Mixed Blood (2013)

Mixed Chamber – 11 min.
Commissioned by the Mandel Foundation and the 2013 Utah Arts Festival
Order printed score & parts from Subito Music 
Order PDF score & parts from Freundworks

[fl.cl(=bcl). / perc. / pno. / vln.vlc.]

Video

Audio

Score (Free Download)

Program Note

Mixed Blood was commissioned by the Utah Arts Festival and premiered at the Festival in June 2013. But the Latin feel of the music has much more to do with the South American countries I visited during my sabbatical the previous fall than with Salt Lake City. In this piece the blood of Latin rhythms and a tango tune is mixed with sounds and structures of American contemporary art music. Introduced in the low register of the flute with bass clarinet as a soft response after a hard-edged introduction, the tango tune (nicknamed “tune-go”) is clearly the star of the piece. But there are a couple tangential excursions, and the “groove chant” (my nickname for the very first idea heard in the piece, built on rocking perfect 4ths) returns several times, eventually as an extended run-on that builds to the final climactic reprise of the “tune-go” in octaves in the violin.