for 2 percussion
duration: 10 minutes
MOVEMENTS
I.
II.
III.
IV.
PROGRAM NOTE
The first year of my son’s life has been wild and beautiful. It has also been filled with particular sounds and musics—the mbira music that he and I listened to on his first (sleepless) night at home; the constant, regular thumping of his legs against the floor as he wiggles on his back; his ability to repeat simple rhythms tapped on table or a cushion; the sounds of his toy celesta.
Each of the four movements of this piece takes one of his favorite sounds as a starting place. But I would say the deeper concern of the piece is recreating something of the way that he and I share a space together, interact and communicate at this point in his life. In the first movement, for example, the two players are in complete rhythmic lockstep, which reminds me of my son’s ability to be intensely watchful and responsive, following your every move and focusing his attention exactly where you put yours. The second and third movements are inspired by his love of imitation of sounds, spoken or otherwise. He loves to echo or mirror your noises, but his imitation is rarely perfect as he’s just learning how to make his own sounds. Those movements are thus concerned with creating a kind of imitation full of interesting imperfections and irregularities.
The final study builds an acoustic space out of two separate and uncoordinated parts. Though the players share a small thumb piano and must, necessarily, be close to one another, they are singing their own songs, as it were. Though my son is still so young and is almost entirely dependent on me and my wife, he is, nonetheless, so clearly his own person, with his own mind, desires, emotions and ideas. Just inhabiting the same space as he does, as two distinct though inherently connected people, is a beautiful and life-changing experience.
This work was written for percussionists I-Jen Fang and Gregory Beyer and the 2022 Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival.
PERFORMANCES
September 13, 2022, King Family Vineyards, Crozet, VA, as part of the 2022 Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival. I-Jen Fang and Gregory Beyer, percussion.