Author: debmin

Winter Suite: Eight Vignettes

This piece was composed as a series of eight miniatures, or vignettes, inspired by a cycle of three poems about winter (by Robert Pack). Each vignette bears a subtitle taken from a line of poetry, representing the character of that particular movement—all being reflections on different facets of the winter season (i.e. brightness/exuberance, deadly chill, beauty, storm/chaos, stillness).

  1. I. Prelude
  2. II. I watched drowned snow appear to lift up from the lake
  3. III. Your red cheeks radiant against the wind
  4. IV. A frame of gilded twilight
  5. V. Cascading snowflakes settle in the pines
  6. VI. Homeward into the howling woods
  7. VII. Only a whiter absence to my mind
  8. VIII. Merely a mockery of spring
  • Winter Suite: Eight Vignettes was premiered by Mark D’Angelo and Daeyong Ra- trumpets, and Miri Lee- piano, at the Canadian Music Centre- BC Creative Hub (Vancouver), 27 February, 2011

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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

À travers la mer

À travers la mer is based loosely on the idea of an ocean voyage — Jacques Cartier’s first of three trips from France to New France (Québec), in 1534. He was not the first European to arrive in the eastern parts of Canada. However, Cartier ventured into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which was still uncharted territory, and the voyage would have been extremely dangerous, and exciting, to say the least.

With no accurate maps to guide them, and no means of accurately measuring longitude (this did not exist until over 100 years later), the travelers must have been reliant on the heavens, and intuition, to guide them. I did not want to make this piece especially programmatic, but rather, I was interested in the various conflicting emotions that may have been in the air: excitement, memory/nostalgia, trepidation, and not least, the beauty and terror that the ocean must have inspired. The ocean and the stars are present in various shifting layers, as are fragments of a folk melody from Basse-Bretagne.

Read by the Victoria Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Tania Miller), at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, 2 February, 2007. Also read by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, as part of Jean Coulthard Reading Sessions, (conducted by Bramwell Tovey), at the Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver, 19 April, 2007.

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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

Foliage

I have always been fascinated by architecture. Not just the architecture of buildings, but also that of nature. One of the most interesting aspects of the natural landscape is foliage, and its ability to transform completely over the course of the year. This piece was devised as a miniature set of variations, and it is like foliage in that it evolves from relatively simple material into something more complex, making use of variations in shape, texture, density and color as means of growth.

  • Foliage received its premiere with the Turning Point Ensemble, as part of the Sonic Boom Festival, at the Western Front, Vancouver, 17 March, 2007.

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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

In the Grass

Face downward on the grass in reverie
I found how cool and sweet
Are the green blooms that often thoughtlessly
I tread beneath my feet.

In this strange mimic wood where grasses lean–
Elf trees untouched of bark–
I heard the hum of insects, saw the sheen
Of sunlight framing dark,

And felt with thoughts I cannot understand
And know not how to speak,
A daisy reaching up its little hand
To lay it on my cheek.

Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857-1940)

  • Premiered by the University of British Columbia Women’s Choir at UBC Recital Hall, 17 March, 2006.

 

Published
Categorised as Choral

La banqueroute

text- traditional French-Canadian

  • Read by Chor Leoni Men’s Choir at New Compositions Workshop, 18 January, 2006.

 

Published
Categorised as Choral

Ice Sculptures

Ice Sculptures is essentially a study in colour and texture. The violin and cello parts are like an eye, traveling slowly over the surface of a sculpted piece of ice, and taking in the subtle transformative effects of a light source on the different angles and facets of a prismic object. The pitch material in the piece evolves gradually, passing through various textural effects in the strings, such as sul ponticello, harmonics, and different degrees of vibrato; there is an element of coldness present until the marimba enters in the middle section of the piece and introduces a new layer of colour, as well as some more rapid activity on the surface level. Although the piece requires a great deal of control to perform, it is meant to evoke in the listener a more organic process of transformation.

  • Ice Sculptures was premiered by Erin James- violin, Alex Sia- cello, and Bernie Yeh- marimba, at the University of British Columbia Recital Hall, 4 April, 2005.

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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

Little Tango (alternate title: “Northern Tango”)

1 min. 30 sec.

One unique aspect of being away from a big city is being able to enjoy and appreciate nature, and one of the most beautiful and spectacular canvases on which to observe natural phenomena is the night sky. Stars and other celestial bodies are certainly more visible away from the glow of city lights, and depending on location and time of year, events such as shooting stars or the aurora borealis (northern lights) will animate the sky. This piece emerges out of a backdrop of nighttime shadows, into a colourful celestial dance.

 

  • Published as part of the solo piano collection “Making Tracks, Vol. 4: Small Town Canada”, available through the Canadian National Conservatory of Music:

 

http://www.cncm.ca/making-tracks.html

[audio:../wp-content/uploads/littletango.mp3|titles=Little Tango (alt: Northern Tango)]