allemande (2016)
Cello
Duration: 7’
Premiered by Benjamin Fleischacker at Dwight Hall, New Haven CT, March 2017. Recorded by Emily Azzarito at Belmont University, Nashville TN, April 2017.
Winner of 2018 ASCAP Morton Gould Award
program note
When a friend of mine introduced me to the Allemande from Bach’s 6th Cello Suite in the summer of 2015, I was instantly drawn to its improvisatory features. The movement itself, originally written for a 5-string cello, incorporates large, expressive leaps and a rich tessitura that freely floats between lyrical and grounded roles. As a listener, I was most captured by a few fleeting moments in Bach’s Allemande and in my piece, I attempt to decontextualize some of the harmonic materials from these moments into a form that unites the tonally disparate elements. The result is not only a compilation of moments, but also a harmonic and textural exploration that unsheathes possible contemporary developments of baroque source material.