioned / premiered by:

the Opus Zero Band & Steven Dennis Bodner, director
premiered on December 9, 2010 at Chapin Hall, Williamstown, MA

PROGRAM NOTES

There's a famous quote by the great American experimental composer Charles Ives. Purportedly, after hearing a music critic scoff at a particularly dissonant piece during a concert, Ives turned around and admonished him: "Why don't you stand up before fine strong music like this and use your ears like a man!"

Like a Man is scored for, among other things, a handbell choir and strings playing only harmonics. Certainly these delicate, crystalline sounds aren't like those that displeased the music critic nearly a century ago. But a century of extroverted dissonance is enough to ensure that that dissonance no longer shocks, surprises or is enough in of itself to create interest. I've heard enough of empty, sabre-rattling, outwardly "masculine" music. The music that offers the greatest challenge to me as a listener looks inward, asks for my focus, calls attention to small details I've never considered.

Commissioned by Steven Dennis Bodner and the Opus Zero Band.

PERFORMANCES

October 22, 2010, at Chapin Hall, Williamstown, MA. Opus Zero Band; Steven Dennis Bodner, conductor.
December 9, 2010, at Chapin Hall, Williamstown, MA. Opus Zero Band; Steven Dennis Bodner, conductor.