Tiled Fields
for orchestra, 2.2.2.2 - 2.2.0.0 - 2 perc. - pno. - strings
commissioned and premiered by the Raleigh Civic Chamber Orchestra and Peter Askim, conductor
program note:
Tiled Fields, whose name stems from a misreading of Joan Miró’s painting Tilled
Fields, creates successive sections that obsessively build on the same material.
While writing Tiled Fields, I drew inspiration from Miró’s combination of a freely
composed background with sharp figures neatly superimposed upon it, seen in
such paintings as The Birth of the World, The Hunter, and Bleu ii. My work blends
freely composed material that floats in the background, seen primarily in the
strings and woodwinds, with more rigorous motives in the piano and double bass,
both sharply attacking alongside several other instruments in fluctuating
rhythmic patterns.
My musical inspiration stems from the Danish New Simplicity movement of the
1960s and 70s. This movement found renewed inspiration in simple, repetitive
musical material, resisting the more modernist trends emerging from Germany
during this time. These Danish composers create rhythmic processes that form
the basis of their work. In Tiled Fields, I borrowed this method of rhythmic
invention for the piano and double bass’s structure, but juxtaposed that against
the freer material found in the rest of the orchestra.