New piece for marimba and percussion ensemble - "Meanwhile in a Parallel Universe"

The piece was a joint commission from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory in Singapore (Jonathan Fox, director), and Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, PA (Dr. Gifford Howarth, director). Giff first approached me about this project a year ago, and it came with the blessing (and curse) of not really being due until Fall of this year. Since most of my time these days has been dedicated to keeping the wheels turning with Tapspace, my challenge lied in dedicating writing time in smaller increments over a longer span of time.

I don’t usually tend to work this way. Usually, I dive into a project and it consumes most of my energy until the heavy lifting has passed. And in many ways, this piece still did. However, it was spread out over a much longer span of time than I’m used to. Before it started taking shape or making much sense, I spent the majority of my time sketching ideas without worrying how they related to each other. Interestingly, this helped generate a wider range of ideas, which ultimately led to my decision to make it a more episodic piece in three parts.

My serious marimba-playing days are long behind me (assuming they were ever there), yet the piece really needed to drive on Giff’s command of whiz-bang 4-mallet dexterity. Hopefully it will accomplish this without shedding too much light on the fear it brought me. Also, it was important to me that the ensemble wasn’t just window dressing for the soloist, but that they also didn’t compete. As it turns out, they both rely pretty heavily on each other. Technicalities aside, my hope is that it paints a fantasy-like adventure into which listeners can be easily drawn, while still being left guessing which way the road is going to turn.

Take a listen and read more about it here.