Arizona
Friends of Chamber Music
Commissioning program
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The links on the left will take you to an individual composer's AFCM page, where you can listen to our complete premiere performances, review program notes, and find out how our commissions have fared, and learn more about the composers. Unless otherwise noted, audio is from the premiere. |
KATHERINE HOOVER
Piano and Cello Duo "El Andalus"
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Premiered by Sharon Robinson, Joseph Kalichstein, March 2004. Commissioned by AFCM. Sponsored by: Paul and Dorothy Olson. Composer's website: http://papagenapress.com/ More info at Sigma Alpha Iota composers |
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Performances: (11/26/09) Sharon Robinson & Joseph Kalichstein at the 92nd St. YMHA in New York, 2005, K. Pinoci and E. Held, UUCMC Performing Arts Series, New Jersey, 2005, Sharon Robinson & Reiko Uchida, Honest Brook Festival, Delhi, NY , 2005
Sharon Robinson has continued to play El Andalus and use it with students at Indiana.
Publishing: Papagena Press, distributed by Theodore Presser company.
CD: Koch (Sharon Robinson and Joseph Kalichstein) (CD set of American works).
The composer writes: El
Andalus is the Arabic name for Andalusia, an area of Spain with an unusual
history. For several hundred years in the Middle Ages under the Muslim
caliphate, it was a center of great learning and culture, and a gathering
place for Christian, Jewish, and Muslim intelligentsia of Europe and the
Middle East. Sharon Robinson, having seen an article about this, asked
if I might somehow imagine a piece about this center of tolerance and
light. After considerable perplexity, I decided to look into music of
each religious tradition. Traditional Arabic music, both secular and religious,
is a sophisticated art form which is mostly improvised on involved scalar
and formal patterns. It makes use of quarter tones, as well as modal materials
more familiar to the western ear. Its influence is clear in Jewish liturgical
music, and also in some Eastern Orthodox Christian music. I combined some
of this kind of melodic material with sections that employ western harmonies,
and there are rhythmic and formal influences from both traditions. There
are also timbral sounds that have their origin in eastern instruments.
The piece begins with a snippet of Gregorian chant and quickly moves into
material with roots in both east and west. I dedicate the work to Sharon
Robinson, a truly great cellist and musician, and the work’s inspiration