Instruments: Marimba

Program Notes:

Three Haikus for Marimba was written for Nobue Matsuoka, and takes some traditional Japanese elements and folds them into my compositional style.  The three haikus are:

Ice coats a tree branch/Winter, often unwelcome/can still bring beauty.  This movement is a meditation on the winter season.  It is brittle and feels fragile, but often arrives at surprising consonance.

Rain-Drummed gutter-head/Polyrhythmic randomness/We sense the patterns.  This movement, instpired by Taiko drumming, uses a number of extended techniques to get a very percussive sound from the Marimba.

Roiling Fireball/Glaring through the atmosphere/Coats the Earth in Flame.  This movement creates an intense ostinato figure that moves through both hands.  This movement recalls elements of the first two.

First Performed: In revisions