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Clouds

Instrument

Piano Solo or Mixed Chorus (in seven parts) or other Wind Instruments

Programme Notes


Clouds are a familiar wilderness. Always drifting, clouds present one day are never the next. There is neither a beginning nor an end, as certain parts change their forms, entwine with others, swirl, and seemingly become a part of a vast cloud, only to scatter and fade away in a blink of an eye. While it may take on a form that sparks the imagination of the onlooker, this too is but a fleeting moment. The multitude of rolling clouds, swept away by the wind, seem to weave a melodic stream. I envision numerous composers finding music within this phenomenon of what is a cloud.

The music for “Clouds” is based on a photograph of a breathtaking nameless sky that appeared one day in a certain place. Not the drifting, flowing clouds, but the subject being captured and still, this may not seem inherent as the music of clouds. However, I desired to turn the ebb and flow of clouds into sounds as if at one point resounded throughout the heavens.

My approach will involve systematically arranging sounds as if to determine the weather based on changes in cloud cover across the entire sky captured in the photograph. I haven’t chosen an instrument yet, but it will be either the piano or a wind instrument. When performing Clouds, sounds that are captured by the microphone will go through a real-time reverb adjustment program that coincides with the movements of clouds.

In the future, I plan to perform and document various clouds from different locations.

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