No Pressure to be a Giraffe… (2014)

Mixed Chamber – 8 min.
Order printed score & parts from Subito Music
Order PDF score & parts from Freundworks

[fl.cl.asax. / vlc.]

Audio

Score With Painting (Free Download)

Program Note

When I first saw Chris Silva’s painting “There Is Often No Pressure To Be A Giraffe When You Are Not One,” I was immediately struck by its mix of abstract expressionist explosion and the geometric lines and circles, the kinds of intrusions I love in Klee and Kandisky. All this is very closely related to the dichotomy between the mathematical relationships inevitable in music and the freely expressive shapes one really hears and remembers. Then there is the giraffe! Incongruous, absurd, a little silly, jaunty, beguiling and so evidently happy to be itself. That’s thekind of thing I love to hear in music, so I hope my compositional reflection of this character and its surroundings carries something of the same impact.