2015 is well under way, and thus far it has been quite productive.
I reached the double bar on the central movement of a piece I began over a year ago (though I did take a year-long hiatus from it since I was busy writing Fantasy in Metal for the RE:Percussion Duo, as well as organizing the premier performance). Clocking in at around 12 minutes, Through a Yellow Sky, scored for mixed septet (flute, clarinet in A (doubling E-flat), violin, viola, cello, percussion, and piano) is an informal set of variations based around a chord progression that is longer than the melody it supports. With each cycle of the chords, the melody becomes increasingly “out of phase” with the harmony, and subsequently is subjected to contextual variations. I don’t want to spoil it because it gets pretty wild, especially during the last few minutes (the pianist has an especially virtuosic part).
(sample of the cello solo featured mid-way through)
I’m planning on adding two additional movements to round out a nice five-movement structure.
Here’s were it currently stands:
SEPTET (placeholder title)
i. tuning games/emergence (ca. 4 min)
ii. ????
iii. Through A Yellow Sky (ca. 12 min)
iv. ????
v. interrobang (ca. 3 min)
This will be one of the larger pieces I’ve written and I hope to continue this trend as the year goes on. I rarely write multi-movement pieces, especially multi-movement pieces for ensembles larger than four people, so this will be a new avenue I intend to explore throughout the year and beyond.
Jay Derderian 