Project 12: Cliff Notes
As grey skies and rainy weather rolled into Portland this week, I tried to lighten the days with some upbeat writing!
I’ve always felt that autumn is inherently nostalgic. Something about the changing of leaves, the shrinking days, the cooler breeze, and the increasingly grey skies always brings back memories from over the years. This week, nostalgia aligned perfectly with the commission for Week 2!
Week 2 Wrap-Up
Grand Circle New Music is a contemporary ensemble based out of St. George, Utah, in the middle of the Grand Circle region. The Grand Circle is the biggest concentration of national and state parks, monuments, and conservation areas in the country. GCNM asked for a piece that captured something about the vast, arid, sweeping landscape of their region and that it be tied to a personal experience, if possible. Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows how much I love The Nature, and having any excuse to think about it, look at it, and write about it is more than welcome!
Since St. George is just south of the gorgeous Red Cliff National Conservation Area, I knew I wanted to do a piece about the sweeping, rocky terrain. Personally, I’ve spent a lot of evenings on cliffs and bluffs. There were some wonderful bluffs near Bloomington, IN where I did my masters, and these in particular were in my mind as I wrote this week.
My MM degree, while filled with many wonderful memories and experiences, was also an incredibly turbulent and difficult time. The forays into the woodlands, walks along lakes and rivers, hikes along beautiful and remote trails, winding drives and backroad adventures, awkward climbs on bluffs and rocky hills, and boardwalk strolls through wetlands were sacred escapes, and helped me get through some very tough experiences. While I have written other pieces about some of my adventures there (for example, Sketches from Yellowood), I hadn’t yet written about one of my favorites.
From Lake Griffy, in Bloomington, IN - just one of many beautiful places near my alma mater!
One evening (sorry, Mom!), a friend took me out through bumpy roads to a clearing between two bluffs. The high rock walls having been blasted through at one time or another, a gravel path surrounded by grass now cut between them and led out to a lake. While the climb up was awkward in the dark (myself tripping and sliding most of the way up), the view from the top was spectacular. For awhile, we just sat, feet dangling off the edge, looking out to the stars. There was such a dense quiet to that moment, such a profound peace that was both calming and galvanizing.
I’ve been also teaching myself how to use ProCreate during this time, so enjoy this amateur rendering!
This experience was the inspiration behind the second installment of Project 12. While the overall tone of the work is spunky and rambunctious, moments of quiet and calm are also scattered throughout the short work. The title reflects both the short duration of the piece and the short moment of peace I felt in an otherwise chaotic time (and...you know...its a piece of music about cliffs). The strings explore a variety of colors for such a short work - playing with crunch tone, tremolo glisses, harmonics, col legno battuto, etc. - and the piece bounces between high-energy mixed meter sections and textural slow sections.
Week 3 Wind-Up
This week, scaling back quite a bit, I’m writing a piano solo! Pianist and composer, Carol Anne Smock, has commissioned a solo work that deals with juxtaposing emotions - the title for which is Mercurial Aims. Carol Anne was involved with a premiere of mine at Pittsburg State University in 2019, when they performed my work The Noise, for two singers and wind ensemble, so it has been so fun to start work on a piece for just her this week! She is on Facebook and just started an Instagram, if you’d like to follow along with her adventures!
Have a great week, everyone!
