Delta for Classical Guitar January 10 in Bloomington IN

Delta (for classical guitar)
Commissioned by The Bloomington Classical Guitar Society
to be premiered by guitarist Dan Sumner
January 10, 2009 at 4pm
Rosemary P. Miller Art Gallery
at the Waldron
Bloomington, IN
$15 admission

Seating is limited for this All-Salon Series Event. To make sure that you have a seat, email a request to: btowncgs@yahoo.com

Delta was funded in part by the Composer Assistance Program of the American Music Center.

Delta consists of three movements: a slow free associative introductory movement that explores triads generated from a two bar melody (appearing in the bass) and its harmonic relationship to the triads, a second rock influenced movement in 5/4 inspired by two of Dan Sumner’s favorite guitarists – Andy Summers and Robert Fripp, and a strange rubato third movement where chords informed by rural blues are accompanied by a thick prerecorded texture of cicadas and crickets. (I recorded the crickets in August 2008 at midnight along Tangipahoa River in Southeast Louisiana).

One of my goals with this piece is to evoke the ever changing physical characteristics of a lake, a river, and a swamp. The moving roots of the first movement, the constant changing of key in the second, and the tension between musical and environmental rhythms in the third, all evoke the experience of being in a delta as well as the experience of being displaced from such an environment – perhaps as a result of conditions beyond one’s control.