Click Below to View a Sample Score
Spirit Rounds for Orchestra [10 minutes]
Performed by the Classic FM Orchestra with Maxim Eshkenazy (Conductor) at Bulgaria Hall.
Instrumentation: Piccolo/Flute, Flute, 2 Oboes, Eb Clarinet, Clarinet, 2 Bassoons, 4 Horns, 2 Trumpets, 2 Trombones, Bass Trombone, Tuba, 2 Percussion, Drum Set, Piano, & Strings.
Year Composed: 2012
Program Notes:
Spirit Rounds is a piece about celebration. It is about people gathered together, festively sharing ideas, riffing on those ideas, and exploring one’s own nature and spirit. These concepts are displayed in two themes: a playful spirit theme representing new ideas and a dynamic chorale-like theme representing revelation. Both themes are influenced by folk music and classic rock utilizing blues scales, syncopation, pitch bending, and driving beats.
Set in three connected sections (fast-slow-fast), the piece begins with a high-hat, crackling like a fire, that quickly builds into a fanfare of the chorale theme. Following the initial theme, the second spirit theme appears as a descending major third. That melody is then fully introduced by a solo clarinet. The spirit theme continues on as variations in solo voices while the chorale theme appears intermittently. The chorale theme makes a majestic return in a burst of exhuberance before relaxing into a calmer setting.
The solos now become duets as pairs of instruments expand on the chorale theme in a more introspective and ponderous turn of the melody. However, this slower section quickly gives way to a reemergence of the spirit theme. With one final build, the bombastic finale takes flight with both themes in various forms playing simultaneously. A rapid iteration of the chorale theme is sounded one more time before the piece ends with a boom.