A Soundwalk with Resi

soprano, fl, ob, cl, a.sax, hn, perc (3), hp, vlns (2), vla, vc, db

16'

 

2016

Commissioned by DePaul University's Ensemble 20+, Michael Lewanski, conductor

Premiered October 9, 2016, Ear Taxi Festival, Chicago

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A Soundwalk with Resi weaves two musical strands of thought together. The first strand is a loose orchestration of a soundwalk I took through Lincoln Park Conservatory and out to the frozen shore of Lake Michigan. The second strand combines fragments of music and text from Der Rosenkavlier (Richard Strauss/Hugo von Hofmannsthal) in which the Marschallin (aka Resi) reflects on her youth and the strangeness of time. There are fascinating conceptual and musical tensions to play with when combining these materials: a soundwalk involves hyper-awareness of one’s present environment and does not have a clear pulse or meter, while the Strauss fragments are from and about the past and rely on meter and pulse to organize time. The combined force exerted by these tensions - between past and present, and between different expressions of time - shapes the two musical strands of thought into a figurative sonic essay on time, life cycles, and the inevitability of change. 

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Click here for extended program note by Jessica Aszodi, soprano who premiered the work.