Convivial Tides: A Festival For Wind Symphony is a three movement work without pauses composed on commission for the Music Association of California Community Colleges. Free tertian relationships and polytonality based on thirds form the basis for all scale, polychordal and contrapuntal material with a polyrhythmic overlaying of textures using variations and derivatives of West African (Yoruba) traditions. All shapes and structures were inspired by the interplay of ocean cycles where wave after wave and wave upon wave are enclosed within the grand and powerful rise and fall of the tides.
The original work premiered in 1994. This revised version was released in 2001. Grade 6.
America, The Beautiful set with Arabic maqams (scales) and i'qa (rhythms). Accompanying lessons help satisfy MENC National Standards in theory, improvisation and multicultural education. 8 minutes. Grade 3.5
In July of 2004, I had the opportunity to celebrate Independence Day in eastern Africa, at the Embassy of the United States of America in Dar es Salaam ("Haven of Peace"), Tanzania. This celebration, held in the new compound built after the destruction of the old one by a terrorist bomb in 1998, united people of many different cultures and religions, all celebrating the ideas of freedom and democracy. On this day, people from Africa, the U. S., Asia, India, Pakistan, the Middle East - Christian, Hindu, Moslem and Traditional - ate, danced and celebrated the ideals that are the foundation of hopes and aspirations around the world – a better life determined and directed by the people. It was one of my proudest days as a citizen of the United States of America.
Three movements. 14 minutes. Grade 5. Movement III, Confluence, can be performed alone and is a rousing way to open or close a concert.
Symphony #2 is a melding, a blending, a celebration of my heritages. This diverse legacy comes in four forms: family (my ancestors); influences from the places I have lived; a love for the outdoors and its music (especially the calls of birds); and, finally, musical heritages from composers such as Bartok and a cornucopia of ethnic musics that I have played, listen to and studied. In essence, this work is a musical autobiography.
All these diverse ideas flow together in Symphony #2, uniting my roots and influences (both musical and genetic) with the flow of water, the flow of life itself. In the aural stamp of each voice of an ancestor, each culture that has touched me, each bird who sang (seemingly for me), each river and stream where I dipped my fly or feet or paddle, each redwood tree raising my eyes upward to the heavens: through all of this, my life has been sung.