Blending Forces I
violoncello
2006
4’
First Performance: 2003 (CSUN – Northridge, CA)
Other notable performances: 2019 (Centro Cultural Kirchner – Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Notes:
Blending Forces, a trio for clarinet, violoncello, and marimba, was created in 2006 as the musical counterpart to Waylon Anderson’s choreography, which involved nine dancers. The aspects that were mostly explored in the piece were related to the number of performers on both sides (musicians and dancers), their positioning on the stage, and how this affected their interaction. Unlike later works, the musicians remain quite static in this piece, only shifting positions between movements.
The musical content of each of the three movements in this piece is significantly different from each other. The first one, written for solo cello, explores how an ever moving musical gesture can still be perceived as being static. The second movement, the only one in which all three instruments play together, shows an ascending motion from the beginning to the end, with occasional moments when all three performers come together – or close enough- playing with several degrees of synchronization. The third and last part, for clarinet and marimba, is more melodic but also brings back changing metric patterns, as it had happened in the first movement already.
In spite of the original format, the piece has since been performed in concert settings (without dancers, that is) and not always with all three movements played in the same concert – unlike in pieces resulting from other collaborations, the movements in this piece work equally well together as they do when played alone.
Program Notes:
This piece was created for a joint performance including both dancers and musicians interacting on stage. The performance itself is shaped by the interaction of all actors in different situations that vary, depending on the number of performers that each movement presents.
Through different processes, involving similarity, contrast, repetition, gradual and/or sudden transformation and others (affecting all musical components,) this work explores the relationship between music and movement in an organic manner, that is, not as the addition of two elements, but as a whole. Consequently, the current version of the work, which does not include dancers, should be understood only as an incomplete performance, exhibiting the work partially.