17 May Dive(rs)

Posted at 23:58h in chamber music, works by

piano trio [3′] 2004.

Commissioner: Composing for a Change and Music Toronto.
Premiere: Gryphon Trio, Jane Mallett Theatre, Toronto, February 27, 2004.
Program note:

dive(rs) began life as a study for an orchestra piece for l’Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal (Buzzard). I found myself sandwiched between dance music by two Russians: Stravinsky’s Firebird and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. In writing this trio, I wanted to see what sense of the dancers’ movement and grace would survive my somewhat brutal compostional process of digitization and digestion. In chewing my sources well, it’s possible that I also wanted to cause them a little pain. Thankfully the dance survives — in spite of me, a young swan waltzes backwards up towards the ceiling…the firebird, slightly burnt, turns, leaps, flies into the sky…