Author: elizabeth

Dear Nora

solo cello and stereo electroacoustic track
6 min.

When I came across a letter penned by Irish writer James Joyce in the summer of 1904 (22 years old at the time) to his future wife, Nora Barnacle, whom he had just met– I fell in love with these words. I think they express the tender uncertainty of new love so perfectly—something many of us have felt, but few of us could articulate so clearly. This piece was composed for solo cello and stereo electroacoustic track, with Joyce’s text read by Vancouver-based author, Fraser Nixon.

Dear Nora was premiered at the Western Front, Vancouver, Canada, on March 18th, 2017, as part of the Sonic Boom Festival.

_____________

“15 August, 1904

My dear Nora,

It has just struck me. I came in at half past eleven. Since then I have been sitting in an easy chair like a fool. I could do nothing. I hear nothing but your voice. I am like a fool hearing you call me ‘Dear.’ I offended two men today by leaving them coolly. I wanted to hear your voice, not theirs.

When I am with you I leave aside my contemptuous, suspicious nature. I wish I felt your head on my shoulder. I think I will go to bed.

I have been a half-hour writing this thing. Will you write something to me? I hope you will. How am I to sign myself? I won’t sign anything at all, because I don’t know what to sign myself.”

_____________

Sheet music for this piece is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

Blueprint

jazz trio (tenor saxophone, tenor trombone, double bass) and full orchestra
23 min. 30 sec.

“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then shall you begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”
–Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

I’ve always thought of jazz as being the language of imagination and freedom— a conversational, fluid melding of ideas. This piece features a jazz trio (tenor saxophone, trombone, and double bass), set against the backdrop of an orchestra. The first movement of Blueprint opens with some precise, dancing Balkan rhythms, which set the tone and reveal the architecture of the work. The second movement begins as a slow meditation (taking its inspiration from the evocative quote by poet Kahlil Gibran, above), and builds toward a climax—“melting into the sun”—the idea of the release of the spirit from the body. The third movement mirrors the first movement in its exuberant rhythmic drive, and also draws a bit of inspiration for its raw melodic language from the delta blues. This was an incredibly fun piece to write, and I’d like to acknowledge with thanks the trio of musicians involved in the premiere: Brent Mah (tenor saxophone), Jim Hopson (trombone), and Graham Clark (double bass).

Blueprint received its premiere with the West Coast Symphony Orchestra, with Bujar Llapaj- conductor, on June 10th, 2016, at Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

_____________

Sheet music (and a complete archival recording) are available through the Canadian Music Centre.

Two Fiddlers

solo piano (intermediate level)

1 min. 35 sec.

Two Fiddlers was based on a simple, modal melody, intended to recall traditional East Coast Canadian fiddling. The left hand, when it enters, brings a few more interesting harmonies, outside of the modal scale the right hand is using. Partway through the piece, the left hand (or “second fiddler”) crosses over the right hand on the keyboard and takes up the main melody. Metrical changes, offbeat accents, and the tradeoff of melodic material between the “two fiddlers” add to the playful spirit of the music.

Sheet music is available through Syrinx Press:

https://elizabethknudson.ca/syrinx-press

 

Black is the Colour

solo cello
7 min. 

Black is the Colour was inspired by the Appalachian folk melody, “Black is the Colour of My True Love’s Hair”, and draws on this theme as the basis of a series of variations.  It also draws inspiration from the photography of Barcelona-born Canadian artist Tana (Tatiana Rivero Sanz), and was composed to accompany three contemporary dancers.

The piece received its premiere (with the composer as cellist), on April 18, 2015 at the Blank Tank Gallery in Gastown, Vancouver, along with dancers Linda Arkelian, Jessie Au, and Joylyn Secunda, to celebrate the opening of a solo visual art exhibition by Tana.

_____________

Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.