Duration: 8 minutes
For: Piccolo, Oboe/English Horn, French Horn, Cello, Piano
Commissioned by flutist Linda Jenkins, the Piccolo “Pocket Concerto” explores the piccolo as musical protagonist in a fittingly miniature form – both the ensemble and the duration are highly condensed. My goal with this piece was to showcase the piccolo’s full expressive capacity in all its registers and to ground that in the context of of a tiny “orchestra”.
Around this time, I became very interested in the harmonic language of mid-20th century composers, especially those who were notably queer, such as Benjamin Britten, Samuel Barber, and Ned Rorem. Their compositions built on common practice harmony of earlier periods while extending what kind of sonorities could function syntactically. This vibrant “queering” of a standard grammar appealed to me, as did the continuation of music’s ability to depict a complex inner world of emotion, in contrast to the more cerebral developments of other Modernist musics.
Concert Recording Excerpts
Performed by Linda Jenkins (flute), Hannah Pell (oboe/English horn), Amrit Gupta (French horn), Hendrik Mobley (cello), and Nicholas Pietromonaco (piano), Beall Hall, Eugene, OR, May 1st, 2018.